Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa (2024)

Ha-looooo!

And welcome to today’s episode of Tacos Are The Best Food Ever featuring Caramelized Pork Tacos.

I don’t mean to be super obvious here, but we have some really deliciousthings going on in the food department right now that you need to know about.Startingwiththin strips of caramelized pork tucked intoa soft corn tortilla, moving on to fresh cucumber pineapple cilantro salsa, and finishing with a chili mayo sauce over the top because SAUCE RULES THE WORLD. 🌎

I’m just a little obsessed.

Watch How To Make Caramelized Pork Tacos

Click here to see the step-by-step web story instructions for this recipe!

Scrappy Is Best

When I read the book Bread and Wine (affiliate link) a long time ago, one of my favorite concepts/takeaways from the book was this idea that anything can be made into a few certain super-flexible recipes.

Soup, for example. Just about any combination of random ingredients that might happen to be hiding in the depths of the produce drawer of the fridge can probably be made into soup. It might be a scary soup – I’ll give you that. But witha little water, a little salt, a few spices… no biggie. You’ve got a basic soup.

Or stir fry. Assuming you have some sort of grain or rice – or maybe not even because you’re just going to create more of a stir-fry-meets-hash situation? I wouldn’t be mad – you can almost guarantee that any random ingredient combination can become something resembling a stir fry.

Andthat’s sort of how I feel about these pork tacos, in the most scrappy, hungry, wonderful way.

How To Enjoy These Pork Tacos

These are coming to your face today in TACO FORM. Make no mistake – taco form is the original. This is where it’s at. Warm tortilla stuffed to the brim with all those colors and textures and the Sweet Salty Spicytrifecta. But if you’re a person who sort of takes these things called recipes and runs with them into crazy food places (👋 hiii), this is an open invitation for you to reincarnate these tacos into a new food form.

After we devoured the tacos themselves, I found myself bringing this combo back to lifein SALAD FORM (toppings + meat over greens with the chili mayo as dressing), and then in STIR FRY FORM (toppings + meat + leftover quinoa, fried into something that resembled the most delicious sweet and savory fried rice) which was really, really good.

And then there was the DIPPED WITH CHIPS form, but that’s really only forthe select few who have a refined enough palate to really appreciate that kind of sacred food wizardry.

Start with the tacos, though, okay? Sizzle up that meat and chop up your salsa and drizzle with spicy chili sauce – just think of it as your gateway to greatness.

More Taco Yum

• Instant Pot Hawaiian Chicken Tacos with Jalapeño Ranch Slaw (you NEED!)
• Walnut Chorizo Tacos with Pineapple Salsa (totally vegan and so good)
• Spicy Shrimp Tacos with Garlic Cilantro Lime Slaw (the perfect summer dinner right here)
• The Best Chicken Tinga Tacos (literally though, the actual best!)

This recipe inspiration is coming to us from the extremely talented Stephanie Le of I Am A Food Blog! Here’s her original caramelized pork taco recipeand here’s her beautiful, drool-worthy cookbook, Easy Gourmet (affiliate link), which is full of recipes like dis. Mwah! 😘

Print

Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

4.7 from 96 reviews

• Author: Pinch of Yum
• Total Time: 25 minutes
• Yield: 6–8 tacos (depending on the size of your tortillas) 1x

Print Recipe

Description

Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa – topped with sriracha mayo, obviously! Quick and easy to make! Naturally gluten free.

Ingredients

Units Scale

For the Pork:

• 1 tablespoon oil
• 1 shallot, minced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño, diced with ribs and seeds removed
• 2 teaspoons fish sauce
• 18 ounces boneless pork loin, sliced into thin strips
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons water

For the Pineapple Salsa

• 1 cup chopped pineapple
• 1 cup chopped cucumber
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/2 red onion or shallot, chopped
• a squeeze of lime juice
• a pinch of salt

For serving

• 8 tortillas
• 1/4 cup cilantro
• 1 lime, sliced into sections
• chili sauce (1/4 cup mayo and 2 teaspoons hot sauce like sriracha)

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Instructions

Video

1. For the pork: Heat the oil in a heavy pan over medium heat. Add the shallot, garlic, and jalapeño – saute until fragrant, about 2 minutes. Turn the heat to high and add the pork and the fish sauce – stir fry for a few minutes until the pork is no longer pink. With the heat very high, add the sugar and water and stir once – then let the pork caramelize by not stirring it for about 1 minute. Repeat this process until the pork is nice and golden brown.

2. For the salsa: Toss everything together in a medium bowl.

3. For the tacos: Warm the tortillas quickly in a skillet with a little bit of oil. Arrange the pork between 6 tortillas and top with the salsa and the chili sauce.

Equipment

Stainless Steel Mixing Bowl

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Large Skillet

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Notes

For the chili sauce, combine two parts mayo and one part hot sauce (more or less depending on how hot your hot sauce actually is – I used Sriracha which is just moderately spicy). Whisk to combine or shake in a jar. Add water if needed to thin out the consistency – serve over the tacos.

For leftovers, store each element (pork, salsa, and sauce) separately.

• Prep Time: 10 mins
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Category: Dinner
• Method: Stovetop
• Cuisine: Mexican

Keywords: taco recipe, pork tacos, pineapple salsa, pork recipe

One More Thing!

This recipe is part of our collection of best taco recipes. Check it out!