Elevate your Taco Tuesday with the best Birria Tacos recipe of tender shredded beef and melty cheese inside a crispy pan-fried taco.
If you love taco recipes, you have to try Tacos Al Pastor, Korean Beef Tacos, Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos, or Salmon Tacos!
Birria Tacos make life so, so good.
Birria Tacos make life so, so good.I dream of eating these birria tacos every week. They’re just SO delicious! They first gained popularity when some genius used the meat and consommé broth from Mexican Beef Birria Stew to make tacos! And taco form is now the ultimate way to enjoy birria (but I love a good Beef Birria Ramen and Beef Birria stew any day)!
This recipe isn’t difficult, but if you’re taking the time to make homemade birria tacos you may as well double the batch and freeze the leftovers for another meal. You can also make beef birria a few days ahead of time, so it’s ready to go for you tacos.
Ingredients Needed:
- Sauce Ingredients: Dried chiles, tomatoes, onion, garlic, and spices.
- Beef: I like a combination of bone-in short ribs and chuck roast.
- Corn Tortillas: use my recipe to make your own or buy soft white or yellow corn tortillas.
- Oaxaca Cheese: The most authentic choice and melts perfectly. Mozzarella and Monterey jack cheese are good substitutes.
- White Onion: chopped finely. Red onion would also work.
- Cilantro and lime: for a must-have garnish.
- Optional Homemade Hot Salsa: the best way to elevate these tacos even more! You’ll need dried pasilla chiles and arbol chiles, tomatillos, garlic, onion, salt & pepper.
How to make Birria Tacos (in a nutshell):
Prep Meat and Chiles: Trim fat from roast and cut into a few large pieces. Use gloves to remove stems and seeds from chiles.
Make Sauce: It comes together quickly and simmers for 15 minutes before blending smooth, and straining it back into the pot, to cook the meat.
Add Beef and cook until tender, about 2 ½ hours.
Assemble Tacos: Dip corn tortillas in the broth, top with shredded meat, cheese, onion, and cilantro, then fry that beauty until crispy.
Serve quesabirria tacos with a cup of consommé broth for dipping.
Make Ahead and Freezing Instructions:
To Make Ahead: The birria meat and broth can be made a few days in advance, stored in airtight containers in the fridge until ready to assemble and serve.
To Freeze: Store leftover beef birria and broth in a freezer-safe container and freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw in the fridge, then warm and assemble your tacos.
Recipe Variations:
- Chicken Birria Tacos: Make the broth as instructed, and instead of adding beef, add bone-in, skinless chicken thighs to the sauce. Cook chicken for 30 minutes, or until tender and cooked through. Shred chicken and assemble and serve tacos as instructed.
- Crockpot Birria Tacos: Make broth, as instructed, then add to slow cooker with beef. Cook on LOW for 6-8 hours, until meat is tender. Assemble tacos as instructed.
Serve Quesabirria tacos with:
- Elote (Mexican Corn)
- Authentic Mexican Rice
- Borracho Beans
- Charro Beans
- Horchata
- Sopapillas
- Tres Leches Cake
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Recipe
Birria Tacos
Equipment
Ingredients
Birria Beef:
- 3 lb beef chuck roast , fat trimmed
- 4 bone-in beef short ribs
- 8 dried guajillo chile peppers*
- 3 dried pasilla chile peppers*
- 2-3 dried arbol chile peppers*
- 5 Roma tomatoes , quartered (about 1.5lbs)
- 1 white onion , roughly chopped
- 1 head garlic (10-12 cloves)
- 1 Tablespoon whole black peppercorns
- 1 Tablespoon whole cumin seeds
- 1 Tablespoon Dried oregano
- 1 Tablespoon dried thyme
- 1/2 teaspoon whole coriander seed
- 4 whole cloves
- 1 teaspoon fresh minced ginger
- 1 inch piece Mexican cinnamon stick* or ⅛ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 Tablespoons apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 Tablespoon kosher salt
For the Tacos:
- 15 corn tortillas , white or yellow
- 2 1/2 cups shredded Oaxaca cheese , or use mozzarella or Monterey jack
- 1/2 of a white onion , diced
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro , chopped
- 2 limes cut into small wedges
Instructions
- Cut chuck roast into a few large pieces and season with salt.
- Prep chiles: rinse (use gloves if desired) and use scissors to open and remove stem and seeds. (For extra spice, leave arbol chiles whole).
- Birria broth: Add tomatoes and onion to a large stock pot (at least 5.5qt pot or bigger) over medium heat. Cook for a few minutes, stirring. Add whole garlic cloves, chile peppers, and all of the spices except the bay leaf. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add vinegar and 4 cups water. Bring to a low boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 15 minutes, uncovered.
- Blend: Add mixture to a blender and blend as smooth as possible. Pour mixture through a fine mesh strainer, back into the pot. Add 4 cups of water to the blender and swirl it around to clean excess sauce from the blender, then add it to the pot.
- Cook beef: Add 1 Tablespoon kosher salt. Bring to a boil. Add short ribs, chuck roast and 3 bay leaves. Cover, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 2 ½ hours. Check beef to make sure it’s tender, then remove to a plate and shred. Discard bones and bay leaves.
- Assemble Tacos: Heat a large griddle or skillet over medium heat. Coat pan with a small amount of oil. Dip a corn tortilla into the birria sauce and lay tortilla on hot pan. Quickly top some shredded meat, cheese, chopped onion and cilantro. Fold tortilla over, in half. Fry for several minutes, until crispy and browned on the bottom. Flip and cook until crispy and browned on the other side. Remove to a plate, for serving.
- Serve: Sprinkle remaining chopped white onion and cilantro on top of prepared tacos. Serve quesabirria tacos with a cup of warm consommé broth, for dipping. We also like to serve with the hot salsa recipe in the notes below.
- *Save any leftover sauce by freezing for up to 3 months, and reheating to cook another roast inside.
Notes
- 2 chiles pasilla
- 5 arbol chiles
- 10 tomatillo
- 3 cloves garlic
- Small piece onion
- Salt and pepper
Nutrition
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I originally shared this recipe May 2022. Updated October 2024.
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I’ve made this twice now and it’s been a hit to the point where there are no leftovers and people are willing to hurt themselves to make sure of that, hahaha.
Just enough ingredients to make it pop with flavor (we have some have-to-please birria afficionados in the fam and they are always very happy) but not enough to make the recipe overly complicated, and the recipe itself is easily executed.
10/10 and this will be the go-to birria recipe to make and share. Well done!
Delicious and adapts really well too the instant pot. Pressure cook the sauce ingredients 10 min. Blend in the pot with immersion blender. Add the meat (I used chicken) and pressure cook based on which meat. For chicken thighs I did ten on high. Super tender.
While the meat was tender, the sauce lacked flavor, even though I followed the recipe to a tee. Definitely not worth the effort.
Made this for the first time and it was fantastic! I did use beef soup base in place of the salt, but that is the only change I made. The whole family loved it and I appreciate that there is enough sauce left over to create another meal (as making the sauce is a labor of love). Though it did take quite a bit of time and effort to put this meal together, it was COMPLETELY worth it! So, so good! Looking forward to making it again.
I followed the exact ingredients in the recipe but I noticed in the video instead of using Arbol chiles you used ancho. Was that a mistake or does the Ancho do something different? Less spice? Thank you!
This recipe is great! I’m going to make it again soon. I think I struggled most with how much short rib to use in lbs. Can you suggest how much you used? Also, have you ever done this with just chuck roast and no short rib?
You take this Oso meat marinated with tongue and lather it up real well