How To Make Beef Birria

Beef Birria is a traditional Mexican dish from Jalisco, Mexico. You’ll often see it served as a soup with onions, cilantro and tortillas. A combination of dried chiles and spices gives this soup a warm Mexican flavor. We like to spice it up a little with some arbol and morita chiles.

This recipe is naturally gluten free.

Watch a Video

Here is a video of 2 Cooks in the Kitchen making beef birria:

The Ingredients For Beef Birria

• 3 1/2 lbs Chuck Roast
• 4 Short Ribs
• 2 Cups Beef Broth
• 6 Cups Water
• 8 Guajillo Chiles
• 1 Spicy Hatch Chile
• 2 Arbol Chiles
• 2 Moritas
• 2 Pasillas
• 2 Anchos
• 1 Onion
• 1 Head of Garlic
• 1 Large Carrot
• 1 tsp Cumin
• 1 1/2 tsp Chile Powder
• 1 tsp Mexican Oregano
• 1 tsp Salt

Prepare the Ingredients

We need to remove the seeds and stems from the guajillo, pasilla and ancho chiles and remove the stems from the arbols. We’ll also cut the pot roast into a few pieces just to make it easier to handle. We cut the carrot and onion in large pieces and cut the top off the garlic bulb, leaving the rest of it whole. We’ll squeeze the garlic out of it after it’s cooked.

If you need to substitute some of the chiles it will still be fine. You can adjust the heat by adding or subtracting the hot chiles.

We are using short ribs here in addition to the pot roast because of the connective tissue and bones in the short ribs. These will add a richness to the broth after cooking for four hours. It is not as rich as bone broth, which is cooked for more than 24 hours which is why we are adding two cups of that as well.

Put the Ingredients Into the Pot

Next we will put all our prepared ingredients into a large stock pot. We will put the beef on the bottom of the pot, the vegetables next and the chiles on top.

Add the Spices

Next we will add the cumin, chile powder, Mexican oregano and salt. You can substitute regular oregano if you need to.

Add the Liquid

We’ll put our beef broth and water into the pot. You should have enough to cover the ingredients. If it doesn’t, add more water. We are going to cook this for a long time so it will get plenty of flavor.

Cook 45 Minutes Then Remove the Vegetables

We will bring this pot to a boil and then let it bubble away for 45 minutes before we remove the vegetables and chiles. Alternatively, you can cook the vegetables and chiles separately from the meat in another pot but we feel like doing it this way adds more flavor to the soup.

We’ll carefully remove the vegetables and chiles and put them in a blender. They tend to float so we can get them out of the pot fairly easily. Set the garlic bulb aside to cool for a few minutes.

Put Some Broth In the Blender

We’ll also add about a cup of the liquid from the pot to the blender. This will help us get it all blended smooth.

Squeeze the Garlic Out

We’ll blend all this and then squeeze the garlic out into the blender. You can use a towel to protect your hand if it is still too hot.

Add the Blended Sauce Back Into the Pot

Once we have everything blended very smooth we will add it back into the pot.

Cook For Another 3 Hours

We’ll bring the pot back to a simmer and let it cook slowly for 3 more hours. If you are adding hominy or rice to your soup you’ll want to do that after 75 minutes.

About Adding Hominy, Rice or Corn to Beef Birria

We have found that the more traditional birria from Jalisco, Mexico does not have any of these things added. A more modern take on this classic dish from Mexico City will sometimes put some or all of them into the pot. We have made it this way after experiencing it in a Mexican restaurant and it turns out quite well. Muy Bien!

We soaked the dried hominy overnight, rinsed it and soaked it some more during the day before adding it to the pot.

Remove the Beef From the Pot

Once our cooking time is done we will remove the beef from the pot. We are going to cut some of it into large bite size chunks to eat with the soup as beef birria. We’ll also shred some of it to eat as quesabirilla tacos another day.

Serving the Beef Birria

We will place several chunks of our beef into a bowl and sprinkle some diced onion over it.

Ladle On the Soup

Then we will add some of the soup from the pot.

Garnish and Serve

We will garnish our bowl with more diced onion and cilantro and serve with warm tortillas.

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Here are some more traditional Mexican dishes you can make:

• Classic Molé Rojo
• Chile Rellenos
• Al Pastor Tacos
• Tinga de Pollo
• Enchiladas

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