What Carnitas means
Carnitas is a Mexican main dish name of Spanish origin meaning "little meats". It is built from Spanish carne (meat) and -itas (diminutive plural). It is pronounced kar-NEE-tas, and it is most associated with Michoacán.
The diminutive refers to the size of the pieces the pork is cut into, not to the size of the portion.
This is a site about what Mexican words mean, so there is no recipe here. For the name itself: The plated dishes, most named for a cooking method or a place. Cochinita pibil is pork cooked in a píib, the Maya earth oven. Barbacoa gave English the word barbecue. Chiles en nogada is named for the walnut sauce that covers it.
