A Family That Eats Together: Slow Cooker Beer Braised Carnitas

Marin Mommies presents this week's guest recipe from Nicole Cibellis, Marin mom and author of the blog A Family that Eats Together, where she shares meal plans and recipes that will please foodies and children alike. Nicole is also the creator of the new Little Froglet line of children's activewear. Here's Nicole's meal plan for this week.

I saw this recipe in the February 2013 version of Bon Appetit. Their recipe is braised for many hours over the stove, but I thought I could adapt the recipe to work with my slow cooker so that I could prep the meal and leave it alone while I go out to play.

This recipe would be perfect for super bowl or any fiesta that you might want to create with little effort on your part.

Servings: 12–18
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 6 hours

Ingredients

• 4 pounds pork butt also called pork shoulder
• 2 dried guajillo chilis, deseeded and sliced in half (found on the Hispanic aisle of your grocery store or in Hispanic markets)
• 4 garlic cloves smashed
• 2 bottles (24 ounces) light Mexican beer
• 1 cup water
• 4 teaspoons kosher salt

for garnish

• corn tortillas
• chopped onion
• chopped fresh cilantro
• Mexican créma
• your favorite salsa

Directions

1. Heat your slow cooker to high. Add pork, chilis, garlic, beer, and water.
2. With your slow cooker set to high, cook the pork for 6 hours, turning the pork over half way through the cooking process.
3. When pork easily pulls apart, remove it from the pot. Using forks separate the fat and pull the pork apart.
4. Serve with warmed corn tortillas, guacamole, onion, cilantro, crema and your favorite salsa.