Carnitas and Salsa Verde Chicken

Today I am going to post about pork carnitas. We LOVE pork carnitas! I make them at least twice a month and now I even double the recipe when I make them. It is a fairly easy recipe to make and it's a crock pot recipe which means I LOVE it!

The only issue we had with the original recipe was that it was a bit bland for us. The meat didn't have much flavor, and while we still love it, we NEEDED more flavor to it. You can find the original recipe here: Weary Chef. Definitely follow the notes in her update. Omit the beef broth, and add less water (I use between 1/4-1/3 cup). Cut the roast into chunks and pierce all over to allow the flavor in.

Last time we made this, I decided to also add some fajita seasoning to see if that would help with the flavor. It did help some, but it still wasn't quite how we would like it. Today I decided to add some chipotle peppers and also some of the adobo sauce they came in. It definitely added more flavor!

We serve them with sour cream, a pinch of cheese, and for everyone other than the hubster, we add either avocado chunks or homemade guacamole. I use small flour tortillas (we have tried corn, but we just aren't big fans of them).

I also used this in a new recipe that was a huge hit last night: Chicken salsa verde. The original recipe can be found here  Salsa Verde Chicken. It was very good, but there are a few things to change. The main thing is that it was SOO runny. I only used 1 can of beer and not 1 bottle, but it was still SUPER runny. Next time I will only use 1/2 can of beer. It says you can add a jalapeno if you want for more spice (of course our store decided to not have them the one time I want to buy them). I bought the can of chipotle peppers since they didn't have jalapenos. I tossed a few in there, and then shredded when I shredded the chicken. It was super delicious, and it makes me sort of happy that the store didn't have jalapenos. I will keep making it this way, even if they do start to have jalapenos. We served with flour tortillas, sour cream, and cheese. Even my kid who doesn't usually do "spicy" asked for seconds (when he asks for more of something, it means that is a recipe to keep around...getting this kid to eat dinner at all is usually a feat).