Dutch Oven Pork Butt

Pork Butt

This juicy and very flavorful meat can be eaten as a main dish with a side of rice and beans or it can be shredded and made into carnitas for tacos. I typically lean towards tacos if I have more than five mouths to feed and don’t want to slave in the kitchen for hours when I could be having a tequila drink with friends. The trick to a juicy pork butt is to cook it low and slow which is why I make mine in a dutch oven. Just load the ingredients, set the temp, and forget about it for hours.

*I should note that the ingredient image below shows the skins on but I highly recommend removing them. They seem to add a slightly overpowering bitter taste if you don’t.

Ingredients:
5.5 lbs pork butt
2 cups filtered water
1 large orange (rind removed and quartered)
1 lime
1 small white onion
2 stalks celery
2 carrots
1 bay leaf
3 sprigs of thyme
cumin
salt & pepper to taste

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 300 degrees.

Squeeze juice from the lime and orange in the dutch oven with 2 cups water, tossing in what’s left of the fruit. That’s all the liquid you’ll need. Place remaining celery, carrots, and onion in dutch oven, creating a shelf for the pork to sit on. Add thyme and bay leaf. Season pork liberally on every side with salt, pepper and cumin. Set the pork butt on top of the vegetables and place the lid on.

Once the oven is preheated you can put the dutch oven inside and set a time for 3 hours. Check the pork at that time to decide if it needs more time to cook. If you can easily shred it then it’s done. If it’s still tough then put it in for another 30 minutes and check then.

When the pork is cooked through and easy to shred, pull out all the vegetables and citrus and shred the pork into the pot so it soaks up all the juices. It’s ready to serve about 10 minutes later.