There is no chili powder used in the Mexican dish asado de puerco, which is a stewed pork dish. Guajillo chilies offer a strong smoky flavor, while ancho chiles add a hint of sweet smokiness. We always add sliced onions marinated with fresh lemon juice on the top of ours to up the flavor.
| Prep Time: | 20 mins |
| Cook Time: | 3 hrs 45 mins |
| Additional Time: | 10 mins |
| Total Time: | 4 hrs 15 mins |
| Servings: | 18 |
| Yield: | 18 tacos |
Ingredients
- 6 dried guajillo chile peppers, seeded
- 4 dried chile de arbol peppers, stemmed and seeded
- 2 dried ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
- 1 tablespoon olive oil, or as needed
- 4 medium Roma tomatoes
- 2 tablespoons white vinegar
- 2 cloves garlic
- 2 teaspoons ground black pepper
- 4 whole cloves
- 1 pinch ground cinnamon
- 1 pinch ground cumin
- 1 pinch ground thyme
- 1 pinch dried marjoram
- 1 pinch dried oregano
- 1 pinch salt
- 4 pounds beef chuck roast
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- 18 corn tortillas
- 1 large white onion, finely chopped
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1 cup shredded queso asadero (white Mexican cheese) (Optional)
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Fill a pot with water and bring to a boil.
- Start the sauce: Add guajillo, arbol, and ancho chile peppers to the boiling water; boil for 5 minutes. Remove pot from the heat and allow peppers to soak until cool. Drain, reserving 1/4 cup of the cooking water.
- Meanwhile, sear the meat: Rinse beef and pat dry with paper towels. Cut beef into chunks if desired, and season with salt and pepper.
- Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add beef and cook until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.
- While the beef is searing, continue the sauce: Line a heavy cast-iron grill pan or griddle with aluminum foil and place over high heat. Arrange tomatoes in a single layer on top. Grill until tomato skin is burned on all sides and begins to peel, 3 to 5 minutes.
- Place cooled chile peppers into a blender. Add vinegar, garlic, 2 teaspoons black pepper, cloves, cinnamon, cumin, thyme, marjoram, oregano, and salt in a blender. Pour in the reserved 1/4 cup of chile water and blend until smooth.
- Strain chile sauce through a mesh strainer and pour over browned meat in the Dutch oven, turning the roast so it is completely covered with sauce; cover with a lid.
- Bake in the preheated oven, basting meat every 45 minutes with sauce, until birria begins to fall apart, 3 to 4 hours. Remove the lid and bake, uncovered, until birria is crispy on top, about 20 minutes. Remove from oven, cover with 2 layers of aluminum foil, and allow to rest in a warm area for 10 minutes.
- Remove meat to a cutting board and strain off any fat from the sauce. Shred meat with two forks, then return meat to the pot and stir with the sauce to combine.
- Assemble and heat tacos: Fill each tortilla with birria and top with Mexican cheese, chopped onion, and cilantro. Warm tortillas on a griddle, flipping until both sides are crispy and cheese is melted.
- Serve with extra sauce on the side for dipping.
- You can prepare this dish in a slow cooker as well, but you will be sacrificing a little bit of flavor. Prepare the birria the same way, but place in a slow cooker instead of a Dutch oven and cook on High for 4 to 6 hours or on Low for 6 to 8 hours.
Reviews
It was absolutely delicious but didn’t did not have any sauce left over. Next time I make it, I will double the sauce portion for the dipping sauce.
This is wonderful- so much flavor! I did not use any arbol chili, but did not miss the extra heat, at all. Can’t wait for the summer heat to leave, so I can make it, again!
Wow! Great flavors. I used a sirloin roast (in freezer). Followed directions with the exception of not having all the peppers so I substituted a habanero. Very flavorful. My husband wants this again. We had margaritas to go with our meal! Definitely a great date night meal!!!!
Yum! I cooked it with cut up tortillas added in the last 10 minutes, with cheese on top, rather than as tacos, but otherwise followed the directions. This was great!
Where’s the liquid in this recipe? (1/4 cup of reserved pepper water and the juice from the tomatoes and peppers doesn’t cut it) You really need to add in an additional quart of liquid here somewhere, either water or beef broth to actually have any kind of sauce, especially for dipping
More like 5 stars. The recipe itself needs some fine tuning. I had alot of spicy water left over. It was delicious time consuming but everyone loved it and we will make it a taco tuesday tradition!!
I dipped the tortillas in the sauce, added cheese and made queso birria tacos. Very tasty.
I’ve made this twice so far and it has been amazing both times. I’m not always able to find the exact peppers it calls for so I just pick and chose what sounds good.
Made this tonight and followed the recipe as written.. this is a keeper! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve never had Birria before and wanted to try something new. The meat was so tender and flavorful! I did not have chile de arbol and used a combo of guajillo and ancho (…3 ancho and 9 guajillos I think) as that’s what I had on hand. I wish the recipe specified the seasoning amounts to be used. In the future I would use 1/8 teaspoon for everything and use maybe 1/4 teaspoon of Mexican Oregano. However, I think it would be best to just add a light dash of each and taste as you blend the ingredients to see what it needs more of. Thank you for the recipe!
Absolutely delicious! I followed the recipe exactly and we made taco bowls with caulirice and all the fixings to keep it low carb. Definitely a keeper. Thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks for the recipe, i love tacos …i hope you can still sharing recipes like this….Gracias por compartir!
Pretty darn good. Maybe a tad more chilé liquid.
Absolutely delicious!!! I saved more than 1/4 of the pepper water so I can have more broth at the end. I then soaked my tortillas with the broth ans then heated them up! Family approved 🙂
Used what I had which was a pork butt, followed the recipe but after tasting the sauce decided to add cherry tomatoes on hand. Other than that I followed it. Absolutley delicious, I made this for my daughters family and they all loved it. Decided to eat it with white rice, because we’re having Lengua tacos this week. I’ll be making this again with beef. Reminded me of my childhood.
Loved this recipe. If you want to eat this in it’s broth, which is the most authentic way to eat this, you need to add some water or broth to the end product after shredding the meat and serve it in a bowl. Serve with cilantro, pickled red onion and tortillas.
Amazing! I’ve had birria before, but have never made it. It would be more helpful to state more specific spice amounts instead of just a “pinch”, but it came out delicious nonetheless. My roast was only 2 pounds, so I removed it from the oven after about 2h15m. The meat was falling apart tender and very flavorful. I made the sauce the day before to save time. This one is a definite keeper!
This recipe is AMAZING!!! The only things I did different was used minced garlic from a jar, boiled my tomatoes with my chilies, did not strain (I like thick salsa), and cooked the meat in a crock pot for 8 hours on low. I shredded the meat after and poured juice over it. Now it is ready to be put into tacos with cilantro and onions. Fixed side of beans and steamed zucchini and squash to go with it. So good! Definitely the new family favorite. I was worried about it being too spicy, but it is perfect.
Long time user of All Recipes. This was so good I felt compelled to review for the first time. I followed the recipe almost exactly. I only changed three things: I added chipotle peppers to the others (just because I had them on hand), I didn’t strain the sauce after blending (I like thicker sauce), and I browned in a pan and then slow cooked (4 hours on high).
I made it 1 hour before. To be honest, its so yummy. I will use this recipe till i die. Thanks a lot!
n1, Thank you for the recipe.