---
title: 'Homemade Al Pastor Meat Tower'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=6oFmhMW6stk'
video_id: '6oFmhMW6stk'
date: 2026-08-22
duration_sec: 1176
channel: 'ThatDudeCanCook'
---

# Homemade Al Pastor Meat Tower

> Source: [Homemade Al Pastor Meat Tower](https://youtube.com/watch?v=6oFmhMW6stk)

## Summary

This video is a detailed cooking tutorial on making homemade al pastor, featuring a dramatic 'meat tower' presentation. The host demonstrates the entire process, from creating a complex dried chili marinade to marinating pork shoulder for 24 hours, stacking it on a vertical spit pan, and roasting it in the oven. The video also includes a recipe for a roasted tomatillo salsa and concludes with a taste test.

### Key Points

- **Chili Blend for Marinade** [00:38] — The marinade uses a blend of three dried chilies: ancho, guajillo, and árbol. The host notes you can use all ancho, but prefers the blend for complexity. The chilies are stemmed, seeded, and toasted for about a minute to enhance their flavor.
- **Blistering Garlic and Charring Onions** [02:09] — Garlic cloves are toasted with the skin on to blister and intensify flavor, a common Mexican technique. A quarter of a yellow onion is also charred in the same pan, which the host admits is not traditional but adds a nice touch.
- **Toasting Whole Spices** [03:01] — Whole spices, including black peppercorns, cumin, and a couple of cloves, are toasted for about 3 minutes. The host emphasizes that toasting whole spices before grinding them yields a better flavor.
- **Why Canned Pineapple Juice is Used** [03:54] — The host uses canned pineapple juice instead of fresh because fresh juice contains bromelain, an enzyme that breaks down proteins. For a 24-hour marinade, this would make the meat mushy. Fresh juice can be used for a 4-8 hour marinade.
- **Additional Marinade Ingredients** [04:34] — The marinade includes fresh orange juice, lime, Mexican oregano, a small amount of cinnamon, achiote paste for color, agave for caramelization, white and apple cider vinegar, and avocado oil.
- **Preparing the Pork** [06:09] — Boneless pork butt is sliced about half an inch thick and then pounded to about a quarter-inch thickness. This ensures even cooking and a good texture for the tower.
- **Building the Meat Tower** [07:56] — The marinated pork is layered with fresh pineapple rings on a special vertical spit pan. The tower is then roasted in a 350°F oven for about 90 minutes, with the temperature increased to 370°F for the last 30 minutes to achieve a good char.
- **Roasted Tomatillo Salsa** [11:18] — A salsa is made by charring tomatillos, garlic, jalapeños, and onion, then blending them with cilantro and lime. The host notes that the juice from the charring pan should be added for extra flavor.
- **Serving and Taste Test** [17:19] — The al pastor is served on flour tortillas with the salsa, raw onion, and cilantro. The host praises the flavor, noting the charred pineapple is a highlight and the spice level is perfect.

### Conclusion

The video provides a comprehensive, step-by-step guide to making authentic al pastor at home, with the dramatic meat tower presentation as a centerpiece. The host emphasizes the importance of technique, such as toasting spices and using canned pineapple juice for a long marinade, to achieve the best flavor and texture.

## Transcript

Pastor meat tower, but I think I'll just let the B-roll do the talking for me.
Let's start with the al pestor marinade. And for that, we're going to be using dried chilies. And for that, I have a combination of three different chilies. Ancho chilis, guajillo chilis, and arble chilis. You can absolutely go full ancho
but I like the blend here. And what we're going to do here is just start by removing the stem and just ripping these open and getting out all these seeds. here. And then from here, we just want big flat pieces essentially. So
something like this if it wants to tear like those. Looks perfect. And we'll do the exact same thing with the guajo as well as the little arbble chilies. Just little membrane that's in there. Another thing that's important with these dried
when you buy them. They should feel like kind of like fruit leather. If they're too dry, they won't have as much flavor. Although, you can definitely still use So, we'll just work our way through all these little chilies in those little
arbles as well. And then we're just going to drop these into a medium heat pan and toast them up right quick. Can be helpful to take a little press and a little bit so they're a little flatter. They'll just toast a little
dried chilies, you do not have to go very long. I'll only toast these for about a minute, maybe slightly more. Give them a little toss after 30 seconds smell it when the flavors change on these. Then we'll just get them all in a
vessel. Push that down. Ow. And then we're simply going to cover in hot water and let these soak for about 15 20 minutes while we work on the rest of our plate on there just to keep them submerged. Now, same pan here, medium
heat. I'm adding a bunch of garlic cloves with the skin on. sort of a prime Mexican food move right here by blistering these skins which protects the garlic but really intensifies the flavor and then as a bonus it makes them
same pan, this isn't exactly traditional in al pestor, but I'm going to char some charred onions in a recipe and then regretted it. So, in they go. This is just a quarter yellow onion that I separated into its little pieces. We'll
here. And with these little garlics, I'll just give them a little flip every will just let them roll, but we can do the same thing when they get a little bit of char. After a few minutes, I'll give these onions a little flipperoon.
And I apologize for just saying flipperooni right now. Is that a word? So, that's about 8 minutes of toasting. I'm happy with where everything is at. I but keep the pan on that medium heat because we are going to toast our whole
spices now. That's black pepperc corns and cumin. And secret little ingredient, just a couple pieces of clove. We'll also be adding a few more spices, but general thing when you're cooking, if you toast your spices whole and then
better. Just about 3 minutes of toasting. I'm going to get them into a mortar and pestle to cool. And I just left them there for about 8 minutes aside. Now, let's get this all together, my friends. And I'm starting by adding
all my soaked chilies to a blender with just a little touch of that juice. Then we go in with all of our charred onions here. And you'll see with the garlic now, you can just very easily pop it out of this little peel. It's coming right
out. Boom. And it's actually like kind of soft now. I like to just pinch this little top part and just kind of pull back. And usually it'll just pop right out like so. All of our ground spices going in as well as our salt. Now, hear
me out before you judge me. I am using canned pineapple juice for the marinade. And here's why. In it goes. You could use fresh pineapple juice, but it has bromelene, which is an enzyme that breaks down proteins. And because I want
to do a 24-hour marinade, that's why I use canned pineapple juice because it If you do want to use fresh pineapple juice, go for a four to eight hour something with fresh pineapple juice will understand this disgusting mushy
at all costs. Kind of like that one time I tried to give Marcus a bath. All right, Marcus. Hate to say it, dude, but it's bath day, so it's okay, buddy. Come on. We're also going in with a little bit of fresh
orange juice and one lime. Oo, that's a juicy lime. Mexican oregano going in. cinnamon. Cinnamon and chili. Just like a half teaspoon, maybe even a/4 teaspoon going in. Not much at all. And we're going in with achiote paste, which is
just the seed of a tropical tree, but it contains this incredible red color, which is very typical for like Mexico City El Pastor. So, it's going in. And agave. Because I'm going to be cooking this in the oven, it's going to help it
faster. And then we're doing a little vinegar as well. That's just regular white vinegar cut with a little bit of apple cider vinegar for more complexity. And last, but certainly not least, just a bit of avocado oil. And that's all she
up and blend it up on high speed for a minute. at that, my friends. It is absolute pure flavor in there. Let's give it a little
taste. See if we need to adjust anything. I love the way it looks. Oh man. Wow. A little bit spicy, a little bit sweet, a little bit sour. All the spices in there are just jelling together. Absolutely killer. But on a
like this and you use a blender that's like 10 years old and the blades are knife, you may need to pass that through a sie if you have big chunks of chilies when you use a Vitamix, you really don't need to do that. that it's totally
said, let's get to work on our pork pounded out and ready for marination. And for this, I have boneless butt understand how that's pretty confusing. And what I'm going to do with this is
slice it in half this way. I actually had this in the freezer for about 30 easier to slice. Actually, longer is even better. From here, I'm going to even better. From here, I'm going to slice across about/ an inch thick, maybe
not done with it here. We got to pound this out cuz obviously these pieces are too thick. But we'll start with that. Now onto some parchment paper. I'm going to lay out my little pork. Another parchment paper on top. Meat mallet. And
we'll just get to pounding my friends. After a few good pounds, just flip her over and keep going. Switching to cast iron pan for more effect. Oh yeah, there we go. These are about
a/4 of an inch thick now, which I think is a good sort of reference to aim for. or a little thinner, it is going to work out either way, my friends. Just repeat and then we'll get to marinating. By the way, I cooled my marinade down in the
just going to put some down just to make this easy. And then we can drop in a a little less mixing. Doesn't really matter either way. Oh gosh. I mean, man,
like the achiote gives it that crazy color. Well, well, well. Let's be serious. It's the red number 40 that really gives it that crazy color which is in most achiotes but the seeds itself are red. I would prefer one without the
dye actually but this is what I could get. Let's do a little scrapey here. I am going to get in here with my hands. I like to just something about massaging marinade into meat feels like the move. And that got a little messy. So I highly
recommend you wipe down your bowl. Don't leave it like that. pineapple that doesn't contain the bromelene, we can go ahead and let this marinate as long as we want. I'm going 24 hours. And tomorrow, we'll build this
little stack of meat on our special meat tower pan complete with fresh pineapple because that sort of charred cooked pineapple with El Pastor tacos is like I mean, you have to have it. That is El Pastor. So, I'll see you tomorrow. Now,
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that can cook and check it off your list. Okay, 24 hours has elapsed. Let's work with this pineapple and build our meat tower. I'm going to start by taking the top off, which we'll use later as a
garnish. It's really just for the thumbnail, but nice to have. And then pineapple. You always cut pretty deep when you're going around a pineapple to get all those little eyes out. But what I do is I do a rough draft, if you will,
and then we'll come back around, get all these little eyes. Doing the two drafts, I think, is really just good for not wasting as much pineapple. And then what I'm going to do here is slice off a couple nice big chunks with the core in
that thick end like so. Rest we can save for whatever you want. Just eat it. Here's our pork shoulder. It smells absolutely insane. My god, look at the color. Insane. I even did like half the achiote that I found in most al pestor
recipes and it's plenty for the color. Now we're going to take my special little gyro meat tower pan, which is just a pan with these little metal different sizes, too, if you want to make a smaller one. I know people love
found in the description under the video if you want to get one. What I'm going to do here, let's get this really centered. Just looking on the bottom. Boom. We'll get a layer of pineapple down on the bottom here. And now we're
just going to start layering up our El Pastor. We'll just keep on stacking, my friends. Dear God. What I'm going to do is put in about half of my pork. And then we'll drop another pineapple ring right in there. And we'll continue with
our pork here. Something very satisfying about stacking up a meat tower. I have reserving for the top. And we'll cap it here with one more final little piece of pineapple. Get on you. Yeah. So, for now, this is going into a 350°
Fahrenheit oven with no fan on. Because of that little bit of agave in the hotter. I might turn it up in the end to get some more color on it, but for now, we'll stick to 350. And away she goes. And guys, consider subscribing and
turning the notifications on, unless you want me to start making videos where I the world, and I don't want to do that. That's way too many chips for one our el pastor is roasting away in the oven, this is a perfect time to blast
out a salsa. And for that, I'm going to be making a roasted tomatillo salsa. Not tomato. If you say tomatio, people get pissed. It's to toatio. And it's Starting with our tomatillos here. Tomatio salsa. Not tot.
little bit of a rinse off. Then I got some garlic with the peel still on. Couple jalapenos. You could use sranos too if you like. And then I got a white onion here. And what we're going to do, just top and tail it. And then save
garnish. So we'll slice it up in a bit. And then we'll quarter it. Get out that root right there. take off this layer, whatever that thing is. And then I'm little pieces. It's the same exact deal as the marinade we made yesterday. And
high heat for a few minutes. And I'm onions dancing around. Tomatillos, garlic, couple jalapenos. And so we're going to put this in the broiler next, but I like to start it in a hot pan just
bottom. Also charring it and blistering it a little bit. Kind of just under the broiler. And I wouldn't crowd your pan more than this. I'm pushing it a little bit here, but it'll do. And I love uh tomatillos love to squeak when
they die, apparently. Hear these things. They're screaming, dude. You can see getting brown. But I'm going to keep them on that one side. And after about 4 going to go right under a high heat broiler. And here we are after about 8
minutes. And depending on the strength of your broiler and how far away the food was from it, you may need to go shorter or longer. I had mine about 6 in char. I like the cook on everything. What I'm going to do now is just leave
it in the pan and let this cool down for like 15 20 minutes. And now, while we going to do, take off the outer layer, and we're just going to give it a dicing for our tacos later. And once that's done, what I like to do is to pop it in
ice water. This is a move I use for raw onions and all kinds of dishes and preparations because it removes a lot of that harshness from it, that breathy oniony flavor, and then it also really crisps them up and makes them super
crunchy. Good move if you've never tried it. Set these aside for now. Now, once start adding it all to a blender. Starting with the onions there, the out of its little peel now that it's blistered. Comes right out. And the
the skin protects the garlic while the inside cooks and gets that little garlic. So, we'll get all these out. Now, with the jalapenos, depending on whole thing in. Just take off the stem, obviously. Me, I don't want it to be
like too spicy. So, I'm going to just remove some of the seed and membrane. blender. And of course our tomatillos. And very important, you see all this juice in the pan. That's all good stuff. Get it in your salsa. Get it in there.
Look at all that. I'm also going to add salt right now. And then I'm going to be don't want a smooth salsa. I want it to be pretty chunky. To each their own. But just going to open the lid. Have a little look at it. Go a little bit more.
So that's it. Just about 15 seconds. Now we still have a little bit more work to do here. Now, let's get it out into a bowl. Nice texture on this. Still a lot already I can tell it's a little bit too thick, at least for my liking. So, water
is the the key move here. Just to get it to a consistency you like. A lot of true Mexican salsas are like really thin. A lot thinner than this. Add a little more a little thickness to it. This looks good to me. Now, we're going to take
that. And I'm just going to slice it once thin. I do it by knife instead of your knife is so much sharper and it's just going to do a better job. Something like that. Let's add that in. And now depending on how sour your toatillos
are, you may or may not want to add lime. I'm going to put a little lime in really the less sour and the more sweet they get. I think adding a little bit of acid back in is not a bad move. Let's give this a mix. And honestly, that
looks absolutely killer right now. I love the texture on it. I love the look of the bright, vibrant cilantro in with the darker green. Well, more swampy we got to do now is give it one final taste for essentially like the lime and
salt level in here. Love the look. I'm going to do the obvious chef thing and squeeze of lime. And it tastes absolutely awesome. Great balance. The heat is right where I want it. Right on that medium point. Awesome salsa. Going
to be great with this green salsa against that red vibrant El Pastor. Holy smokes. I'm excited. And here we are after exactly 90 minutes, my friends. What are you making for dinner? Oh, I just made this. It's a a triangle-shaped
I'm going to do now is take these drippings from the bottom of the pan and just base them all over this El Pastor and pineapple before returning to the and pineapple before returning to the oven.
watch that. That was insane. Let's run it back with clown music. point, it's definitely not done. You know what? Out of curiosity, let's temp
it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm getting a 104 reading like from the very middle. Back in it goes. I like the level of browning it's getting for this stage of cooking. I think we're right on par cuz we want some black chars on the outside. It
makes it look more like real al pastor. Back in the oven. And here we are, my friends. 2 hours and 15 minutes in all of its glory. I love the amount of char it has on it. For the last 30 minutes, I turned the oven up to 370 just to get a
again, because of the sugar, I don't think you want to start this at like much before the inside is cooked. So, starting low and then increasing the temp as you go seems like the move with the basing. All I'm going to do now is
actually dump the juice out from the bottom of the pan. I do want to try some mixed back in with the juice and I want to try some just sliced off clean like that. So, let's let it rest for about 15 minutes before slicing it up. And I'm
having it on flour tortillas with my salsa, a little bit of raw onion and salsa, a little bit of raw onion and cilantro.
tortillas. Of course, like the purists will go for corn, but these paper thin flowery tortillas, like I don't know, man. This looks so good. These aren't even taco tortillas. They're a little big. Mhm.
>> I know. That pineapple that was on the top that got all like a little bit charred. I sliced a few pieces of that. Holy smokes. This is excellent. >> Honestly, like if there was a Mexican restaurant, you're like, I got this. I'd
be so happy. Sometimes they skimp you on the pineapple. Here, you get as much as you want. Oh my god. Until it's gone. But it's so good. Spice level is like great for me. It's warming me up. It's a little spicy, but like under medium
>> And the raw onions are so crunchy and good in here. Actually, going to eat a bunch more of these. I mean, God, this is great. thing. There's certainly an element to me of theater with stacking this all up,
right? And if you want to serve it with the pineapple top, it is cool. And like everyone is going to be super stoked from a culinary standpoint. If you just marinated the shoulder and pounded it out like I did and then you just take it
outside and cook it over a charcoal grill, I would say that'll probably be even better. But again, that's like the culinary thinking. And then then there's like the wow and like just the presentation of this, which is also a
way, going to be absolutely amazing if you make this. So yeah, make it. On another note, if you've ever wanted to join a really cool food family, I now community here on YouTube, and it's a place for me to post all the techniques
and recipes that don't really fit on a mainstream YouTube channel. It's kind of all my favorite stuff, to be honest. And the best part is just all the incredible you want to learn more, just click the join button on my channel. Thanks for
next time, you know I love you and I'm out.