You don’t need fancy pork belly to make amazing Mexican chicharrones, just use the leftover fat after making carnitas.
White boy food bloggers make it seem like you need to use expensive pork belly to make chicharrones, but I’m pretty sure none of them have been within a hundred yards of a real Mexican mama. Mexicans know how to use up every bit of that pig, and you can bet that the pork belly goes to making bacon and not to fried, crispy leftovers, which we call chicharrones. Just use the extra fat layer after cooking carnitas to get a bonus dish: crispy, salty, delicious chicharrones. Waste not, want not. (Pork belly chicharrones are fantastic too, but times are tough.)
There’s no recipe needed for Oven Baked Mexican Chicharrones other than to bake your chicharrones at 400 degrees for 1 hour,
so I’ll just explain how to use up the leftover fat cap from pork shoulder after cooking carnitas to make oven baked Mexican chicharrones and give you all the nerdy details:
I hate wasting food. I make carnitas a few times a month. There are two choices when you make carnitas:
- Remove the fat cap after cooking your carnitas, dice it, and mix it in with the meat.
- Make chicharrones with the leftover fat.
If you don’t know how to make authentic California style carnitas, go here to my easy carnitas recipe. You don’t need an open fire or a cauldron of lard.
A pork shoulder/pork butt (same thing) has a fat cap (that’s the half inch of fat you’ll see covering one side of your pork shoulder). When you cook carnitas, you need to cook it fat side up, so the fat renders down and makes the carnitas flavorful, juicy, and crispy. But you’ll still have a lot of fat sitting on top of the pork shoulder once you’re done cooking carnitas.
Most of the time, I just scrape the fat off, mince it, and stir it into the finished carnitas. The fat makes the carnitas extra crispy when I broil it in the oven, but you can use the leftover fat from making carnitas in a better way, that gives you an extra use for your pork shoulder: make chicharrones from the leftover fat after making carnitas.
You can buy delicious, crispy chicharrones at any California or Arizona carniceria (Mexican butcher shop), but you can make chicharrones for basically free whenever you cook a pork shoulder/pork butt.
After cooking your carnitas, you’ll still see the fat cap on each piece (assuming you didn’t stir the pot like a crazy person; if you did, just locate the fat side of each piece of pork). Using a sharp knife while the carnitas is still hot, scrape the fat cap off of the pork pieces. You will grab some pork along with the fat, and that is fine. Put all of the fat pieces into a shallow bowl, and refrigerate uncovered for 24-72 hours. Refrigerating the carnitas fat and pork bits uncovered allows the pork fat to dehydrate a bit before baking which will give you a crispier end result. If you bake your chicharrones immediately, they will be almost as delicious.
When you’re ready to bake your chicharrones:
- Put all of your fat pieces in an even layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. If you love scrubbing pans, omit the parchment paper.
- DO NOT ADD SALT. The salt and seasonings you added when you made your carnitas are more than enough to flavor your chicharrones. If you add salt, your chicharrones will be borderline inedible, and you can’t even feed them to your dog, because dogs can’t handle a lot of salt. Don’t add salt before your chicharrones are nice and crispy. Let a piece cool off, taste it, and then if you think it still needs more salt, salt all of your chicharrones just as they come out of the oven.
- Bake the pork fat pieces at 400 degrees for one hour.
- After 1 hour, immediately remove the crispy pork fat pieces to a plate, and drain the pork fat into a jar. That pork fat is lard, almost as valuable as bacon grease; do not throw it out.
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How to make Authentic California Carnitas Without a Vat of Lard
