We invented this crispy pork tenderloin tacos recipe to be a quick and easy way to make incredibly flavorful and texturally delightful tacos from one of our favorite cuts of meat; pork tenderloin.
Butterflying and pounding pork tenderloins may sound intimidating, but if you watch our recipe video, you’ll see how quickly you can have a thin, flat piece of pork that will cook quickly on your grill.
Once cooked, the pork is crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside, perfect to cut into bite-size pieces for some of the most delicious tacos you’ll ever eat!
This is a straightforward recipe, but there are opportunities to customize it to your own taste, and we want to make sure you understand each step of this recipe so you can perfect it at home. Below, we’ve answered a few of the commonly asked questions about this recipe.
If you’re ready to cook, scroll down to the ingredients and get going!
How do you prepare the pork for these Crispy Pork Tenderloin Tacos?
Pork tenderloins are a certified lean cut of pork, so if we cook them too long, they’ll dry out. To make sure that the pork doesn’t dry out, we’re going to make it nice and thin so it cooks quickly and doesn’t lose juiciness. There are two steps we’ll take to make it thin:
- Butterfly the pork by placing the tenderloin on a cutting board and taking a lengthwise cut down the center of the tenderloin, about 1/2 inch above the board, but not cutting all the way through. Open up the cut like a book, exposing the interior of the tenderloin.
- After butterflying the pork, place plastic food wrap over the butterflied pork tenderloin and use the flat side of a meat mallet to pound it flat to an even thickness, about 1/4” thick.
You can see a demonstration of how we did these steps in the recipe video in this post. It’s straightforward and makes a world of difference when you taste the finished pork – crispy on the outside, but juicy on the inside!
How did you season your pork tenderloins?
I have a house-blend southwestern seasoning called ‘Nick x Southwest’ that I used as the seasoning. The recipe is something like this:
- 2 tbsp. Kosher Salt
- 2 tbsp. Chili Powder
- 1 tbsp. Cumin
- 1 tbsp. Garlic Powder
- 1 tbsp. Onion Powder
- 1 tbsp. Brown Sugar
- 2 tsp. Ground Black Pepper
- 1 tsp. Crushed Red Pepper Flakes – I generally use the Flatiron Pepper Co. Dark & Smoky Smoked Chili Flake blend for this.
- 1 tsp. Dried Oregano
The recipe varies a bit, but it has lots of savory flavor and a touch of smoky heat, and it keeps well for a few months in a large shaker.
There are plenty of other taco seasoning recipes out there, like this very popular version from Allrecipes, or you can use your favorite pre-made mix and not worry about it at all!
How do you cook these pork tenderloins?
Since we want crispy pork tenderloin tacos, we wanted to cook our pork tenderloins directly on a hot surface. This direct heat will char the outside and make it super crispy.
We have a Blackstone Griddle that is perfect for this type of cooking. We heated the Blackstone to medium-high heat, added oil, and seared the pork tenderloins for about 5 minutes per side. As you can see from the video, it worked great!
If you don’t have a Blackstone, that’s okay; here are other cooking methods you could use:
- A regular grill works just fine. Make sure it’s preheated before you add the pork to the grills. If you have a charcoal grill, the smoke from the charcoal will add a bonus flavor to the finished crispy pork tenderloin tacos!
- If you don’t want to cook outside, a cast iron griddle over your stovetop will also work well and get a nice sear on the outside of your pork.
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What toppings do you use on your Crispy Pork Tenderloin Tacos?
We wanted a colorful and vibrant taco from this meat, so we made our crunchy pork tenderloin tacos with the following toppings:
- Corn tortillas warmed over our stovetop burners.
- Crispy pork tenderloin.
- Fresh pico de gallo with fresh summer sweet corn.
- Queso fresco.
- Chopped cilantro.
- Squeeze of lime juice.
Is the meat from these Crispy Pork Tenderloin Tacos good as leftovers?
Heck yeah it is! By cooking two pork tenderloins, we had enough meat to serve about 8 people plenty of tacos. We didn’t have that many people eating tacos, so we put the crunchy pork tenderloin taco meat in one of Pyrex glass storage containers and refrigerated the meat to use in the next week.
We made a few meals with the leftover meat including:
- A lunch wrap with pork tenderloin, salsa, lettuce, and shredded cheese.
- A pork tenderloin, rice, black bean, and corn bowl.
- A version of this Southwest Chipotle Salad with the leftover pork tenderloin added to the veggies.
The bottom line is that the pork tenderloin meat is good for 3 – 5 days after it’s cooked, and there are are plenty of ways to keep using the meat after your initial taco dinner.
I love this recipe; do you have more recipes I should check out?
Of course we do!
If you really like pork tenderloins, we have a ton of pork tenderloin recipes ranging from slow cooker recipes to grilling recipes to sheet pan recipes. You can see all of our pork tenderloin recipes by clicking this link.
Or, if you’re feeling more tacos, visit this link to see all of our taco recipes. We have a ton of ideas for tacos ranging from Mexican Street Corn Chicken tacos to Skirt Steak tacos and plenty more!
I hope that answered all of the questions you may have about our recipe for crunchy pork tenderloin tacos! If we missed something, or you have additional feedback, please leave us a comment or rating below. We appreciate you reading this recipe and we’ll see you soon at Lake Geneva Country Meats!
