Pan con Lechon

Name: Pan con Lechon
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 150 min
Total time: 170 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Cuban
Ingredients: 3 lbs boneless pork shoulder, trimmed; 8 garlic cloves, minced; 1 cup sour orange juice; 1 tsp ground cumin; 1 tsp dried oregano; 2 tsp salt; 2 tbsp olive oil; 2 yellow onion, sliced; 4 Cuban bread rolls, halved

A classic Cuban sandwich packed with tender mojo-marinated roast pork and sautéed onions on crispy toasted bread.

170 minMediumServes 4620 cal/serving

CubanLunchOven and StovetopStandardHigh ProteinNut-FreeDairy-FreeSoy-FreeEgg-FreeShellfish-FreeSesame-FreeAlcohol-FreeNightshade-FreeCorn-Free

Cook this free in the appFree. No download, no account. The screen stays awake and each step can run its own timer.

Ingredients

3 lbs boneless pork shoulder, trimmed
8 garlic cloves, minced
1 cup sour orange juice
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
2 yellow onion, sliced
4 Cuban bread rolls, halved

Instructions

1

Mix 8 minced garlic cloves, 1 cup sour orange juice, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp dried oregano, and 2 tsp salt in a bowl to create mojo marinade.
2

Rub marinade over 3 lbs trimmed boneless pork shoulder, cover with foil, and bake at 350°F for 2.5 hours until internal temperature reaches 185°F.
3

Rest boneless pork shoulder for 15 minutes, then shred using two forks.
4

Warm 2 tbsp olive oil in a skillet, then cook 2 sliced yellow onion over medium heat until tender.
5

Fill 4 halved Cuban bread rolls with shredded boneless pork shoulder and sautéed yellow onion, then press and toast until crunchy.

Cook this free in the appCooking it now? The app keeps the screen awake and times each step. Free, nothing to install.

Keep this recipe

Prints the ingredients and method only.

The Cuban Kitchen 30 recipes from this kitchen in one printable PDF. $5, no account.

About Pan con Lechon

Also called: pan con lechón, Cuban roast pork sandwich, pan de lechón, lechon sandwich

Pan con lechón is a Cuban roast pork sandwich: shredded pork shoulder marinated in mojo, piled into Cuban bread with onions softened in oil, then pressed and toasted until the crust shatters. It is sold at Cuban cafeterias and lunch counters in Havana, Miami and Tampa, and it is the plainer cousin of the Cubano, which adds ham, Swiss cheese, pickles and mustard.

The flavor comes from the mojo. Sour orange juice, garlic, cumin and oregano soak into the pork before a long, covered roast at 350°F, which takes the shoulder to 185°F, the point where the connective tissue has broken down and the meat pulls apart with two forks. The bread matters almost as much as the pork. Cuban bread is a long white loaf made with a little lard, with a thin crisp crust and a soft, light crumb. It flattens well under a press and toasts evenly, which is why the sandwich holds together when pressed.

Serving and keeping

Serve hot and cut on the diagonal, with plantain chips or a cold malta. The shredded pork keeps 4 days in the refrigerator with its juices.

Variations

Lechón asado plate

Serve the shredded pork without bread, with white rice, black beans and fried sweet plantains.

With mojo on the sandwich

Warm a few spoonfuls of the pan juices or extra mojo and spoon them over the pork before closing the bread.

Cubano

Layer the pork with sliced ham, Swiss cheese, dill pickles and yellow mustard, then press the same way.

If it goes wrong

The pork will not shred

It has not reached 185°F yet. Cover it again and return it to the oven, checking every 20 minutes; shoulder that reads 160°F to 170°F is cooked but still tight.

The pork tastes flat

Taste the pan juices and toss the shredded meat with some of them and a pinch of salt. Shredding exposes new surfaces that the marinade never touched.

The bread steams instead of crisping

Drain the pork before filling and press the sandwich in a dry skillet or panini press with a weight on top. Too much liquid in the filling softens the crumb.

The onions are watery

Cook them in the oil over medium heat until the liquid has evaporated and they are soft and lightly golden before they go on the sandwich.

Substitutions

sour orange juice: 2 parts fresh orange juice to 1 part fresh lime juice. The standard stand-in where sour (Seville) oranges are not sold; slightly sweeter.
Cuban bread: a soft French or Italian loaf. Choose one with a thin crust; a hard baguette crust tears the roof of the mouth after pressing.
pork shoulder: bone-in pork shoulder of the same weight. Adds roughly 30 minutes of oven time; pull the bone before shredding.

Questions

How long does Pan con Lechon take?

As written, 170 minutes: 20 of prep and 150 of cooking. The longest single stretch is step 2 (2.5 hours): "Rub marinade over 3 lbs trimmed boneless pork shoulder, cover with foil, and bake at 350°F for 2.5 hours until internal temperature reaches 185°F."

What internal temperature should Pan con Lechon reach?

For Pan con Lechon, the target internal temperature is 350 F (about 175 C), given in step 2. A probe thermometer removes the guesswork. The target internal temperature is 185 F (about 85 C), given in step 2. A probe thermometer removes the guesswork.

Why rest the meat in Pan con Lechon?

Step 3 reads: "Rest boneless pork shoulder for 15 minutes, then shred using two forks." Heat drives the juices toward the center. The rest in step 3 lets them spread back out, so they stay in the meat instead of running onto the board when you cut.

Can I make Pan con Lechon gluten-free?

Yes. The gluten in Pan con Lechon is 4 Cuban bread rolls, halved. Swap the bread or crumbs for a gluten-free loaf or gluten-free panko. Everything else proceeds as written.

How many calories are in Pan con Lechon?

One serving (the recipe makes 4) is about 620 calories, with 42 g protein, 48 g carbohydrate and 26 g fat, plus 3 g fiber and 880 mg sodium. The figures are estimates computed from the ingredient list.

Serve it with

Cook this free in the app

Textual Chef is 4,544 plain-text recipes, free to read and free to cook from. No account, no paywall, no ads, no life stories. Open this one in the app and each quantity sits inside the step that uses it, so you read once and cook.

Every recipe is curated or public-domain sourced, written to one template and checked before it publishes. Nothing here is a scraped blog post.

Cook this free in the appNo download needed. It opens in your browser. The kitchen tools (planner, shopping list, pantry, import) are $5.33 a month billed annually; the first 30 days are free.