This birria recipe slowly braises beef in a rich, spiced chile sauce. You can serve it as a stew with tortillas, or go all-in and make crispy, cheesy birria tacos.

Birria, a savory Mexican stew, is from Jalisco, Mexico, where you’ll often see this dish made with goat or lamb. The word birria actually translates to “of little value,” referring to the tougher cuts of meat that, through a low-and-slow braise with dried chiles and spices, become pull-apart tender and something truly delicious.

We love making beef birria (birria de res) and use beef chuck. It’s easy to find, has just the right amount of marbling, and always turns out fork-tender. We usually serve this as a stew, but if you’re craving the viral quesabirria tacos, this recipe is your starting point!

Key Ingredients

• Beef Chuck: While authentic birria recipes usually call for goat or lamb, our family uses beef chuck. It’s more readily available where we live and turns out really well. Beef chuck has a good amount of marbling, which breaks down over time and helps the beef become really tender (which is also why we use it for beef stew, shredded beef, and pot roast).
• Dried Chiles: The base of our birria consomé (cooking liquid) is dried chiles. Our basic recipe calls for California and Ancho dried chiles, which make this dish mild. For a spicier result, add a few arbol chiles (see our tips below the recipe for how many). I buy dried chiles at a local Mexican market, but you can also find them in larger grocery stores, natural food stores, or online. I also use them to make homemade enchilada sauce.
• Onion, Garlic, and Tomato: These are blended into our consomé. I like fresh tomatoes for this and use roma tomatoes (any fresh tomato is fine, though).
• Spices: Our favorite birria spices are coriander seeds, black peppercorns, ground cinnamon, and dried oregano. No need for any birria spice mix!
• Apple Cider Vinegar: This cuts through the savoriness of the cooking liquid, helps break down the beef, and adds flavor.
• Tahini: Toasted sesame seeds are a popular ingredient for birria, but we’ve found that tahini does the trick nicely (a ground paste made from toasted sesame seeds). It’s an ingredient we use a lot in our kitchen, so it made sense for us to add it here. Buy it or make your own, here is our tahini recipe.
• Beef Broth: This thins out our cooking liquid. Use homemade beef stock, or your favorite store-bought option.

Find the full recipe with measurements below.

How to Make Beef Birria

Tip 1: Rehydrate the dried chiles. To prepare dried chiles for birria, remove the seeds and rehydrate them. I use kitchen shears to snip the top and then tap the chiles until all (or most) of the seeds fall out. Then, so they blend easily into our cooking liquid, add the dried chiles to a saucepan and cover them with water. Bring the pot to a simmer, then turn off the heat and leave them alone for about 20 minutes to soften.

Note: If your skin is sensitive, consider wearing food-safe gloves while working with the peppers.

Tip 2: Brown the beef. Cut the beef into large chunks, then season them all over with salt and pepper. Then, brown them on all sides in some oil in a large pot. Be patient while the beef browns, and do this in 2 batches so it really has a chance to pick up some color. When the beef is well browned on all sides, transfer it to a plate.

Tip 3: Make the braising liquid. Cook the onions and garlic until they begin to sweat, then stir in your tomatoes, spices, and a little chile-soaking water from rehydrating the chiles. This helps deglaze the pan so you can scrape up all the flavorful fond (or browned stuck bits) at the bottom of the pot. Add a bit of beef broth and the rehydrated chiles, then simmer for a few minutes before blending into a smooth sauce.

Note: When you blend hot liquids, make sure that you remove the middle insert from the lid. Then, firmly cover that hole with a dishcloth and your hand. The dishcloth lets some steam escape as you blend, which prevents the blender from exploding (such a mess, trust me, I know!).

Tip 4: Cook the beef low and slow. Place all the browned beef into your pot, cover with the blended liquid, add a bit more broth, then put on the lid, slide the pot into the oven, and cook slowly until the beef is fork-tender. Expect 3 hours in a 325°F oven (about the same as our beef ribs recipe).

Tip 5: Shred and serve. Once it’s out of the oven, let the pot sit for 20 minutes or so to cool a bit, then decide how you’ll serve it. If serving as a stew, pull the beef into spoon-sized chunks. If you plan to serve in tortillas, shred the meat a little finer.

There will be a good layer of rendered fat on top of the stew. When I serve this as a stew, I skim most of the fat. If I am making birria tacos, I leave it and use it to sear my tortillas.

Serving Beef Birria

To serve this as a stew: Skim some of the fat from the top of the pot (there will be a lot), then pull the beef into large, spoon-sized chunks. Spoon the beef into a bowl with a generous amount of the consomé, then top with chopped raw onion, cilantro, and a good squeeze of lime juice. Serve with a side of rice or warm tortillas (here’s our recipes for flour tortillas or corn tortillas).

To serve this as tacos: Birria tacos (or quesabirria) are crispy, cheesy, rich tacos filled with birria meat, lots of melty cheese, and served with a bowl of the consomé for dipping. They are outrageously good. To make them, quickly swipe corn tortillas through the top layer of fat in the pot (yes, the fat!). Then, add them to a hot skillet and fill the tortillas with some of the shredded beef and lots of shredded cheese (try Oaxaca or mozzarella). Fold them, then cook until the tortillas are crisp and the cheese has melted inside. They are a real treat. When serving, place a small bowl of the cooking liquid (consomé) on the table for dipping.

Alternate Cooking Methods

To use a slow cooker: Brown the beef and make the braising liquid as directed in the recipe below, but instead of slowly braising in the oven, add everything (the browned beef, blended liquid, and broth) to a 6-quart slow cooker. Cook until fork-tender, on LOW for 7 to 8 hours or on HIGH for 5 hours.

To use an Instant Pot: Use the sauté function to brown the beef and prepare the braising liquid. Once you have the browned beef, blended liquid, and broth in the Instant Pot, make sure the liquid does not pass the fill line. Seal the lid and cook on HIGH PRESSURE for 80 minutes, then release naturally for about 15 minutes before releasing the remaining pressure.