Al Pastor Tacos Made Easy

Hey, what’s up? Clearly, I really like al pastor tacos a lot because I’ve shown you guys two different ways to make them on this . But both of those recipes were made with pork and both took a long time to get right. So today I’m gonna show you a third way to make al pastor style tacos at home, but this time it’s only gonna take 30 minutes. This is .

Why You’ll Love This

So today I’m gonna show you a third way to make al pastor style tacos at home, but this time it’s only gonna take 30 minutes.

Ingredients

For the Salsa

half of a white onion (roughly 75 to 100 grams)
poblano (100 grams, about one whole poblano or two to three jalapenos)
5 to 6 medium-sized tomatillos
400 grams of fresh tomatillos
5 to 10 cloves of garlic (15 to 20 grams)
5 grams of salt
50 grams of water

For the Al Pastor Marinade

50 grams of pineapple (fresh or canned)
100 grams of orange juice (about two fruits worth if you’re using fresh, or store-bought)
25 grams of water
25 grams of white distilled vinegar
20 grams of sugar
20 grams of salt
30 grams of achiote annatto paste
2 grams of oregano
5 grams of garlic powder
5 grams of cumin
10 grams of chili powder

For the Tacos

2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs
fresh pineapple (two planks)

Instructions

To get started, I’ll grab a flat shallow bowl like this one, into the freezer.
For now, I need to chop the vegetables for my salsa.
I need a small diced half of a white onion.
Once it’s all diced up, I’ll scoot it into a high-sided saucepan like this.
I’m going with a small dice on these poblanos, just like the white onions.
Into the saucepan it goes.
For the tomatillo part of this tomatillo salsa, I peeled five to six medium-sized fruits and then gave them a medium to large chop.
I’ll add in 400 grams of fresh tomatillos, and once I do, I’ll scoot them into my saucepan.
Lastly, using my garlic press, I’ll add in five to 10 cloves of garlic.
Then in goes five grams of salt and 50 grams of water.
Next, I’ll drop this pot on the stove over medium-high heat and bring it up to a simmer.
That should take two to three minutes, and once we’re there, I’ll lower the heat to medium-low, pop on a lid, and then cook for about 10 minutes or so, and I’ll turn off the heat again.
From here, we need to make our al pastor marinade.
For that, I’ll grab a high-sided container, and into that, I’ll measure 50 grams of pineapple.
Behind that, I’ll add 100 grams of orange juice.
Then 25 grams of water, 25 grams of white distilled vinegar, 20 grams of sugar, 20 grams of salt, 30 grams of achiote annatto paste.
Next, I’ll add in 2 grams of oregano, 5 grams of garlic powder, 5 grams of cumin, and 10 grams of chili powder.
Now, the immersion blender goes in, and I’ll puree this until everything is well combined and there is no longer large chunks of annatto and pineapple floating around.
For the meat, today I’ve got 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, and I’m throwing them into a medium bowl.
Now, in goes about half of my marinade, or let’s say about 100 grams or so.
Then, I’ll save the rest of this for something special a little bit later on.
Using some tongs, I’m going to hop into the bowl now to get everything nicely coated.
Once my chicken is well coated in the marinade, I’m going to grab a half sheet tray lined with foil and then lay out the thighs.
I’ll lay them out together in a 4×3 pattern right in the middle of my tray edge to edge.
Then, I’m going to put the chicken on the sheet tray.
I’m going to lay down two planks of fresh pineapple.
I’ll throw my sheet tray under the broiler and let it rip for about five minutes before I come back and check on it.
While that cooks, let’s check on our salsa.
I’ll leave the lid off for now and cook for another 8 to 10 minutes over medium heat.
After five to eight minutes under the broiler, my thighs are looking pretty good.
I’ll rotate the tray and throw it back under the broiler for five more minutes.
After that five minutes, I’ll flip the chicken over so that we can get some char on the backside.
I’ll leave the pineapple as it is, though, because that needs a little bit more color.
Then once the thighs are inverted, I’ll throw this tray back under the broiler for five to eight more minutes or until the backside is well charred.
While that cooks, let’s check one more time on this tomatillo salsa.
I’ll call this done.
Remember that cold bowl? I’ll grab that and fill it with my hot salsa.
I’ll throw this bowl into the freezer to cool for five to 10 minutes while I finish up the taco meat.

Cooking Tips

To keep things simple and to save on dirty dishes here, this salsa is not gonna be pureed, so I do need to take the time to get everything inside the salsa chopped relatively small.

These tomatillos are actually gonna turn into a mush when we cook the salsa, so we don’t really need to chop them as small and perfectly as the onions and peppers.

Achiote annatto paste is a pantry item that I highly recommend keeping on hand if you don’t already.

The flavor is overall hard to describe, but it’s like piquant, earthy, peppery, and pretty tart, but don’t eat it raw, though.

If you like it, I would sub in some lime juice, some chili powder, and paprika in its place.

Not only is this paste super flavorful, but it also freezes well.

I usually make a 2 or 3x batch and store it for future B-mans.

Most marinades don’t really do anything to make meat more delicious. Yes, the salt and acidity in there will alter the structure of the meat, and that might tenderize it a little bit, but overall, the flavors in the marinade won’t go deep inside. So, I make marinades thick like this one so that they stick to the outside of the meat and so I can actually enjoy their flavor.

The pieces here should be close in size and thickness to the chicken thighs. That will make sure that they get caramelized at roughly the same rate as the chicken. If they were sticking up too close to the broiler, that fruit sugar would burn super fast.

These broilers always tend to have hot and cold spots, and the front here needs a little bit more color.

Cold bowl obviously will make hot salsa cold fast.

I’m hungry, and I wanna make sure that my salsa is ready for taco time. So to make double sure, I’ll throw this bowl into the freezer to cool for five to 10 minutes while I finish up the taco meat.