For an impressive taco night that feeds a crowd, cook juicy cuts of meat in an aromatic guajillo chile sauce slowly until tender. Mexican barbacoa varies depending on the region and although traditionally cooked in underground pits, you can use your stove to replicate results at home.
| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 2 hr 45 min |
| Prep: | 5 min |
| Cook: | 2 hr 40 min |
| Yield: | 6 servings |
Ingredients
- 8 dried guajillo chiles, stemmed and seeded
- 2 plum tomatoes, quartered
- 1 small white onion, quartered
- 8 cloves garlic, unpeeled
- Kosher salt
- 2 pounds beef chuck, cut into 1- to 2-inch pieces
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 cup roughly chopped fresh cilantro (leaves and stems)
- 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
- 2 bay leaves
- Freshly ground black pepper
- Corn tortillas, warmed, and assorted toppings, for serving
Instructions
- Heat a large cast-iron skillet or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the chiles and cook, pressing them down with a spatula, 10 seconds per side; transfer to a plate. Add the tomatoes, onion and garlic to the skillet and cook, stirring once or twice, until the vegetables are charred in spots, about 10 minutes.
- Peel the garlic and transfer to a blender along with the tomatoes and onion (reserve the skillet). Tear the chiles into pieces and add to the blender along with 1/2 cup water and 1 teaspoon salt; pulse until smooth. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into the skillet, pressing it through with the back of a spoon.
- Add the beef to the skillet and turn to coat in the chile sauce using tongs. Cook over medium-high heat, turning occasionally, until a crust starts to form on the meat, about 10 minutes. Sprinkle in the cumin, cinnamon and cayenne pepper and cook 1 more minute. Meanwhile, puree 2 1/2 cups water, the cilantro and thyme in the blender; add to the skillet along with the bay leaves.
- Reduce the heat to low. Cover and gently simmer until the meat is very tender, about 2 hours, adding up to 1 1/2 cups water if the sauce gets too thick. Remove the bay leaves and season with salt and black pepper. Serve in tortillas with assorted toppings.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 6 servings |
| Calories | 226 |
| Total Fat | 8 g |
| Saturated Fat | 3 g |
| Carbohydrates | 7 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Sugar | 1 g |
| Protein | 34 g |
| Cholesterol | 95 mg |
| Sodium | 456 mg |
Reviews
I made these today. I followed the recipe …I think. I was concerned when I strained the Chile mixture it seemed like a lot of liquid. It was definitely too much to allow the meat to get a crust in 10 minutes. I only added half of the cilantro, thyme water mix after about 1.5 hours of cooking with the lid off and at a low simmer to allow it to reduce. I did put the lid on around 2 hrs. The result after 3 hours was a perfectly, delicious barbacoa taco filling! I will make these regularly, the only change would be to double it!
Made this tonight. We mostly followed the recipe as written except we browned the meat, sans sauce, in our Instant Pot, once browned, we added the red sauce and the cilantro mixture and pressure cooked on high for 30 minutes and allowed it to release for 15 minutes. After removing the meat to shred, we simmered the sauce for 10 minutes to reduce it down a bit. At the table, we topped with sliced red onion and the sauce. Absolutely delicious!
I made this during remodeling the kitchen. I didn’t have all of the seasonings on hand, so I winged it! I used the InstaPot and it turned out delicious! It was a little labor intensive, but worth every minute! The perfect recipe, spot-on spices and oh so tender and juicy! Thank you Food Network! You always have the Best Recipes! And I love my Kitchen App, I use it practically every day!
Worth every minute of it, dont confuse the 10 seconds of chilli charring with 10 mins because you dont see seconds in recipe instructions often… But overall it was a light delightful dish. Be sure to add diced onions to add that extra flare. If you dont feel like making a salsa just run to a nearby restaurant where they serve free salsa and load up. Keep it simple.
I Loved the recipe it was easy.I mixed all ingredients in a blender put it over my meat and put it in my pressure cooker for one hour. It was perfect and the sauce that it has you could use on enchiladas! The meat was super tender and moist !
A bit too complicated. I started coughing when cooking the chilis and they added a bit more heat than I would prefer. The beef didnt cook right, got too burnt on the outside and really chewy inside. This recipe is more for advanced chefs. I’ll be using a slow cooker for barbacoa tacos in the future.
I had high hopes for this but the tomatoes, onions and garlic burned the bottom of my dutch oven. I was surprised it didn’t call for any oil given that it was on medium-high. If I make this again, I’ll roast the tomatoes, onions and garlic in the oven.
What a waste:(
Perfect. Best barbacoa ever. I agree with the below, it won’t get thick. Another tip, shred the meat after a couple of hours. Perfect.
I made this recipe today and it was delicious! My house smelled wonderful and the tacos were amazing. I tweaked the recipe by using New Mexico chiles, added a charred chile de arbol to blender, added peppercorns and more salt/pepper to meat. . I also added a lil oil before pouring the chile sauce in pot. Garnished tacos with diced onions, cilantro, homemade salsa and lime. Served with Spanish rice. I will make this again very soon. I also took an awesome picture.
Quite labor intensive. Also, as we2r1 indicated, the end result was soupy and the pieces of meat were quite big. The problem that we had was that our meat was not at all tender or moist (we followed the cook times and temperatures. We liked the flavor, but for the amount of work that we did, it was sadly disappointing.