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Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

96 reviews / 4.7 average

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

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 delicious things going on in the food department right now that you need to know about. Starting with thin strips of caramelized pork tucked into a 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!

Ingredients For This Recipe

Pork

My choice for this is boneless pork loin, but I would imagine something like pork tenderloin would work as well. Either way, thinly sliced is key!

Aromatics

One of my favorite trios – shallots, garlic, and jalapeño. Flavor perfection.

Fish Sauce

This might seem unnecessary but is VERY NECESSARY. Fish sauce adds some saltiness and a good punch of umami, and just really brings the flavors over the top.

Sugar

Sugar is the key to making things caramelized – don’t skip it!

Pineapple Salsa

Oh, this salsa is so good. A mix of pineapple, cucumber, cilantro, red onion, lime juice, and salt. Simple and perfect.

Fixings

Once your pork and salsa are ready, all that’s left is to assemble! Gather your tortillas, some chopped cilantro, squeezes of lime, and chili sauce.

Pork tacos close up photo in a dish with pineapple cucumber salsa

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 with a 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.

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

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

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 Spicy trifecta. 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 life in 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 for the 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.

Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa in a bowl.

More Taco Yum

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 recipe and here’s her beautiful, drool-worthy cookbook, Easy Gourmet (affiliate link), which is full of recipes like dis. Mwah! 😘

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A picture of Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa

Caramelized Pork Tacos with Pineapple Salsa


  • Author: Pinch of Yum
  • Total Time: 25 minutes
  • Yield: 68 tacos (depending on the size of your tortillas) 1x

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)

Instructions

  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

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!

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305 Comments

      1. Pinch of Yum Logo

        We made these for dinner tonight. We raved about how easy and yummy they were. I love that there’s very little actual cooking (great for summer!) and they’re done in no time at all! I immediately began imagining all the ways I could use that pork in other dishes (salads, bowls, pork lolipops). Your recipe never disappoint! Thanks so much!

  1. Pinch of Yum Logo

    I just can’t get enough of these tacos!! They are so pretty. I’ve got pork in the crockpot right now to make jerk tacos for dinner. Just looking at your tacos is making me way to excited for dinner.

        1. Pinch of Yum Logo

          We haven’t tried, but I’m sure you could adapt the recipe to make it into a pulled pork type of dish!

  2. Pinch of Yum Logo

    New to this blog and was wondering if you can reveal where to find those metal taco holders???
    Thx

  3. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Sauce suggestion: If you like some heat, combine a can of chipotle chiles in adobo sauce with a cup or so of mayo in a food processor. This will give you a similar size to this recipe, but one that has a much greater depth of flavor than just using Sriracha.

  4. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Ah, the endless options we have with taco’s! I will for sure be trying these. Maybe even tonight! And I also need a metal taco holder…..

  5. Pinch of Yum Logo

    STOP IT. Why do you have to be sharin’ this deliciousness when I ain’t in my kitchen to make it?!
    Haha and when you were talking about all the ways to use this dish I was thinking CHIPS….and then you mention the chips…you are on my level of food love, Lindsayyyy<3

  6. Pinch of Yum Logo

    I’ve always thought that tacos could probably bring about world peace. These look amazing! I’m trying them soon!

  7. Pinch of Yum Logo

    Love the idea of this…but it is categorized under gluten-free….those tortillas are not! I’m going to do it in the salad version!

  8. Pinch of Yum Logo

    More taco night options FTW! I love pulled pork and pairing it with pineapple is one of my favorite combos! I made your pulled pork with pineapple for a party once and it was such a hit!

    1. Pinch of Yum Logo

      Do I have to use the fish sauce? I’ve never used it and didn’t want to buy a jar unless it makes a hug e difference in flavor.
      Thanks

  9. Pinch of Yum Logo

    We are entering spring in our side of the world, so I’m totally psyched about these summery recipes. These tacos are going to make my family soooooo happy! Can’t wait to surprise them with it. 🙂