My good friend Jeremiah, or more likely his wife and also my good friend Leah, gave me this recipe for carnitas made from a pork butt. It’s super cheap, super easy, and gives you the base protein for a week’s worth of meals:

Carnitas

  • 1 pork butt
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • 2 cinnamon sticks
  • Salt, pepper, cumin

Put all of these things into crockpot and cook it on low for a bunch of hours. When you feel like it’s done, pull it into a pan and broil it for a couple minutes to get some crispy bits.

I like to make this on a Sunday so I not only have dinner waiting for me when I get home from church but the raw materials for later lunches of pork tacos, pork burritos, pork sandwiches, pork pasta—whatever.

Talk about being on a roll while saving money, too, I think our last massive pork butt cost less than $10. The thing was too big to fit into the crockpot, so I had to cleave it down the middle, giving us another whole week’s bounty whenever I decide to pull it out of the freezer.