What Is Puerto Rican Pernil, And How Can You Use It?

Pernil is one of many tasty Puerto Rican foods that you have to try at least once. However, since it's considered Puerto Rico's national dish, it's good enough that you may want to move it closer to the top of your list. If you've heard of it and are wanting to know more about it, we have the inside scoop for you.

We'll explain what pernil is, how to make it, what it tastes like, how it compares to other similar pork dishes, and where to find it if you don't want to go through the multi-day process of making it for yourself. We also have some ideas for what you can do with it once you've finished with it, since the large cut of meat it comes from ensures that you're going to end up with a lot when you make it. Get ready to have your mouth water for pernil as you read about this tender and juicy Puerto Rican pork dish full well-balanced flavors.

Pernil is a slow cooked pork shoulder roast that's popular in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. There's no clear origin story for pernil (say "pehr-neel" with an emphasis on the second syllable). However, its name gives a hint about what it's made from and the earliest way people prepared it. The Spanish word "pierna" is the word for "leg," and pernil is made from pork leg. In Catalan, it's also the word used for ham, which was the pork cut early pernil used – the rear leg.

These days, cooks favor pork shoulder for pernil, which is the cut of meat at the top of the front leg. So, the flavor tends to be different than it once was when it was made with ham. Use of the shoulder may have come into favor because it's a cheaper cut. If you're wanting to make pernil, a common name for pork shoulder is Boston butt, and it's also called pork butt or blade roast. For traditional pernil, the pork shoulder should contain the bone to add flavor, and it should also have plenty of skin. Not only is pernil known for being flavorful and tender, but the best part for many people is its distinctly crispy skin called "cuero" or "cuerito". So, if you're trying pernil for the first time. The cuerito isn't to be missed.

Pernil is one of those dishes that's great because it's cooked low and slow. However, it starts out with marinating the meat from 12 hours to two days. So, you're going to need to plan ahead and start making the dish a day or two before to give yourself enough time for the whole process.

The recipe for Slow-Roasted Puerto Rican Pernil starts with an adobo marinade that contains ingredients like olive oil, an acidic ingredient like vinegar, lemon juice, lime juice, or orange juice; aromatics like lots of fresh smashed garlic and sometimes onion powder; and herbs and spices like oregano, paprika, salt, and pepper. Some cooks also add a store-bought or homemade adobo spice mix, sazón spice mix, or sofrito.

After marinating, you roast your pernil for 30 to 45 minutes per pound of meat if roasting at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. However, if you go lower, like 200 degrees Fahrenheit, you may end up needing to roast it for as long as 10 hours. Basically, the goal is to get it to 180 degrees Fahrenheit inside and have extremely tender meat. To achieve a crispy skin, it's essential to cook the meat with the fat side up and turn the heat up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 to 20 additional minutes after it hits the 180-degree mark. When you thump the skin and it sounds like you're thumping a door, it's ready. After you remove it from the oven, you'll need to have 20 to 30 more minutes of patience to let it sit before you start slicing it or tearing it apart. 

While the Mexican dish, carnitas, is also made from pork shoulder, pernil and carnitas are distinctively different, from their cooking method to their seasonings. Plus, it's usually served differently.

First of all, to make carnitas, you start with cubes of pork shoulder instead of a whole bone-in, fat-on pork shoulder like with pernil. They both use citrus juice like lime or orange juice. However, some cooks also add condensed milk and/or Coca-Cola to carnitas. Some of the seasonings are the same for the two dishes, like salt, pepper, oregano, garlic, and onion. However, carnitas goes in a distinctively Mexican direction, with additional spices like cumin, chili powder, and bay leaves. And pernil sometimes gets a lot of extra flavors from a sazón spice mix or sofrito.

The cooking methods also differ vastly between the two dishes, with pernil being slow roasted in its own fat, while carnitas gets fried in lard on and then braised on the stovetop. Some cooks also roast or finish off the carnitas in the oven. Since the meat for carnitas is cubed, the cooking time tends to be much shorter than for pernil. Once the carnitas are done, they're often served in tacos with fresh ingredients like onions, salsa, cilantro, shredded cabbage, pico de gallo, or whatever you like on your tacos. Meanwhile, pernil tends to be served as a solitary meat dish.

Something you shouldn't confuse pernil with is lechón. Yes, they're seasoned the same, but they're not the same. The biggest difference between the two is that lechón is a whole pig from snout to tail, while pernil is just the shoulder. The other difference is that lechón is generally spit-roasted rather than oven roasted because who has room in their oven for a whole pig?

While lechon is popular in Puerto Rico, it's far easier and less expensive for the average family to make a pork shoulder than a whole hog. Besides, if a Puerto Rican want's lechón, there are plenty of lechoneras (kiosks that roast whole pigs) in Puerto Rico that specialize in making lechón so that you don't have to do it yourself. Puerto Rico has several Pork Highways (Rutas del Lechón) full of lechoneras that sell both lechón and pernil along with all the most sought-after accompanying side items. So, if you're near Guavate, Naranjito, or Trujillo Alto in Puerto Rico, keep an eye out for all the lechoneras on those cities' Pork Highways.

Pierna de cerdo is a pork roast often eaten in Latin American countries for Christmas. Since one name for it is pernil asado (as well as puerco asado or lechón asado), it's understandable that the two might be confused. While pierna de cerdo is made with a bone-in, skin-on pork shoulder like pernil, it's also often made with ham. The seasonings for pierna de cerdo also vary from recipe to recipe.

You start making a pierna de cerdo the same way as pernil, with marinating the meat overnight or longer before slow-roasting it on low heat. However, the seasoning mix for the marinade is different between the two dishes. We've seen some for pierna de cerdo that contain some of the same ingredients as pernil, like lime juice, salt, pepper, onion, oregano, and garlic. However, we've also seen ingredients like olives, capers, a variety of peppers, tomatoes, apple cider vinegar, brown sugar, marjoram, thyme, laurel (Mexican bay leaves), mustard, beer, and Coca-Cola (not all together in the same recipe). We've even seen stuffed versions. So, it's a highly-individualized dish when it comes to seasonings, just like Christmas hams in the U.S.

The flavor of pernil depends on the spice mix that people use when making it. In general, it tends to be moist, savory, garlicky, and well-seasoned. However, its unique combination of spices gives pernil a distinctive flavor.

With variations in the spices that different Puerto Rican cooks use, you're likely to encounter a wide variety of flavors depending on the recipe you use or where you eat your pernil. If the person making the pernil uses a sazón spice mix like Sazón Goya con Culantro y Achiote), then the pernil gets added flavors like MSG, garlic, cumin, coriander, and annatto that lends a distinctive flavor to the meat. An adobo spice mix like Goya Adobo All-Purpose Seasoning) generally adds extra salt, pepper, turmeric, garlic, and oregano flavor (most of which may already be in the ingredient list). And then, if the cook adds their own special sofrito, it's going to be bursting with even more flavor. Puerto Rican sofritos contain ingredients like onions, sweet peppers, garlic, cilantro leaves, coriander, olives, capers, and olive oil. So, don't expect a boring pork roast.

Since pernil isn't a pre-packaged item, it's challenging to nail down exactly what the nutrition information is for it. The ingredients aren't wildly different from kitchen to kitchen. So, we looked for nutritional reports on pernil that seemed fairly similar to give you at least an approximation of what to expect even if it's not exact. The ones we ended up using came from MyNetDiary, SnapCalorie, and SparkPeople.

A serving of pernil (typically about a cup of meat) comes to somewhere between 500 and 619 calories. Since it cooks with the skin and fat on, the total fat content is fairly high, running between 40 and 43 grams, with 70% of so of its calories coming from fat. Around 14 to 15 grams of the fat is saturated, 18 to 20 grams is monounsaturated, and up to 4 grams is monounsaturated. So, it's already pushing the limit of the amount of fat you should have in a day before you ever have a second helping or add any side dishes to your meal. The cholesterol amount is somewhere between 135 and 214 milligrams. If you're looking for a protein-rich meal, pernil qualifies since it has somewhere between 32 and 57 grams of protein per serving. The sodium amount is going to depend on how much salt and salt-included seasonings you use on the meat, with measurements ranging widely between 167 and 1,007 milligrams. It also might be a good source of potassium, with estimates ranging between 571 and 881 milligrams.

While pernil is a dish that you could make any time of the year, you're most likely to see it gracing Puerto Rican tables during the holidays or whenever Puerto Ricans want to make a meat dish to celebrate a special occasion.

In Puerto Rico, pernil is especially common to eat as part of the main meal on Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, or Christmas. In fact, throughout Latin America, you can find pernil on tables as part of Christmas suppers and New Year celebrations. It's also common to find it on the menu when celebrating other special days like birthdays and even weddings.

When thinking about the side dishes you'll find with Puerto Rican pernil, it's usually the ones that show up during holiday meals. Two of the most common dishes you'll find with pernil are arroz con gandules and pasteles. However, there are others, too.

When you find pernil on the table in Puerto Rico for the evening meal Christmas or Christmas Eve, you're likely to find it with arroz con gandules, which is a flavorful Puerto-Rican-style rice dish made with pigeon peas, aromatics, and spices. Another common Christmas Eve pernil accompaniment is pasteles, which is a Puerto Rican version of tamales. Instead of using corn masa like Mexican tamale makers do, Puerto Ricans make their masa from a variety of ingredients like yuca root and spices or from a combination of grated taro root, green plantains, kabocha pumpkin, and spices. Then, it's filled with a cooked mixture of meat, spices, and sometimes other ingredients before wrapping them in banana leaves to cook them.

Some other dishes you might find with pernil include ensalada de papa (a potato salad made with ingredients like spices, onions, bell peppers, apples, eggs, roasted red peppers, and sometimes olives), tostones (savory twice-fried green plantains), and freshly sliced avocados. Honestly, any good Puerto Rican Thanksgiving side dish will work. These include amarillos (sweet fried ripe plantains), mofongo (a stuffing-like dish made from mashed green plantains, crisp pork skins, and garlic). And, of course, if you're having pernil at Christmas, the meal wouldn't be complete without coquito (a coconut-based spiced and often spiked drink like eggnog without the eggs).

Puerto Rico isn't the only place you can find pernil. You're likely to run across it in many Latin American countries and across the Caribbean. However, they're not all the same. There are variations between families as well as differences in the way people from different countries make it. Plus, it tends to get served with different national dishes.

Like in Puerto Rico, pernil in other countries have a range of ingredients in the marinade. In Venezuela, it's popular at Christmas and gets extra ingredients like Worcestershire sauce, thyme, rosemary, sage, bay leaf, sugar, chicken broth, butter, Coca-Cola, wine, and beer. Cuban pernil might also include Goya Marinade Mojo Criollo in addition to the spices common in Puerto Rican pernil. It sometimes might also use sour orange juice in addition to lime juice. Other spices might include bay leaf, cumin or Sazón Goya. Pernil from the Dominican Republic may contain smoked paprika, cumin, thyme, and/or chicken bouillon powder in addition to the spices common on Puerto Rican pernil. Some cooks opt to add vinegar in addition to orange and lime juice.

If you have any leftover pernil, you'll need to store it in the refrigerator or freeze it. According to the USDA, you should be sure to get roasted pork like pernil into the fridge within two hours of cooking it, keeping it covered and at temperatures at 40 degrees Fahrenheit or below. There, it should remain good for three to four days. It's safe to eat cold straight from the fridge. Of course, you can also warm it up, getting it up to 165 degrees Fahrenheit. If you know you won't finish it all within three or four days, it will keep its quality for about three months in a freezer bag in the freezer. Although, you might be able to push it to six months and still find it decently tasty. Reheating either refrigerated or frozen pernil requires just a little heat and water to warm it up.

If in doubt about the freshness level, you'll want to check it with your eyes and nose. Slimeness or a dulling of the color are visual alerts that it might have gone bad. Meanwhile, a sour smell is an olfactory alert that something's not right. If it smells or looks off, discard it to be safe.

While the ingredients for pernil should be easy enough to find at an ordinary grocery store, the fact that making it is so time-consuming may have you looking for someone to make it for you. In that case, your best luck for finding it will be if you're in Puerto Rico or live in a city with a large Puerto Rican population or other Caribbean or Latin American populations who enjoy pernil.

As we mentioned previously, one of the best places to find pernil in Puerto Rico is on one of the country's Pork Highways (Rutas de Lechón). If you're not able to visit Puerto Rico, try doing an internet search for "pernil near me." If you're lucky, you might find a Latin American or Caribbean restaurant or caterer with some of the menu. You may also find some for sale in a Latin American market. The ones we were able to find ranged from a half to a whole pork shoulder, both on and off the bone. While we found a smaller tray of pernil for just $40, larger portions can go for as much as $255. So, you'll have to decide if it's worth it to get someone to make it for you rather than just making the pernil yourself.

Since you're making a whole shoulder of meat at once, you're likely to have leftover pernil. Thus, it's essential to have a plan with what to do with all that leftover meat.

One of the easiest ways to use leftover pernil is to make sandwiches. You can turn it into a sub sandwich with hot pernil and all your favorite vegetable and condiment toppings. Cuban sandwiches are also a great choice. You can also use it in any recipes where you'd normally add pulled pork. With pernil sandwiches being a thing, it's not a stretch to imagine them being made into quesadillas. Some people have even been inspired enough by the Cuban sandwich idea to turn the idea into Cubano-inspired quesadillas, with a little pernil, ham, grilled peppers and onions, mozzarella and Swiss cheeses, and maybe even some mustard grilled inside flour tortillas. You can also fry it in oil and add Mexican seasonings to turn it into carnitas for tacos.

Beyond eating pernil between slices of bread or tortillas, you can repurpose it into a stew or stir fry. For a pernil-filled stew, you could use a tomato sauce and beer base and season it with chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, plus add some of the same ingredients and spices you might use in different versions of pernil, like onions, cumin, salt, mojo, salt, and pepper. Meanwhile, the stir fry could be as simple as stir-frying together leftover pernil with a store-bought stir fry vegetable mix, oil, and soy sauce and serving it over cooked rice.