Crockpot Carnitas with Red Chili Salsa

For the crockpot carnitas:

Rub the pork roast with the paprika, cumin, salt and pepper. You can do this several hours ahead of time to allow the spices to season the meat, but you don’t have to. If you do, just spice the pork then put it into the refrigerator until you are ready to cook it. Place the meat in your crockpot (I use a 6-quart crockpot) with the chopped onion, beer and lime juice.

Put the crockpot on the lowest setting and crock it for 8 hours. When the meat is ready, it should shred very easily with a fork and should fall right off the bone. Remove the roast from the crockpot and shred the meat.

If you’d like, use the fat drippings that are still in the crockpot to fry up the shredded meat in a skillet over medium high heat until it has a nice crispy crust. This is not a necessary step, but will definitely give more flavor and texture to the meat.

For the salsa:

Put your oven on the broil setting and place the jalapenos on the top oven rack to roast for 5 to 8 minutes, until skin is brown and charred. Remove them from the oven, set them on a plate and allow to cool, then discard the stems and the insides.

Place the dried chilies in a pot of hot water for 5 minutes until they’re soft. Remove the stems, but keep all the seeds inside and squeeze any water out that has pooled inside of them.

Place all of the salsa ingredients (including jalapeños and chilies) into a blender and blend to desired “chunkiness”. I let mine go until it’s pretty well emulsified.

Place salsa in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to one week.

Prepare the tacos on tortillas with heaping portions of carnitas, red chili salsa, chopped onion and cilantro.