These carnitas lettuce wraps are filled with the Pioneer Woman’s carnitas and a fresh cherry, peach salsa.
Well hey, September. Didn’t you come along quickly this year. I’m refusing to give in to your hoopla of pumpkin spice lattes, apples galore and everything else that comes along with you for one more day (including the fact that I’ll have been married for 6 years in 12 days). I do have an apple recipe (and it’s quite kick-ass if I do say so) for later this week but today, sweet carnitas lettuce wraps with peaches & cherries. Doesn’t get much more summer than that.
My love affair with this carnitas recipe is well documented on here. Last week as I went to grab all the ingredients to make it again, I opened the pantry to see only 1 can of pineapple juice on the shelf. I know I bought two when I was shopping for the ingredients weeks ago even though the other human I reside with refuses to admit drinking it. So I added in the only other sweet drink I had in the house, orange juice. Now, this carnitas recipe is like a 15 on a scale of 1-10 so when I say it didn’t come out as good as the first time, it was still a 12. The second can of pineapple juice is definitely not something you want to skip though as this time the sweet stickiness from the juice wasn’t nearly as prominent.
Solution?
Make a cherry peach salsa to go with it.
I’ll give you a visual of what went down in my kitchen as this was being made.
Cherry juice everywhere. Squeezed limes strewn about. The last two CSA peaches being alternatively shoved in my mouth and cubed for the salsa. Warmed up leftover carnitas being picked at with my bare hands from the tupperware container.
How enough of this mixture made it into 4 lettuce wraps to be photographed is a miracle. I gorged myself so much on this for lunch that come 8pm, after a 23 minute intense crossfit wod, I still wasn’t hungry.
I was carnitas drunk.
It was the best hangover of my life. Thinking about it, even 5 days later makes me happy. Which is a good thing because when a quick little vacuuming of the house turned into a 2 hour pantry clean out from a saw tooth beetle infestation in my bulk bin grains yesterday, I could use some happy. Grossest.thing.ever.

Carnitas Lettuce Wraps with Cherry Peach Salsa
Ingredients
- 1 cup leftover carnitas from recipe above just follow recipe for carnitas portion, not the steps for pizza in the link
- 1 cup cherries pitted & chopped
- 1 peach chopped
- 2 tablespoons cilantro chopped
- juice of 1 lime
- salt & pepper to taste
- 6 romaine lettuce leaves
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients except lettuce in a medium bowl and toss to coat.
- Arrange lettuce leaves and scoop enough of the mixture into each one to fill about half the leaf.
- Roll up and eat.
Nutrition Facts
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition information can vary for a variety of reasons. For the most precise nutritional data use your preferred nutrition calculator based on the actual ingredients you used in the recipe.
Gina Matsoukas is the writer, founder, photographer and recipe developer of Running to the Kitchen — a food website focused on providing healthy, wholesome recipes using fresh and seasonal ingredients as much as possible. Her work has been featured in numerous media outlets both digital and print, including MSN, Huffington post, Buzzfeed, Women’s Health and Food Network.
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I'll take anything made with peaches! I'm actually really wishing I was in your kitchen right now. I'll take the cherry and pineapple juice mess, if it means I get to eat these carnitas!