Beef Birria Quesatacos with Consommé Dipping Sauce

Quick Summary: Crispy corn tortillas dipped in rich birria broth, filled with shredded beef, melted cheese, and pickled onions. Served with a side of the braising liquid (consommé) for dipping. The broth-dipped tortillas fry to a crispy, flavorful shell that sets these tacos apart. Birria consommé recipe linked separately. Prep: 15 min | Cook: 15 min | Serves: 8 tacos

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What is Birria Consommé ?

Birria is a traditional Mexican stew from Jalisco, where it’s made with goat or lamb braised in a richly spiced chile broth until meltingly tender. The broth, or consommé, is as important as the meat. It’s deeply flavored from the chiles, aromatics, and rendered fat from the slow-cooked meat.

The meat is always slow cooked in a richly-flavored broth until it is melt-in-your-mouth tender. When served as a stew (the original dish), the meat is ladled up into bowls along with plenty of its broth, garnished with fresh toppings, and finally served with a side of warm corn tortillas.

For quesatacos, the meat is shredded, corn tortillas are dipped in the birria broth (referred to as consommé) and fried on a comal or hot skillet.

From there, a melting cheese is added to the tortilla along with the shredded meat and different filling preferences.the consommé serves two purposes: you dip the tortillas in it before frying (the fat helps them crisp), and you serve it as a dipping sauce with the finished tacos.

The birria consommé needs to be made ahead (see this recipe for the consommé alone.)

What Makes Birria Tacos Different?

Carnitas, using seared pork, and Tacos al Pastor using slow cooked (and then crisped) pork are a couple other really popular meat fillings for Mexican tacos. They do not include the consommé element that makes birria tacos so distinctive however.

Ingredients and Substitutions

The main ingredients for the tacos are birria consommé, shredded meat from the birria stew, corn tortillas, and cheese. From there you can add any number of your favorite taco fillings. My favorite additions are pickled onions and cilantro.

Here are a few other additions and substitutions:

Substitutions:

• For the meat: while goat meat or lamb meat is the traditional meat used in birria, beef is more popular in the U.S. The recipe below was made with beef chuck roast and some short ribs. Basically make sure that the meat you use can be slow cooked for a long time (3 hours) and will shred easily when it is done. The short ribs had the bones that helped create a rich and flavorful broth.
• For the cheese: the traditional cheese in Mexico would likely be called a Oaxacan melting cheese. If not available, just make sure it is a “melting cheese”. Examples might be fontina, havarti or jack cheese. I picked up a package of shredded Queso melting cheese at our local grocery store.
• For the Tortillas: corn tortillas are what’s needed here. Flour tortillas will just not crisp up in the same way. You can use either white corn or yellow corn tortillas.
• Cilantro: many people have an aversion to cilantro. That’s OK, just leave it out. You could use Italian parsley instead to give it a little more freshness.

Additional Ingredient Ideas:

• Pickled onions are my favorite addition as they add the crisp sour bite to the deeply rich birria.
• Fresh herbs: many herbs will work instead of the cilantro if that is not your thing. Just try and use fresh herbs.
• Serve the tacos with lime wedges and sliced jalapenos on the side.
• Typically birria is not that spicy. If you like more heat, have a bottle of your favorite hot sauce on the table.
• Paper towels! These tacos are great to pick up with your hands and dip into the birria consomme, but they are really messy. Great, but messy. Have some paper towels for napkins nearby and don’t wear white.

Equipment: Comal vs Cast Iron vs Griddle

In the video you will see that I used a comal to fry the tacos. A comal is basically a round, flat, cast iron griddle. A cast iron skillet can also be used but it has sides to give it depth which is less efficient for flipping the tortillas.

A griddle is often long and rectangular and works just like a comal if you can direct the heat source appropriately.

The griddle shown above fits over two of our gas burners, but you can get a stand-alone griddle if you don’t have a stove that fits the griddle

The benefit of cast iron over other types of frying pans is that cast iron retains the heat once heated up. This makes it easier to fry more than one or two tacos because the skillet will remain hot.

Some of the pros and cons of each:

• The smaller comal is easier to handle (cast iron is heavy), and the lack of sides make it easy to slide off the tortillas without breaking them
• Cast iron skillets however come in larger sizes, allowing you to fry more tacos at a time
• A long cast iron griddle is great as it has no sides and has a lot of surface area, but you need to have a heat source underneath it that will cover the length of it. Many stoves just have the smaller round burners.

Whether comal, skillet or griddle, just aim for cast iron so that you can retain the heat while making a batch of tacos.

These birria tacos are so incredible that you will definitely want to make enough to feed a crowd (even if that crowd is only 2-3 people)!

How to Make Birria Quesatacos (Step by Step)

Here are the steps lined out with photos. For the details of the recipe itself, see the recipe card below.

What to Serve with Birria Tacos

These birria tacos are good enough to eat dozens on their own. If you wanted to add a side however, you could serve them with homemade tortilla chips or Mexican rice.

I typically serve tacos with fresh lime wedges, a bottle of hot sauce for those who want more heat, a side of pickled onions, and a side of chopped cilantro. That typically covers the bases.

More Taco Recipes

There are several Mexican dishes that have a similar flavor profile to birria. Here are a few:

• Baja Style Fish Tacos
• Instant Pot Tacos al Pastor
• Taco Bar with Nopales Guacamole
• Low Carb Cochinita Pibil
• Easy Pickled Onions

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