Make delicious, aromatic birria at home! Enjoy this traditional Mexican recipe as a stew garnished with cilantro, onions, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice, or as the well-known birria tacos! There are countless options, and they’re all delicious.
Presenting the well-known, incredibly tasty, and increasingly well-liked birria recipe! There’s a reason brigada has become so popular: it tastes so damn amazing!
The melt-in-your-mouth tender beef is enhanced with layers of flavor by the richness of the savory and spicy red chile broth.
WHAT IS BIRRIA?
Traditional Jaliscoan cuisine, brirria, is created with slow-cooked, fall-apart juicy, tender beef in a delicious broth flavored with red chilies, or consomé.
Traditionally, it’s prepared for holidays, weddings, parties, and even christenings, but these days, it’s so widely available thanks to social media!
Typically, it’s eaten as a flavorful stew topped with chopped cilantro, onions, and lime juice that has just been squeezed, or as quesabirria tacos—cheese tacos loaded with melting cheese!
BIRRIA INGREDIENTS
- Dried chilies: Arbol, ancho, and guajillo chilies are required. They can be found in a specialist Mexican grocery shop or in the international foods section of your neighborhood supermarket. Purchasing them online is usually a fantastic choice if you can’t locate them locally! Don’t worry if you’ve never worked with dried chiles before. Using them in the recipe is simple, and I take you through every step of the process.
- Bay leaves and spices: I used three bay leaves, black peppercorns, ground clove, cumin, Mexican oregano, and ground garlic. You may use standard oregano if you don’t have Mexican oregano. Should you be unable to get Mexican or Ceylon cinnamon sticks, you may use two tablespoons of ground cinnamon.
- Beef: You can use rump roast, but I like to use chuck roast because of its fat content and tenderizing ability.
- Broth: Vegetable broth is an option, but using beef broth brings out the taste of the meat in the consomé.
- Vinegar: Gives the consomé a really tasty tart taste that goes extremely well with the red chilies!
- Garlic, onion, and tomato are staples that enhance taste intensity.
HOW TO MAKE BIRRIA
Sear and season: Sprinkle salt and pepper on both sides of the meat. Next, add olive oil to a Dutch oven and place it over medium-high heat. When the meat is added, sauté it until browned on both sides. Perhaps you will have to work in two bunches. After searing all of the meat, remove it.
To soak the chiles, put all of the dried chiles, tomatoes, onion, bay leaves, cinnamon stick, and peppercorns in a medium-sized saucepan and cover with water. After bringing to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer for ten minutes.
Blend: Add 1 cup of water soaked in the chilies to a blender along with everything else once the chiles have softened. Pour in the vinegar, broth, and the rest of the spices. Blend for about five minutes, or until smooth.
Cook: (If needed, based on the power of your blender) Strain the blended sauce into the saucepan with the seared beef, mix carefully, and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer until meat is falling apart, 3 to 3 and a half hours.
Shred: Remove the meat off the bone and return the shredded meat to the dish.
SERVING BIRRIA
The greatest thing about creating briga is that it can be enjoyed in a variety of ways! Whether you decide to eat your birria as a stew with lots of that broth or as a dip, make sure to enjoy it both ways.
- Birria: Garnish with chopped cilantro, diced onion, and freshly squeezed lime juice and serve like a stew in bowls.
- Birria tacos: Lightly cook a corn tortilla on a heated pan after dipping it in the consomé. The rendered shredded beef contains a lot of fat, so the consomé won’t need to be fried in extra oil to cook it to perfection. Top your taco with chopped onions, lime juice, cilantro, and shredded meat.
- Quesabirria: Prepare as directed above, but top with a generous amount of shredded Oaxaca cheese—or any other melting cheese—! To make a taco, fold the tortilla, then fry it on a pan until the cheese melts. Accompany with chopped onions and cilantro.
ADJUSTING THE SPICE LEVEL
I would categorize this dish as medium to spicy because brigada is often made with spices ranging from medium to hot.
If you want a real medium spiciness, use just 3 arbol chiles. Use no arbol chiles if you want a moderate spiciness. Use anywhere from 7 to 10 arbol chiles for a spicy taste.
RECOMMENDED TOOLS TO MAKE THIS RECIPE
- One of my most used cooking gadgets is the oven-safe dutch oven.
- Frequently use a slotted spoon to transfer rehydrated chilies to a blender for all of my Mexican sauce recipes.
- Blender: When mixing chiles to prepare Mexican sauces, a strong blender is essential.
- Strainer: To guarantee your chile sauce and consomé are smooth, a strainer is helpful if you don’t have a very strong blender.
STORING AND REHEATING
Birria can be kept for up to five days in the refrigerator or three months in the freezer when kept in an airtight container.
If the birria is frozen, defrost it in the fridge overnight before heating it in the microwave or a saucepan over medium-high heat for five minutes.
MORE RECIPES YOU MIGHT LIKE
- Slow Cooker Stuffed Peppers
- Slow Roasted Pork Shoulder
- 15 Minute Black Bean and Spinach Burritos
- Pozole Rojo
Authentic Birria
Ingredients
- 4 to 5 pounds chuck roast cut into large 4-inch chunks
- ½ tablespoon kosher salt
- ½ tablespoon black pepper
- 1 ½ tablespoon olive oil
- 12 guajillo chiles rinsed, stemmed, and seeded (about 2.5 oz)
- 5 ancho chiles rinsed, stemmed, and seeded (about 2 oz)
- 5 árbol chiles rinsed and stemmed (about 0.1 oz)
- 2 large Roma tomatoes
- ½ medium yellow onion
- 1 4- inch Mexican cinnamon stick*
- 3 bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- water as needed
- 2 cups beef broth
- ¼ cup distilled white vinegar
- 5 cloves garlic
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano*
- ½ teaspoon ground cloves
Instructions
- Season the meat generously on both sides with salt and pepper, and place a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat with the olive oil.
- Add the meat and fry it on both sides until it is browned, working in two batches. After turning off the heat, return the seared meat to the saucepan and put it aside.
- Add the tomatoes, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, cinnamon stick, guajillo, ancho, and arbol chiles to a medium saucepan while the meat is searing. Bring the water to a boil over high heat, making sure to cover thoroughly. After lowering the heat to low, cook for ten minutes with a lid on.
- The melted chiles and all the other ingredients should be added to a large blender using a slotted spoon.
- Add the beef broth, white vinegar, cloves, cumin, oregano, and one cup of the cooking water that has been steeped in chiles. For a few minutes, blend on high until very smooth. Should your blender be too small, you might need to divide this into two batches.)
- Pour the blended sauce into the saucepan with the seared meat after straining it through a fine mesh strainer. Throw away any leftover solids.
- Bring the beef and chile sauce to a boil over high heat, stirring to mix well. Once the meat is fall-apart tender, reduce the heat to low, cover, and simmer for 3 to 3 ½ hours.
- Using two forks, shred the meat after transferring it to a large basin. Reintroduce the meat into the consomé and serve as a stew in bowls with chopped cilantro and sliced onion, or as tacos with chopped cilantro, diced onions, and shredded Oaxaca cheese wrapped in corn tortillas.
Notes
- Mexican cinnamon: Two tablespoons of ground Ceylon cinnamon can be used in place of a Mexican cinnamon stick, also called a Ceylon cinnamon stick. In case Ceylon cinnamon is unavailable, I suggest utilizing two tablespoons of ground Cassia cinnamon instead. Your cinnamon is probably Cassia cinnamon if the label doesn’t specify which variety it is.
- Regular oregano can be substituted with Mexican oregano in case you don’t have any.
- The degree of spice in this dish is in the middle of medium and spicy. Only 3 chiles de arbol should be used for a real medium spiciness. Use no chiles de arbol for moderate spice.