Juiciest Homemade Quesa Birria Tacos

Crispy, cheesy, and bursting with flavor. I’ve eaten a lot of tacos, but these are hands down the best I’ve ever had.

📋 COOK the full recipe on https://nickskitchen.com/beef-birria-tacos
🗞️ SIGN UP for my free weekly newsletter at https://www.nickskitchen.com/subscribe
🧂 SHOP salts, seasonings, oils, and more at https://www.osmokitchen.com

Follow Nick’s Kitchen:
https://www.instagram.com/nickskitchen

@nickskitchen

https://www.facebook.com/nickskitchens
https://www.youtube.com/@NickDiGiovanni

oh these are going to be good I love quesabidia tacos We’re going to start with our chilies And I have three different types here The first are ancho chilis which are really just dried pablano peppers And these have kind of a raisiny almost fruity smell and taste Next we have wajillo And that’s going to give us that nice smoky flavor with some medium heat And the Spanish name here translates to little gourd cuz if you shake them you hear all those little seeds rattling around inside And finally these small chilies here are called chile viable These will add quite a bit of heat as well as some acidity to the dish So if you don’t like spicy I wouldn’t put too many of these To prep these for cooking I’m going to trim off the stems and shake out all those seeds Once I’ve finished cleaning off all my chilies I’m going to toast them over low heat except for the chili diar for now Because these are so small we don’t want to toast them just yet or they’ll burn And for the rest of our chilies into a pan to toast over low heat for just about three to four minutes Toasting off our chilies will bring out all those flavorful oils and also wake up all that deep and smoky flavor that they have But you don’t want to toast them for too long cuz if they burn they are very bitter For just the last 30 or 45 seconds I’m going to add in my chili dear arable And once everything smells nice and fragrant I’ll cover these with beeftock Keep your face away cuz sometimes there’s some spice in that steam Then I’ll push everything down rearrange things a bit to make sure they’re all covered by that beeftock And once it barely starts to simmer I’ll turn off the heat cover it up with a lid and we’ll let this steep for about 20 minutes Sort of almost like making a chili tea Let’s start working on our beef We have a beautiful chuck roast which is perfect for birya The reason being it’s filled with all sorts of fat and connective tissue that breaks down as you braze To prep it I’ll take off these strings And then anytime I’m cooking with meat I always like to use a secondary cutting board so I don’t have to clean my bigger one Whack And I’ll sort of let all those fat lines in the meat decide where I cut Here’s a great first piece Then it looks like a good second piece is right here Boom And when it comes to fat you certainly want some As we all know fat is flavor but you can feel free to trim off some of that excess fat Really all I’m doing right now is cutting it into more manageable portions that we can then sear So with these last two I’ll cut them right in half When I make beria I’m always drinking orchata I’m going to season all over with just salt Since we’re trying to get a very quick sear before brazing I’m not going to use any pepper right now because it’ll quickly burn And then we can start heating some of our oil I’ll go into a heavy bottom pot with a good squeeze of a high smoke point oil I want more than enough that it coats the bottom of the pot While I wait for it to heat up or try to do this in two batches That’s the sound you’ll want to hear when you sear these off What we’re looking for is quick browning on all sides This is a very important step cuz this is where you’re developing lots and lots of flavor for this recipe Oh yeah there it is So this is what we’re looking for A nice golden crust that’s going to build the foundation of all the flavor Once I’ve got a nice crust I’ll set a couple of these off to the side Oh listen to that sizzle And before I put these next three in I want you to notice that my oil is very golden It’s not burnt Since this will be the pot that we cook the remainder of our recipe in you don’t want to burn anything here because then everything’s going to taste burnt Here we go I’ll finish these up Making sure again that they all get that really nice golden crust And once these are done I will add back all of my other meat that we already seared Got to play a little Tetris to fit it all in the pot as well as any of that juice that might have dripped off And then I’ll cover this cut the heat and then move it off to the side where we will then continue with our chili mixture Moving on I’m going to take a white onion Then once I clean it all up I’ll bring it over to an open flame where I’ll quickly toast it and give it a nice char This is an optional step that I like to do since it gives a bit of extra smokiness to the overall broth But if you want to skip this step you definitely can If you do try this you’ll probably agree right after smelling it that it is going to make your dish taste better Now it’s time for the fun part I will bring back my chili tea and then I’ll add all of my chilies to the blender along with half of my chili tea Then from there I’m also going to add in all of that charred half onion lots of garlic cumin seeds and Mexican oregano Mexican oregano is a game changer here because it’s more citrusy and floral than traditional Italian oregano Now lid on and blend What a beautiful color this makes It’s almost like a lightly brownish beautiful orange Smells incredible With that we will come back to our beef Then bring in a strainer and pour over our sauce Ooh I’ll just use a rubber spatula to push it all through Really this is just to capture any seeds or anything we might have missed in our sauce I can already feel a couple sharper parts in there In a way the smells that you’re going to experience while making this dish are a little bit unfair cuz you just want to eat right away But on the other hand they make you realize how delicious this dish is going to be when we’re finished These are all the little shards of seeds that are left when I’m finished straining That is why we use a strainer here Once that’s all in I’m going to add some white vinegar some tomato puree then a few bay leaves and then some cinnamon We’re using salon cinnamon because this is perfect for slowcooked foods like birya Next a couple peppercorns a few cloves and then I’ll cover this all with some beefto% of the way up the side of the beef Now we go lid on and we’ll simmer this for 3 to 4 hours or until it’s fall apart tender Letting these slowly braze and bubble and break down over these 4 hours is an essential part of the process It continues to build so much flavor And once it’s done the meat should be fall apart tender Or at least I hope it is If you look here you’ll see that this really beautiful reddish fat has surfaced That’s going to be really helpful when we go to dip and make those tacos in just a few moments For now I’m just going to try to pull out the meat We’re going to break it in just a second but I don’t want to break it quite yet And I’m going to say there’s a very good chance that you won’t be able to resist the urge to start tasting things right about now Part of the reason I keep some orchatada handy it can tide me over until the end I like to save my first taste for that first complete bite And now with this beautiful orange brazing liquid that’s left I’m going to strain it out Oh that’s so much fun to do Look at the color of that fat streaming down the side of my pot Gives you a really quick look at what kind of flavor we’ve built up over those 4 hours While my meat cools down for another moment here I’m going to push all of this once again through the strainer I promise this is the last time we have to do something like this but you really don’t want to chomp down on any big chunk here It’s supposed to be a crispy soft tender and chewy bite but it’s not supposed to hurt your teeth And then once you feel like you’ve pushed out as much of that mixture as you possibly can go ahead and sit this off to the side Now for the beef this is the moment that we’ve all been waiting for I’m going to shred it with my hands just to show you how truly tender your beef should become If you’ve cooked it for long enough you should literally be able to just squeeze and it’ll break apart and shred just like that Cooking for as long as we did is what’s allowing all these strands to pull apart so easily And if this doesn’t happen that means you haven’t cooked for long enough This is one of the moments that makes those 4 hours of just sitting and waiting and drinking orchatada very worth it This shredded beef could be a dish all by itself Once it’s all shredded to your liking go ahead and ladle over just a few scoops of that delicious birya broth What this will do is keep that beef nice and juicy while it waits for us to build the final tacos And with this remaining broth I’ll dump it back into a pot over the heat cuz I need that to stay nice and warm For our final prep I’ll take the other half of the white onion that I used earlier and then dice this up nice and small I’m also going to do the same for my cilantro Obviously if you’re one of those people where cilantro tastes like soap then you can skip this part And with a sharp knife I’ll give this a rough chop Lastly I’ll take my fresh limes an absolute must for tacos like this And I’ll slice them this way For me this is the one and only way to slice limes It’s beautiful and you get lots and lots of juice For the cheese we’re using Wakan cheese It’s sort of like if mozzarella had a cousin that lived down in Mexico As you’ll see it’s sort of put together and interwoven into this braided knot So you just got to try to figure out how to untangle it And once you do just start peeling some of those strands which we’re going to use to build these tacos We’re looking for nice thin meltable strands just like this That’s how we’re going to achieve that gooey and cheesy texture Moroada When you’re making quesabiria tacos you don’t want to grate your cheese That’s because if you do you’re going to get much shorter little strands And this cheese is already like natural string cheese You can just pull it all apart like this And with that we are ready to build and cook To build these you sort of need to set your workstation up in a way that you’re not going to make a giant mess The way it’s going to work is we’ll take one of our corn tortillas and dip it very quickly into that cons Shake off that excess and then lay it down onto your cutting board And this is where we start to build beef down on just one half of the corn tortilla Not too much not too little Use your best judgment And then our waken cheese Notice that I’m laying it in this direction so that when I open it and break it it’s going to be nice and cheesy And once we’ve done that I will fold this over lightly press down and that’s ready to cook Feel like I’ve made enough here to run a taco truck for the day Come eat some tacos with me I’m going to make my last one here I’m just going to make four cuz that’s all that’s going to fit on my pan After this last fold here we are ready to cook And boy oh boy am I excited Once we’re ready to cook tiny bit of oil onto our griddle Here we go Yep that’s the sound we’re looking for This is awesome Over about medium heat I’m just going to let these get nice and crispy The cheese has to melt The tortillas need to get a little bit dry That’s it There’s nothing complicated going on anymore We have made it through the hard part When you feel like the bottom may have gotten crispy in a swift motion flip Oh we nailed it That’s perfect Oh these are going to be good I don’t really think we could have made these any better Listen Listen That’s going to be just pure texture and crisp when we go to eat that What happens here that’s really nice is that cheese starts to caramelize and even kind of get that dark charred color This when I’m actually going out and looking for quesabir tacos is what I’m looking for Once they’re done I’m going to lay them down on a plate Trust me they’re not going to sit there for long cuz I’m going to eat them right away Then I’ll pour in some of our delicious broth That is a must You need to dip these right in there Then I’ll top this with a little sprinkle of cilantro as well as some of that finely chopped white onion And to finish a slice of lime And that’s it You add a little lime Dip it in the consmé and get a nice cheesy crunch I could eat 200 of those [Music]