Sweet Pork and Green Chile Enchiladas

We cannot get enough of the Cafe Rio sweet pork… it is just too good. Once you make it you have pork for days and we find ourselves eating pork nachos, tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, you name it. After making a huge crock pot full of sweet pork when we had friends over, I used the leftovers to make some simple enchiladas. Once the pork is already made these enchiladas are so simple to throw together: tortilla + green chile salsa + cheese.

We like our enchiladas simple—not to much in them and nothing too creamy. The bite of the green salsa with the sweetness of the pork and the creaminess of the cheese oozing out of the tortilla is almost too much to handle! These may have blown my post-baby food and workout plans for days…

When I make full “copycat” Cafe Rio salads I try to make everything exactly by the recipe but when we’re just making pork for nachos or enchiladas I’ll modify it a little to make it simpler. Honestly it pretty much tastes exactly the same but doesn’t have as much sauce as the Cafe Rio pork. Here is the full recipe I use for Cafe Rio copycat salads, from Favorite Family Recipes—sidenote, her recipe is amazing and spot-on. But below are my adapted recipes for a simpler pork and cilatnro lime ranch.

Shredded Pork

• 3 lb. (any size smaller or larger will work too) pork shoulder roast
• garlic salt
• cumin
• chili powder
• brown sugar
• 1 can red enchilada sauce

Additional for enchiladas:

Flour tortillas 

Green chile salsa verde

Shredded cheese

To make pork: Place pork shoulder in crock pot and trim off any excess fat. Pour water over the pork so it rises 2 inches in the bottom of the crock pot. Cover pork in chili powder (just sprinkle a lot in there, can’t have too much because most of it runs down into the water), garlic salt, and cumin. Cook on low for 8 hours (or high for 4-6). Once crock pot is done, pork should fall apart and shred easily. Once cooked, remove pork from crock pot, dump out water and rinse/clean it out. Place pork back in and shred it up. Add red enchilada sauce and approximately 1 cup of brown sugar. Mix well. Then cover the pork with more chili powder, and a bit of garlic salt to taste. Make it as spicy as you like it. We like it spicy with a kick of sweet in the back! Once you get it seasoned to your taste, place crock pot on “Warm” or “Low” setting and pork will be ready and warm when you are ready to eat.

Assemble enchiladas by lining a tortilla with pork, cheese, and green chile sauce. Roll and put in baking dish. Top with cheese (and if you like it somothered more green chile sauce—we like it simple though), and bake and 350 for 15-20 minutes.

And if you’re a true glutton like me you might as well slather the enchilada in cilantro-lime ranch…

Simple Creamy Cilantro Lime Sauce

1 bottle ranch dressing

3 cloves garlic

juice of 1 lime

1/2 – 1 bunch cilantro leaves

Place all ingredients in blender or food processer and blend until creamy. I like to make this the day before and chill it, so it’s one less step that day. Also it tastes great chilled.