Pork chilorio tacos! Where have you been all my life? My favorite of the mild dry Mexican chiles, chile ancho, paired with fresh orange juice, vinegar and spices. It’s a win, win situation for me! The first time I experienced chilorio was one of chef Rick Bayless recipes. I love the idea of adding citrus of any kind to my recipes and especially my chile sauces, salsa’s or recados. Chiles and citrus just work so well together. The most used dried chile in my Mom’s kitchen was chile ancho, so I kind of favor it when I begin to develop a new Mexican recipe. If you would like to spice up this recipe for pork chilorio, you could add some chile de arbol, japones, morita or chipotle. In some chilorio recipes, cooks favor adding chile guajillo or pasilla combined with the chile ancho.
How can you resist enjoying all three tacos????
Some cooks prefer mixing the dried chiles for this recipe. Chile pasilla and guajillo can be mixed with the chile ancho. Get cooking!
As you can see with the chile ancho peppers above, the colors may vary. The peppers that are newly dried will be soft and pliable with a more red color through out and will yield a brighter red sauce. The older peppers will yield a dark red, sometimes chocolate looking color. Both delicious! Click Asado de Puerco recipe here to see the difference in colors of the chile ancho sauces.
Pork Chilorio Recipe with Cubed Pork!! Go to the notes section of the recipe below!
Corn tortillas, homemade or store bought, can come in white corn, yellow corn and sometimes blue corn! The tortillas for this recipe were yellow corn. If you would like to try your hand at preparing them homemade click HOMEMADE Tortillas.
For a delicious Pork Roast Shoulder recipe click PORK! For a smaller quantity pork, I would suggest purchasing a smaller picnic pork shoulder. Slice into large chunks and cover halfway with water in the crockpot. Season with salt, pepper, garlic, lime and Mexican oregano. Cook on low overnight or on high for 6 hours.
And for me, any pork taco calls for pickled red onions! Click PIBIL recipe onsite to see another tasty roast pork and my favorite habanero pickled red onion!
Pork Chilorio Tacos
Ingredients
For Chilorio Sauce
- 6 tbsps. pork lard or avocado oil
- 1/2 large white onion roughly chopped
- 4 large cloves of garlic
- 3 large chile ancho stems and seeds removed
- 2 chile de arbol stems removed
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 cup fresh orange juice or 2 large oranges
- Juice of 1 large lime
- 3 tbsps. apple cider vinegar
- 1 tsp Mexican oregano
- 1 teaspoon cumin seeds or 1/2 tsp ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon coriander seeds or 1/2 tsp ground coriander
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- Salt, to taste
You Will Also need
- 1 1/2 pounds shredded pork previously cooked
- Corn tortillas
- Pickled red onions
- Cilantro chopped
Instructions
Directions
- In a skillet, preheat 3 tablespoons of lard or oil to medium heat. After a minute, add the onions and garlic and sauté for 3-4 minutes.
- Tear the chile ancho peppers into smaller pieces. Add the torn ancho peppers and chile de arbol to the skillet with the onions and garlic. Stir frequently until the peppers become aromatic.
- Pour in the 2 cups of water to the skillet. Bring to a light simmer, reduce heat to low. Cook for 10 minutes. Cover and remove from the heat and let stand for 10 minutes.
- Transfer all skillet ingredients to the blender. Add the orange juice, lime juice, vinegar, cumin, coriander, oregano, 1/2 tsp pepper and 1 tsp of salt into blender. Blend on high until very smooth. If you are not using a power blender like a vitamix, you may need to blend for and extra minute. Taste for salt. Reserve the sauce.
- In that same skillet, heat 3 tablespoons of pork manteca(lard) or oil to medium heat for 2 minutes. Add the shredded pork and fry, tossing as needed, until the pork begins to crisp in some spots. Mix in the reserved sauce to the pork. Continue cooking until it reduces and becomes thick. Some people like to add a little more pork lard to fry the pork in the sauce longer. Serve with warm tortillas, cilantro and pickled red onions.
Notes
Reader Interactions
Comments
Would Love to Hear From You
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
I am guilty of not staining the sauce! Last weekend it messed me up at a catering job. I didn’t stain the Salsa Rojo and the squeeze bottle got clogged. I had to cut it while people was watching. Lesson learned! These look awesome!!
I know it’s an extra step to strain the sauce, but I love how nice and smooth it is afterwards. The skins that remain from the dried chiles really bother me, so I always strain.