This authentic beef barbacoa recipe uses melt in your mouth beef cheeks slow cooked with guajillo and ancho chillies, achiote, spices and vinegar until fall-apart tender. Serve it in tacos, burritos or over creamy mashed potato for an unforgettable dinner. This chef recipe comes straight to you from a wonderful Latin American restaurant and is perfect for Father's Day coming up.
About This Beef Barbacoa Recipe
Beef Barbacoa is a delicious Mexican and Caribbean slow cooked beef dish that is seasoned with dried chillies, spices and vinegar. While you can make barbacoa with all sorts of meat, the most popular in Mexico is "barbacoa de res" or beef barbacoa.
What does beef barbacoa taste like? The beef is super tender and it has a savoury forward flavour with aromatic spices, a slight smokiness and a light tang from vinegar.
Beef barbacoa was created as a way to cook tougher cuts like beef cheeks, brisket or chuck. I made one inspired by a trip to Los Angeles' Central Market where they used beef cheek and tongue for Barbacoa Especial. But this version uses beef cheek only and it comes from a fantastic Latin American restaurant.
Why This Recipe Works and Why You'll Love It
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I'm sharing this chef recipe straight from restaurant St Lucia in Newcastle where it is one of their signature dishes. When Mr NQN and I tried the beef barbacoa there, it was so good that we asked them for the recipe and they were kind enough to share it with us! It's such a gift when a restaurant shares their recipe with you - thank you!
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The prep for this is short with about 10 minutes of hands-on prep time, making it a surprisingly easy recipe! The rest is done in the oven and just a quick grill before serving.
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This is a budget friendly beef recipe and uses a budget friendly beef cut of beef cheek. Nothing gets as meltingly fall-apart soft as beef cheek and it is an easy to find and relatively well priced cut of beef that really shines with slow cooking.
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I'll also show you where to buy these ingredients.
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I'll give you a serving suggestion that makes this perfect for Father's Day dinner!
Video How To Make Beef Barbacoa
Ingredient Spotlight
Beef Barbacoa uses a few Mexican ingredients that you may have to shop for:
Guajillo Chillies - These are a smooth dark red brown dried version of a mirasol chilli. They provide a sweet smoky flavour to dishes and are a mild-medium spice with 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville heat units (as a comparison, a jalapeno is 2,500 to 8,000 Scoville heat units).
Ancho Chillies - These are a dried, ripe red poblano pepper and are very dark in colour, almost black. Ancho means "wide" in Spanish and references the chilli's heart shape. They are wrinkled with notes of raisin and chocolate. Ancho chillies are mild in spiciness ranging from 1,000-1,500 Scoville heat units.
Achiote Paste - This is a Mexican ingredient that provides a bright but natural red colour and sweet, nutty flavour with a touch of smoke. Achiote paste is made up of ground annatto seeds, mixed with garlic and spices.
Where to buy these ingredients - I bought all of these at Panetta Mercato in Marrickville so you can find these at large delis or Mexican/Latin American stores.
Why I Love Using Beef Cheek For Barbacoa
Beef cheek is hands down my favourite cut of beef for slow cooking and despite the fact that it tastes rich and buttery, it is a lean cut of beef! The buttery texture comes from the gelatinous collagen in the cheek. Beef cheek has around 4g of fat per 100g and brisket has 10-26g per 100g.
Compared to beef brisket, beef cheek takes a shorter time to cook, you can make smaller portions, it cooks down to a fall apart texture, is lower in fat and doesn't have a greasy mouthfeel. Brisket is great to slice and that's why it is used for Texan barbecue.
Other Ingredients For Beef Barbacoa
Onion - Yellow, white or red onion.
Garlic cloves - This can be a large head of garlic or more depending on how the garlic is. I must admit that I now buy pre-peeled Australian garlic cloves and I cannot tell you how much I love not having to peel it.
Spices - We use a range of dried, ground spices like ground cumin, ground cloves, dried oregano leaves and pepper. St Lucia use Tasmanian mountain pepper and I had a little of that but you can sub this with black pepper.
Stock - Use your favourite beef or chicken stock whether it be homemade, liquid stock or stock cubes.
Apple cider vinegar - To give barbacoa its signature mild tanginess.
Salt - Measure to taste, everyone is different.
Bay leaves - Fresh or dried bay leaves.
Honey - Regular or hot honey depending on the heat that you seek!
Tips For Making Beef Barbacoa
1 - This will seem like a lot of liquid but this is what flavours the beef cheeks all the way through. For this reason, use a deep baking dish so that the liquid doesn't spill when carrying it.
2 - Covering the beef in foil for most of the cooking seals the juices in.
3 - Serving suggestion: Beef Barbacoa is usually served on tacos but at St Lucia, they serve it atop a creamy puree made with root vegetables. I serve it with mashed potato and while it's great with tacos, it really lends itself to being served with a root crema or pommes puree which is perfect for Father's Day. If you want to serve it as part of a Mexican party spread, serve this with my favourite corn dip or Mexican Sonoran hot dogs. I also added some pickled pink onions on top too!
4 - The honey isn't part of St Lucia's recipe but I wanted to give it a glossy glaze with a light sweetness. If you want it even spicier, use a hot honey.
5 - If you want to serve this the traditional way, remove the beef cheeks from the sauce and shred with two forks and serve with warm tortillas and salad.
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