Slow Cooker Barbacoa Beef Tacos
I’ve been wanting to try to make barbacoa for a while now and i finally got the courage to do it! I wish I had goat but supermarkets here don’t have it so I went with a beef mix which worked out great, it was so flavorful and It’s perfect for taco night or when you want to feed a whole bunch of people. It’s not very simple and can’t be done in 30 min but I promise that it is so worth it!
I was searching the web for some truly authentic recipes but all I found were “I went to Mexico once so now I know how to make authentic Mexican” and that’s not what I wanted so I did some more digging and just decided to wing it and make a type of sauce that’s similar to the one used in barbacoa and Mole. I roasted some different types of pepper, added dark chocolate, orange and lime juice, roasted garlic, tomato paste and some different types of spices.
I decided to top the tacos with pluots(a type of fruit that’s a hybrid of a plum and a apricot) cabbage slaw,cilantro, sliced avocado,lime and some queso fresco. Please use your own toppings too, make this your own!
Slow Cooker Barbacoa Beef Tacos
Ingredients
chuck roast ( i used 2 lbs)
Short ribs ( per every lb of chuck, I used 2 thick short ribs)
4 large ancho chiles, stemmed and seeded
4 dried chipotle chiles, stemmed
Whole Garlic(half roasted, half fresh)
Whole Onion
Juice from 3 oranges
Juice from 3 Limes
S&P
Oregano
Fresh thyme
Ground cumin
Smoked Paprika
Dark chocolate bar- 72% - i used about 1 1/2 oz
tomato paste
To serve:
Flour tortillas
Lime
cabbage slaw
Pluots( optional)
Queso Fresco
Avocado
Instructions:
Pat the meat dry and put it in a container big enough to hold all the meat. Combine the S&P, crush the fresh half of the garlic, half the onion, juice from 2 oranges, juice from 2 limes, oregano,cumin,smoked paprika and olive oil in a bowl, taste it before you add it to the meat. pour the marinade over the meat. Put in the refrigerator over night*.
The next day, take the meat out of the marinade and dispose it, then sear the meats on both sides, take the other half of the onion, slice and cook them until browned. place the onions to the side.
Put your slow cooker on high, add the seared meats, the juice from 1 orange, mixed with the juice from 1 lime, the S&P, cumin, oregano, the bay leaves and the fresh thyme.
To make the sauce: place the peppers and the other half of the onion in a sauce pot with 1 cup of water and let it boil for about 8 minutes to soften them.
In a food processor, add the peppers, the onion, the roasted garlic, half of the tomato paste, the chocolate, some ( like a 1/4 cup) liquid from the sauce pan, and some S&P to taste. taste test it and set it aside. the sauce shouldn’t be too thick.
After 3 hours, the meat should start falling apart, when that happens, shred it as much as possible and add the sauce to the meat, keep it in the slow cooker for another 2 hours. finish shredding the meat in the slow cooker before removing it to a serving plate.
Serve the Barbacoa in warm tortillas with the cabbage slaw, pluots(if using), avocado slices,cilantro, lime wedges and queso fresco.*
Enjoy all your hard work!
Recipe notes:
I added the plouts for a hint of sweetness, this isn’t required. the great thing about tacos is that you can top them however you want!
Always taste test the seasonings/sauces before adding them to the meat.
The longer the meat marinades, the better.
before you add the sauce to the meat, I suggest taking out some of the liquid that formed in the slow cooker.
