Every time I make this Easy Tex-Mex Shredded Pork, I fall in love with it all over again. Love the ease of making it, love how versatile it is in different Mexican dishes, and I really love that it gets two thumbs up from even the harshest critics in our family.
You can use this meat in taco’s, burritos, quesadillas, taquitos, taco salad, burrito bowls, chimichanga’s, tostadas…..
You get the picture. Versatile is it’s middle name.
If you keep up with my recipes, I’m sure you’ve started to notice that I’m a pretty big fan of pork. It’s almost always possible to find some kind of pork roast for around $1.59 lb and when it’s on sale you can usually get a picnic shoulder roast for $.99 lb. I prefer to use the picnic shoulder roast for this recipe because it has some nice marbling that keeps the meat from drying out.
At prices like that Pork is one of the most affordable meat choices available. We usually eat some form of pork at least once a week. Easy Baked Parmesan Pork Chops and Baked Pork Roast are two more of our favorites.
This versatile Tex-Mex Shredded Pork is made with a few simple ingredients. All you need is a pork roast, a can of Rotel, crushed garlic, lime juice and salt and pepper. That’s it!
Throw it all in a large dutch oven type pan, leave the lid off and bake it for 3-3 1/2 hours.
Depending on which cut you choose for your pork roast it might have a significant amount of fat on it. Remove large pieces if there are any before you shred the meat. (Sometimes if there is a covering of fat on one side of the roast I cut it off, as best as I can, before I even cook the roast).
The juices that have been naturally created as the roast cooks are full of awesome flavor, do not drain them. Just shred the meat up and let it soak up all of the yummy flavorful juices. If there are not any juices when your roast is done cooking, That is fine too. You can add a little water and scrap at the bottom of the pan to make the most of those concentrated yummy flavors.(You can also add a little water into the bottom of the pan when the roast has an hour or so left to cook if you prefer.)
Depending on the size of your roast it will most likely be enough for two or three meals. I put the extra meat I know I won’t be using in freezer Ziploc bags and store it in the freezer to pull out later for easy meals.
One of my favorite “I totally forgot to make dinner” meals is to pull this pre-cooked meat out of the freezer for quesadillas. I have a post with tips for making ridiculously perfect and delicious quesadillas.
Serve with
- 1 (5-6 lb) pork roast (I prefer picnic shoulder roast or any cut that has a little marbling)
- 1 can Rotel, drained
- 6-8 large cloves of garlic crushed or finely chopped
- 1 lime, juiced
- salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- Salt and pepper the bottom of a dutch oven style pot. (See picture above.)
- Place pork roast in the pan and squeeze lime juice over the roast.
- Generously salt and pepper the roast. (this will take approx 3-4 tsp of salt depending on how large your roast is it may be a little more or a little less,
- Spread crushed garlic over the salted roast and then pour drained tomatoes over the garlic. (If desired you can drizzle a little olive oil over the tomatoes. totally optional)
- Place roast, uncovered, into a 350 degree oven for 3½-4 hours.
- Remove from oven and shred meat. If roast produced juices leave meat in the juices that were created during cooking so it can soak up all of those delicious flavors. If it did not produce juices, add about ½-2/3 cup water and stir it around while scrapping up all the concentrated yummy goodness on the bottom of the pan and then leave that flavorful liquid for the shredded meat to soak up.
- Serve meat with burrito bowls or in any of your favorite Mexican inspired dishes.
- Freeze extra meat to use later or store leftovers in the fridge for up to 4 days.
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