The cooking that I did over the weekend, making a big pot of carnitas in the Instant Pot, keeps giving me tasty meals throughout the week. Today’s crispy carnitas burrito bowl is the fourth recipe that I am offering up that uses that yummy pork.
To make the carnitas, you can follow the beginning of this recipe. It details the steps to cook a pork shoulder roast in the Instant Pot pressure cooker to save time. I used a three pound roast in that recipe, that way I would have a lot of meat for meals throughout the week (more burrito bowls please). You can use a small roast and keep the same time settings. I have done one pound Boston Butt roasts and they turned out just as good. It all depends on how much carnitas you want to have at the end of the cook.
A layered bowl of all your favorite things
A burrito bowl is a great way to use up things you have in the fridge. If you do lots of salads, or (like me) have been making tacos and nachos during the week, you probably have small portions of lots of toppings left over. I still had some roasted corn kernels that I made yesterday for my Loaded Nachos and I thought this dish would be perfect for using them up.
For my Burrito Bowl recipe, in addition to the stuff I have on hand like the queso fresco and black beans, I added a few new elements. The cilantro-lime brown rice cooked up quickly in the Instant Pot while I prepared some super easy Guacamole. And by the way, this isn’t some stodgy brown rice, I did it pot-in-pot, and it turned out super fluffy!
By layering everything in a beautiful bowl, the whole dish looked so fancy I almost forgot it was leftovers! Enjoy your own crispy carnitas burrito bowl!
Ingredients
- 1 cup Brown rice long grain
- 1 cup Water
- 1/2 Avocado
- 10 sprigs Cilantro half for guacamole, half for rice
- 2 Limes
- 1/4 tsp Pink Himalayan sea salt
- 1 cup Carnitas see notes
- 1 cup Roasted corn kernels see notes
- 1/2 cup Black beans
- 1/4 cup Black olives sliced
- 1/4 cup Queso fresco shaved
- 1-1/2 cups Red leaf lettuce chopped
Tools
Instructions
Begin The Rice
- Gather your ingredients and tools. Note: you will need a bowl that fits inside your Instant Pot (pot-in-pot).
- In a strainer, rinse the rice under running water.
- I your bowl, add the rinsed brown rice and an equal amount of water.
- Add 1 cup of water to the inner pot of your IP. Set the bowl on a trivet with handles and lower into the Instant Pot. Cook on manual, high pressure, for 15 minutes. Let pressure release naturally until the pin drops.
Make Guacamole
- While the brown rice is cooking, gather the ingredients for the guacamole.Note: I like to use a mortar and pestle to make the guacamole. It has just the right texture for crushing the salt with the cilantro.
- Remove the leaves from 5 stalks of cilantro and put into the mortar bowl with the pink salt.
- Rub the salt into the cilantro, crushing the salt crystals, and pulping the leaves. It will turn into a thick green paste.
- Squeeze a hal off one lime into bowl, and stir to mix.
- Carefully cut avocado in half and remove the pit. Make cross-slices in the flesh of one half. Don’t cut through the skin.Use a small spoon, and slide it between the skin and flesh of the avocado, lifting out cubes and letting them fall into the bowl.
- Using a drinks muddler with a textured tip, squash the avocado, while mixing it with the lime-cilantro mixture.Note: I use the muddler because it grabs the avocado, making it easier to crush. You can also use a fork.
- Crush the avocado roughly, leaving some chunky bits. Scrape down from the edges using a silicone spatula. Set aside.
Finish Rice
- When the pin has dropped naturally on the rice, open the pot and carefully lift out the trivet and bowl. Test the rice to make sure it it cooked, and not crunchy (put it back in for a few more minutes if undercooked).
- Roughly chop the remaining cilantro leaves.
- Fluff the rice with a fork. Add the chopped cilantro, and squeeze in the juice of 1 lime.
- Mix rice, cilantro and lime well. Set aside.
Layer The Burrito Bowl
- Prep the ingredients you want in your bowl.
Put the pre-cooked carnitas into a cast iron skillet to crisp up for a few minutes. You can also use the skillet to reheat the roasted corn.Use a microwave to heat up the black beans, and whatever else you want to have hot.
- Put a bed of chopped lettuce in the bottom of your bowl. Lay on top of the lettuce, in thin rows, the cilantro-lime rice, black beans, shaved queso fresco, crispy carnitas, guacamole, roasted corn, and sliced black olives.
- Such a pretty presentation! and so yummy. Enjoy!
I hope you enjoyed this recipe, and have fun making your own crispy carnitas burrito bowl combinations.
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