If you have never had carnitas before, they are usually made of pork. But my smoky instant pot beef carnitas are just as lip-smacking and flavorful as their porky cousins. While not a traditional preparation, you can make very tasty beef “carnitas.”
This would be a great meal to serve to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. You may also enjoy my chicken and chorizo enchiladas or instant pot crack chicken.
I purchased the meat for this recipe at Fickle Creek Farm here in NC. Head to the bottom of the post for more information about Fickle Creek Farm.
Pastry Chef Online Participates in Affiliate Programs. If you make a purchase through one of my links, I may earn a small commission. For more information click to read my disclosure policy
Beef Carnitas, At a Glance
✅Skill Level: Intermediate/Advanced
✅Skills: Browing Meat, Using an Instant Pot, Manual Pressure Release
✅Type: Meat Dish
✅Number of Ingredients: 12
✅Prep Time: 30 minutes
✅Cook Time: 35 minutes
✅Browning: 15 minutes
✅Yield: 12 servings
Jump Straight to the Recipe
Why Make These Beef Carnitas?
There are a couple of really great things about these beef carnitas, you guys.
Thing 1: they’re spicy. Lots of times, carnitas can be just a bit bland. This is okay if you’re going to add a lot of toppings, but sometimes you want the meat itself to be spicy.
Thing 2: they’re moist and lip-smacking. Carnitas can be dry. Not these. I show you what to do to ensure they stay moist and perfect, even after 2-3 days in the fridge.
If these sound good to you and you make and love them, I have a favor to ask:
When you do make this recipe, it will help me and other readers if you:
✅Rate the recipes using the stars in the recipe card
✅Leave a review when prompted in the recipe card (If it’s a positive review, and I hope it is, I’ll use it in the post as social proof)
✅Leave a comment on the post
Thank you so much!
Instructions in a Nutshell
Watch the video I made so you can see all the steps to make beef carnitas, whether you’re using an Instant Pot or a Dutch oven. In a nutshell, here they are all written out:
- Cut up meat.
- Brown meat in oil.
- Put in Instant Pot or Dutch Oven with seasonings and liquid and cook until very tender
- Remove from cooker and break up slightly.
- Reduce the juices. While the juices are reducing,
- brown the meat really well only on one side in a cast-iron skillet.
- Stir the reduced juices back into the browned meat.
While there are a fair number of steps in the Carnitas Procedure, none are difficult.
Equipment You May Need
All you need is your trusty InstantPot, but you can also make them in a Dutch oven.
Once they come out of the pot, you’ll also need a large cast iron skillet or other heavy skillet to crisp them up in.
How to Keep Them Your Beef From Drying Out
I know it seems counter-intuitive with a moist cooking method, but braised and pressure-cooked meats can turn out dry if you’re not careful.
Your meat can dry out if you do one of two (or both) things:
- separate the meat from the juices before they cool down and/or
- use quick release on your multi-cooker
In the first case, once the meat cools separate from its juices, no amount of reheating with the juices will make that meat reabsorb that moisture. So even if you use a ton of sauce or gravy or cooking juices, the meat will still be dry.
Always cool meat in the cooking juices so it can gently reabsorb the liquids as it cools.
In the second case, using a quick pressure release basically “squeezes” all the juices out of the cooked meat.
Your best bet to avoid this is to do natural pressure release for as long as it takes for the pressure to completely release naturally. This could take up to 30 minutes.
Would you like to save this post?
Enter your email address below, and don't forget to check the box!
If you don’t have the time, you can split the difference and still end up with moist carnitas (or any meat) by using natural pressure release for the first 15 minutes and then by carefully “pulsing” the release valve to allow for quick release of the remaining pressure a little at a time.
Once the pressure is released, remember to let the meat cool in its juices or all your hard work will still leave you with dry meat.
Jenni Says: To keep your beef carnitas (or any meat you cook in an Instant Pot) moist, use manual pressure release for at least 15 minutes, and ideally until the pressure completely releases. Also, make sure to cool your meat in the cooking juices.
What Can I Serve Carnitas With?
I like to use my beef carnitas as a nacho topping and smothered in spicy queso. They also make a great filling for burritos or for chimichangas.
My Instant Pot Cowboy Pinto Beans would also make a great side dish. Some other likely possibilities include Mexican Street Corn Salad, Easy Refried Beans, and Mexican Pickled Vegetables.
Also consider serving them as a filling for lettuce wraps, especially if you are trying to watch your carbs. See how pretty?
Looking for a more traditional pork carnitas recipe? Try my friend Beth’s recipe for Instant Pot Carnitas!
Before we get to the recipe, I want you guys to see the other dishes and farm profiles my fellow bloggers have been working on. Please take a visit!
Other Beef Recipes Featuring NC Beef
Four other bloggers. Four unique North Carolina farms producing beef. Four spectacular recipes.
- Sirloin Tip Roast with Brown Butter Mushrooms from Big Bear’s Wife and Meadow Lane Farm
- Slow Cooker Beef Stew from Girl Gone Gourmet and T5 Farms
- Jalapeno Popper Burger Bombs from Life of a Ginger and D’s Beef N Bees
- How to Make Albondigas in an Instant Pot from Adventures of Frugal Mom and Queen B Farms
- Smoky Beef Carnitas from Pastry Chef Online and Fickle Creek Farm (You’re here!)
Questions?
If you have any questions about this post or recipe, I am happy to help.
Simply leave a comment here and I will get back to you soon. I also invite you to ask question in my Facebook group, Fearless Kitchen Fun.
If your question is more pressing, please feel free to email me. I should be back in touch ASAP, as long as I’m not asleep.
Love These Beef Carnitas? Please Rate and Review
It will help me and other readers so much if you take a moment to rate and leave a review for this recipe.
You can use the stars to rate 1-5 (5 is best), and leave a review in the comments. It helps me make adjustments if any are needed, and comments help others decide whether the recipe is worth making.
Other ways to share include pinning, and/or sharing on your favorite social media platform.
Thank you so much for taking the time!
InstantPot Smoky Beef Carnitas
Video
Would you like to save this post?
Enter your email address below, and don’t forget to check the box!
Equipment
Ingredients
- 2-3 tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil
- 3 pounds chuck roast cut into 2-3″ cubes
- kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large yellow onion cut into half moons
- 3-6 cloves garlic smashed (depending on how much you like garlic)
- 3-4 tablespoons chipotle powder depending on how spicy you like things
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 1 tablespoon oregano preferably Mexican oregano
- 3 cinnamon sticks
- 2 tablespoons coconut cream the thick layer at the top of a can of coconut milk, not cream of coconut
- 2 oranges zest and juice
- 1 ½ cups chicken or beef stock
To Finish the Carnitas
- 3 tablespoons avocado oil or olive oil
Instructions
- Generously season your cubed chuck roast with salt and pepper.
- Set your InstantPot or multi-cooker on the saute setting. Allow to heat for 5 minutes. Add the oil.
- Once the oil is hot, add the beef in batches so as not to crowd the pan. Brown well on one side, seasoning the other side with salt and pepper if you hadn’t done so earlier.
- Turn the meat and brown the other side. Remove to a bowl or plate while you brown the rest of the meat.
- With the cooker still on saute, add the onions, garlic, chipotle powder, cumin, oregano and cinnamon sticks along with another heavy pinch of salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Add the meat, along with any juices that accumulated in the bowl or plate, in an even layer. Top with the coconut cream, the juice and zest from the 2 oranges, and the stock.
- Put the lid on the InstantPot and choose the meat/stew setting–or 35 minutes at high pressure.
- Once the timer goes off, allow natural release for 30 minutes and then manually release the rest of the pressure. Remove the lid.
- Skim off most of the fat, and then remove the meat to a bowl. Discard the cinnamon sticks.
- Turn the InstantPot back onto saute and bring the cooking liquid to a boil. Allow to reduce while you continue with the next steps.
- Using 2 forks, break up each chunk of meat into 2 or three pieces.
- Heat a cast iron pan over medium-high heat, add the second amount of oil, and heat for a few seconds.
- Arrange all the pieces of meat in a single layer. I had just enough room to do 3 pounds of beef in my 12″ skillet. If you are cooking more beef or have a smaller pan, you will need to do this in batches.
- Let the meat fry in the oil until very crisp and dark brown, but not charred. Check every minute or so to make sure you don’t burn your carnitas!
- Once the meat is nice and crisp on one side, place it back in the bowl.
- Start shredding the meat with the forks. Add 1/4 cup of the reduced cooking liquid, and mix into the meat while continuing to shred. Repeat this 3 more times for a total addition of about 1 cup of reduced cooking liquid.*
- Press plastic wrap onto the surface of the meat and refrigerate until cold.**
- Serve as taco meat, burrito filling, a topping for nachos, on a burger, or in any other way that sounds good to you.*** Enjoy!
Did You Make Any Changes?
Notes
Nutrition
Hi, y’all! I hope you’ve enjoyed this post and hopefully also learned a thing or two.
If you like my style, I invite you to sign up for my occasional newsletter, The Inbox Pastry Chef.
Expect updates on new and tasty recipes as well as a bit of behind-the-scenes action. I hope to see you there!
NC Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services
I am working with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services to bring you profiles of beef-producing farms in North Carolina who sell their beef at non state-supported farmers’ markets. We are very fortunate here in NC to have so much variety and so many choices when it comes to purchasing meat, fruit, vegetables, and more from local vendors. Today, we are profiling 5 farms who are selling their beef in the Triangle area (Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill).
I had the pleasure of meeting Bryan Horton from Fickle Creek Farm at the Western Wake Farmers’ Market on the first Saturday of the Spring market to hear about their meat and to buy some for today’s recipe. Here’s the video I shot, and then read on for some fun facts about the farm!
Fickle Creek Farm
Between the questions I asked the farmer and information I found online, I have put together this list of fun facts about Fickle Creek Farm.
- What started off small with just a handful of animals has turned into a 215 acre operation producing beef, pork, lamb, chicken, eggs, and produce.
- Fickle Creek Farm uses Great Pyrenees dogs to guard their flocks and herds against predators.
- Their cattle graze on pesticide-free pastures. As mentioned in the video above, Fickle Creek is not certified “Grass-Fed,” but everything the cattle eat grows in the pasture.
- All the animals at the farm are rotationally grazed, which means they are moved from paddock to paddock within a pasture. This allows parts of the pasture to get a break from grazing, preventing overgrazing and also promoting optimal grass growth.
- Fickle Creek Farm participates in their local economy by taking care to purchase and sell close to home. For example, the most distant point of sale for the farm is only 35 miles, and they purchase all the livestock from within 50 miles of the farm.
- Fickle Creek Farm offers an apprenticeship program for aspiring farmers.
- There is an on-location AirBnB if you’d like to have a getaway on the farm.
- They offer farm tours on the first Sunday of each month. Find out more about the Fickle Creek Farm Stay program.
Every time I speak with a local farmer or vendor at a farmers’ market, I am impressed by their dedication and passion. And always by their products. The beef from Fickle Creek Farm is no exception. I used a 3 pound chuck roast to make some pretty spectacular beef carnitas.
NC Beef Love
I’d like to thank Noah and Bryan from Fickle Creek Farm for their time and for their truly excellent beef.
Thanks also to the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services for supporting small farms throughout North Carolina and for sponsoring this post. Thanks as well to my fellow bloggers for coming up with some really creative and mouth watering recipes using NC Beef.
And thank you for spending some time with me today.
Enjoy the Instant Pot beef carnitas.
Take care, y’all.
Join in Today!
This is an outstanding recipe!! Thanks so very much!!
Oh, yay! I am thrilled that you like it! Thanks for letting me know, Sheila!
This are not carnitas, I don’t know what this is, but not carnitas at all, the ingredients are all wrong and the process are all wrong.
Carnitas in order to be carnitas they need to be cooked in lard for at least 4 hours in a big cooper pot.
This is the reason people around the world think that Tex Mex is authentic Mexican food when is not, cultural appropriation is giving the wrong impression about authentic Mexican food, so please, stop calling carnitas what are not carnitas.
Thanks for your comment, David. I developed this recipe to showcase North Carolina beef. I never intended this to be an authentically Mexican recipe, least of all because I am not Mexican and Mexican cooking is not my heritage. However, I enjoy exploring cultures through food, and I’m sorry my homage to authentic Mexican carnitas doesn’t work for you. I take your point that they aren’t carnitas made with pork or cooked in lard. My goal was to achieve that crisp-on-the-outside, tender-on-the-inside texture using beef. I am always willing and open to education, so if you could share a link to a truly authentic version of carnitas, I would appreciate it. Take care, and have a happy, safe, and prosperous 2022.
Ay Jenni…I read your recipes a lot and admire what you do a lot. But I gotta tell you: this recipe should have a different name. I’m sorry, but it’s in no way carnitas.
To start with, carnitas aren’t normally cooked at home: they’re restaurant or street-stand food boiled in lard in an enormous copper cazo–a pot that can measure as much as 3 or 4 feet in diameter. Next: they’re not lunch or supper food: they’re morning food. Next: they’re not made with little chunks of meat and then shredded: they’re made with BIG pieces of meat, like a whole pig divvied up into pieces about the size of half a raw ham. And having said that, they’re always made with pork–everything from the snout to the ears to the ribs to the legs to the tail. The meat is normally left in large-ish pieces and slapped on a piece of paper on the table, to be ripped up by everyone’s hands and put into soft, warm tortillas–and topped with pickled chiles and their juices, plus Key lime juice squeezed onto the meat once it’s in the taco. And nothing else.
Carnitas aren’t meant to be spicy. The spice is added in your taco–that’s what the chiles I mentioned are for.
This dish looks and sounds delicious! Call this dish something else, style it as something other than carnitas, and it will be fine. But carnitas it ain’t.
With all due respect–
Cristina
I defer to your expertise. I am often hesitant to put a name to something that is not in my cultural wheelhouse. Thanks for clarifying. I don’t think I will change the name, though. I will argue just one point with you: this is not a spicy dish–it’s “spiced” with cinnamon and orange, so it’s not hot-spicy.
If I can think of a name that will work and that people are searching for, I will change the name. Until then, it stays as beef carnitas. Your points are well taken in the spirit they were given. I appreciate you, Cristina, and respect your love for the traditional foodways of Mexico. xo
Will most definitely be making these again and next time will double the recipe and make the day before having company over.
Made these tonight for Cinco de Mayo and WOW! What an amazing recipe! Will most definitely be making these again and next time will double the recipe and make the day before having company over. It’ll be a huge hit!!! Thank you!
Wow, I am thrilled that you made them and enjoyed them so much! Thanks for stopping in and letting me know. I appreciate it! Take care and stay safe, Monique!
Oh, Sissy! These sound DIVINE! I must make these ASAP!
You really, really must! You do not even want to know how little time it took for us to plow through 3 pounds! All I can say is maybe shoot for 5 pounds when you make them!
This looks all kinds of amazing, thanks for sharing 🙂
So good, Jack! And thank you for checking it out and for commenting! I hope you really enjoy them–I’m making more today!
Oh my, Fickle Creek Farm sounds awesome and I love that they have an AirBNB! How fun! love the carnitas too! Great Video!
Thanks, Angie! I am so impressed with how many different meats and vegetables they sell. Can’t wait to try their chicken, pork and lamb. And make more carnitas!
Looks amazing, Jenni! I don’t have an Instant Pot yet, but your carnitas are very persuasive – may have to look into it 🙂
You can absolutely make them overnight in a Dutch oven in a 200F oven. That would be amazing! And they really are pretty darned good!