Slow Cooker Mexican Pulled Pork Tacos

Try these pulled pork tacos made with slow cooker Mexican pulled pork! The pork is rubbed with spices, slow-cooked, shredded and served with tortillas in tacos or burritos. Slow cooker pork tacos will feed a crowd!

Photography Credit: Elise Bauer

Pulled Pork Tacos

Do you know what a cook lives for?

The look in friends’ eyes when they’ve bitten into something you’ve made, and they’re deliriously happy about what they’re eating.

Their wide-eyed smiley faces would say, “OMG, WOW,” if they weren’t so busy eating and wanting to be polite and not talk with their mouths full.

That’s the response I got from my friends when I served them pulled pork tacos made with with this slow-cooked Mexican pulled pork.

Of course, how could you not love slow cooker pork tacos filled with spicy shredded pork?

How to Make Slow Cooker Pork for Tacos

Best thing is, pulled pork tacos are crazy easy to make, especially in a slow cooker.

Rub a pork shoulder roast with a blend of ground chiles and spices
Let the roast sit in that rub for a while
Brown the roast
Slow cook the roast until it’s fall-apart tender
Take a couple forks and pull it apart into tasty shreds
Serve your tacos!

P.S. You can also make this recipe in your pressure cooker or Instant Pot! Here’s the recipe.

A Tip for the Best Pulled Pork Tacos

Browning the roast first will help pull out wonderful flavor from the meat as well as intensifying the spice from the chiles and cumin. If you have the kind of slow cooker that allows you to do that in the cooker pan itself, great! Then you only need one pot.

Otherwise, you can easily brown the pork roast on the stovetop. You can also skip the browning, though I don’t recommend it, it really does make a difference with the resulting flavor.

More Ways to Use This Pulled Pork

Besides tacos, you can use this pulled pork to make tamales, enchiladas, burritos, or even a quick weeknight quesadillas.

Or try these great ideas!

How to Store or Freeze this Pork

This pulled pork will keep refrigerated for about five days, or frozen for up to three months.

If freezing, pack in freezer bags with as much air pressed out as possible to prevent freezer burn. Thaw overnight in the fridge and warm over low heat on the stovetop or in the microwave.

Looking for more? Try these Favorite Mexican Recipes!

Updated January 21, 2019 : We spiffed up this post to make it sparkle! No changes to the original recipe.

Slow Cooker Mexican Pulled Pork Tacos Recipe

We are using a boneless pork roast. If you use bone-in, you may need to cook the roast a little longer.

You may be inclined to trim off the excess fat of the roast. I caution against trimming too much fat as it is needed for the flavor and the juicy tenderness of this Mexican pulled pork. You can always skim off some of the excess fat after the roast has cooked.

Ingredients

For the spice rub:

4 Tbsp chili powder
1 Tbsp kosher salt (if using regular table salt, only use 2 teaspoons)
1 Tbsp brown sugar
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 teaspoon cayenne
1 teaspoon ground oregano
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Scant pinch of ground cloves

For the pork:

3 1/2 pound boneless pork shoulder roast
2 Tbsp vegetable oil

For the tacos:

Sliced avocado
Sliced radishes
Thinly sliced cabbage
Warm tortillas, corn or flour
Fresh squeezed lime juice
Salsa

Method

1 Make the rub: Whisk together the rub ingredients in a small bowl.

2 Rub spice mix into roast: If the roast is tied up with butcher string, untie it. Pat the roast dry with paper towels. Rub the spice mix into the roast all over, reserving any leftover spice mix for later.

Let sit at room temperature at least one hour or chill overnight.

3 Brown the roast: Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan on medium high heat. (If you are using a slow cooker with a removable container that can be used on the stovetop, use that, otherwise use a separate pan.) Place the roast in the pan and brown on all sides.

4 Put in slow cooker, cook on low: Place the roast in a slow cooker, and add any reserved spice rub. Cook on the low setting for 6 to 10 hours, until the pork is fall apart tender.

5 Shred pork, toss with meat juices: Remove the roast from the slow cooker and place on a cutting board. Cut into large chunks. Then use two forks to pull the meat apart into bite sized shreds.

Return the shreds to the slow cooker and toss to coat with the juice from the roast. (Alternatively you can just shred the roast with two forks in the slow cooker itself.)

Serve with warm tortillas, avocados, shredded cabbage, sliced radishes, cilantro, and a splash of lime juice or salsa.

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Elise Bauer

Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family’s recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.