Colombian Carnitas Marinade

Grilling the pork with carnitas marinade on the grill, taken by Allspice Photography, LLC.

Slicing into the marinaded pork, taken by Allspice Photography, LLC.

The Colombian Carnitas marinaded pork off the grill, taken by Allspice Photography, LLC.

Y’all know I love anything that can start as a base for tacos, & this Colombian carnitas marinade recipe is no exception! My goal was to adapt a marinade to include the Naranjilla (Colombian citrus) puree sent from our friends at Wislla Distribution. Check out more information about the project that inspired this and other recipes from our blog here later on!

Recipe Notes:

• You can very easily sub out the naranjilla puree. If you can’t find this at your local Mexican grocery store, no worries! You can easily substitute this with 1/2 of a pureed lemon/orange/grapefruit as well. Generally, any citrus would do!
• This recipe is super easy to adapt to be sweeter or spicier though.
• It’s a great marinade to use for a quick recipe or if you’re trying to have the meat marinate in the fridge longer (24-48 hours).
• *To make sure the marinade really seeps into your meat of choice, you can poke holes into the meat before adding it to the bag with the marinade.

Colombian Carnitas Marinade

Servings 4 people

Prep Time 1 hour hr

Cook Time 35 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 35 minutes mins

Ingredients

• 0.5 cup Pineapple juice (5 fl. oz)
• 0.5 cup Naranjilla puree
• 0.33333333333333 cup Lime juice
• 2 tbsp Olive oil
• 2 tbsp Honey
• 1 tsp Chili powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1 tsp Pepper
• 0.5 tsp Garlic powder
• 2 lb Pork tenderloin (could really use any meat here, chicken, fish, etc.)

Instructions

To Make Marinade:

• In a plastic gallon sized Ziploc bag, combine all ingredients above but the pork and mix well, shaking or stirring well to make sure wet ingredients have combined with the dry ingredients.
• Add the pork to the bag and marinade for an hour (minimum) to overnight (24 hours maximum) before grilling.*

To Cook Tenderloin:

• Remove pork tenderloin from marinade and grill on high for 5-10 minutes, then reduce heat to medium and cooking for another 25-30 minutes or until internal temperature reaches 145*F.
• Let the pork rest ~10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Course: Meal Prep