Last Updated on 17th December 2021 by
Birria is a Mexican stew made using either lamb or beef and with a number of spices. It is usually served with onion and cilantro in a consommé broth. How can a stew be a taco? I am going to show you how to make birria tacos in a traditional way so that you can enjoy this authentic, delicious dish at any time.
Birria tacos Is definitely one of the lesser known Mexican dishes that I would highly recommend everyone try. It’s not as quick and easy as making conventional tacos, but it gives you flavor and texture that is uniquely its own.
The tacos that are used for this dish are usually
How to Make Birria Tacos and Consommé
This is a fairly complex dish, and I’m going to show you a rather simple way how to make it, because I’ll be breaking it down step by step for you.
How to Make Birria Tacos and Consommé
Ingredients
The Meat:
- 2 pounds of boneless chuck
- 1 pound of oxtail
- 1 tsp of vegetable oil
The Sauce:
- 3 chiles de arbol
- 7 ancho chiles
- 7 guajillo chiles
- 6 garlic cloves
- 1 white onion
- 1 tbsp of black pepper
- 4 Roma tomatoes
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 tsp of coriander seeds
- 1 tsp of dried Mexican oregano
- 1 tsp of cumin seeds
- ½ cinnamon stick
- 1 tsp of apple cider vinegar
- 3 cups of beef broth
The Tacos:
- Corn tortillas
- Kosher salt
- 3 ounces of Oaxacan cheese
- ¼ cup of cilantro
- ¼ white onion
- Lime juice from 1 lime
Instructions
- Start by letting the meat defrost and come to room temperature. Salt it heavily.
- Place the meat in a large pot and cook on medium high heat. The meat needs to cook for about 3 minutes on each side until you have cooked through all of your meat. Set the meat to the side.
- Add in all of your spices, onions, garlic, chilies, and tomatoes to the empty pot. Be sure they are chopped and diced small enough to become bite size. Cover all your ingredients with water and allow them to simmer for 20 minutes. Cook until the chiles and tomatoes are very soft.
- Drain the excess liquid out and pour all of your pot ingredients into a blender. Add a cup to a cup and a half of beef broth and blend until smooth.
- Then reintroduce the meat to the pot and cover with your sauce. You can pour some beef broth into the blender and swirl it around to get the excess sauce out of the blender and pour that into your pot as well. Cook everything in the pot on a low simmer and cover with a lid.
- Put the pot in the oven to braise, cooking for about 3 hours. You want to cook until the meat is able to shred very easily.
- Take the meat out of the sauce and use two forks to shred it.
- The sauce you've made is called consommé, and the next step is to take some of that out in a bowl separately. Add in a little bit of beef broth to help thin it out and then add in cilantro, onion, salt, and a little lime juice.
- Add some of the sauce (the consommé) to a bowl and add a little beef broth if it needs to be thinned out. Mix all of that together and dip a corn tortilla in the sauce. Then, cook the corn tortilla on a skillet on medium high heat. It's best if you use a nonstick skillet or grease the skillet.
- Once the tortilla is cooked on one side, you can flip it over and add in some shredded meat and cheese. Fold the tortilla into a taco shape to ensure it cooks on both sides to melt the cheese and to give the outside of the taco a crispy texture.
- Place your tacos on a baking sheet into an oven preheated to 200 degrees Fahrenheit. Allow the tacos to stay in there until all of your tacos have been made. This keeps them warm and fresh tasting for when you're ready to eat them.
Tips for How to Make Birria Tacos y Consommé
There are a few little pointers I want to share with you about how to make this dish. As you can see, there’s a bit of a process to it, and it’s not as quick and simple as regular tacos. There is more room for error, so having a few little cooking tips may help you avoid some common mistakes.
You can make a lot of this ahead of time. I wouldn’t suggest making the tacos ahead of time, but the meat and consommé can be made and stored a few days ahead of when you are going to have the meal.
If you’re having trouble locating some of the ingredients, you can use a Mexican supermarket to find them. It is best if you can use authentic ingredients listed in the recipe here, but there are also substitutions you can use that work fairly well.
Because this dish uses a stew, you can make it in a slow cooker or Instant Pot, if you like. Keep in mind that you don’t want to make your stew too watery, as you’ll be putting it into a taco rather than eating it as a stew. If your birria is too watery, you can thicken it up with cornstarch or just drain some of the water out.
There are lots of different kinds of meat that could be used for this dish. While it is usually made with lamb or beef, goat, and chicken work okay as well. If you’re making this dish for the first time, you might want to skip the braising step.
That gives you the authentic texture and taste for the dish, but it’s understandable that some people might want to speed up the dish to make it easier on themselves. Just make sure that your meat is cooked fully before adding it to the tacos.
If the dish comes out too spicy, then next time you may want to remove the seeds out of the chili peppers before adding them.
I'm Pauline, a mother of four grown children, my passion for cooking stemmed from the joy i get cooking for my family. I love to try new dishes, especially when dining out but creating and sharing my own recipes is my favourite thing to do!
