The Best Barbacoa Beef Recipe
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If you need a tender, mouth-watering main dish to serve your family tonight, this easy homemade Chipotle Barbacoa Recipe is the one! Anyone can make this successfully, and everyone who tastes it is going to love it!
We all know Chipotle has amazing chicken, fajita veggies and more, but if you’ve tried their barbacoa beef, you know it’s the real deal. It’s mouthwatering delicious.
The beef is so tender and full of flavor!
There was a point in time where I was ordering Chipotle for lunch almost every day. I had this trick where I doubled up on the rice and meat so that I could have leftovers!
With this easy Barbacoa Recipe, you can make your own Chipotle burrito bowls at home!
If you love this Copycat Chipotle Barbacoa Beef Recipe, you should try these Crockpot Carnitas too!
Why You’ll Love this recipe
- Effortless Preparation: Let your slow cooker do the work, infusing the barbacoa with rich flavors while you focus on your day.
- Endless Ways To Serve: Get creative! Use it in tacos, burritos, salads, or as a flavorful protein in various dishes.
- Melt-In-Your-Mouth Tender: Cooking the beef in the slow cooker gives it a lusciously juicy, melt-in-your-mouth texture that’s unforgettable.
- Customize Your Bowl: Create your bowl just the way you like it, with your choice of protein, rice, beans, and toppings.
Ingredients You Will Need
- Beef Chuck Roast: Cut the roast into 6-8 big chunks and trim the fat before searing. It will cook faster this way, too!
- Chipotle Peppers in Adobo: Adds some heat to the dish but doesn’t make it overwhelming.
- Diced Green Chiles: Choose your own adventure on heat levels for the canned green chiles. I prefer mild, but if you like the heat you can opt for medium or hot!
- White Wine Vinegar: The acidity of the vinegar aids in tenderizing the meat and adds a kick to the sauce. Don’t skip it!
- Lime: Fresh lime juice only, please! Skip that bottled stuff. It tastes terrible compared to fresh!
- Seasonings & Herbs: Cumin, chili powder, cloves, bay leaves, and oregano add big flavor to this recipe.
- Broth: Chicken or beef broth works in this recipe. Use what you have on hand. It’ll be delicious!
- Garlic: Fresh garlic is the best for this recipe. The pre-minced garlic tastes a lot different, so avoid it if possible.
Additions & Substitutions
- Onion: White onion or yellow onion can be substituted for the sweet onion.
- Vinegar: The white wine vinegar can be subbed out for lemon juice, rice vinegar, regular white vinegar, or even apple cider vinegar.
- Chipotle in Adobo: Don’t sweat if you can’t find the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. For a quick workaround, you can use a few splashes of tabasco chipotle hot sauce or a combination of chipotle powder and paprika.
- Cloves: Ground cloves bring amazing flavors to the beef, so you will definitely want to use them. If you don’t have ground cloves, you can substitute allspice or nutmeg.
*For a detailed list of instructions, ingredients and measurements, please reference the recipe card down below.
How To make Beef Barbacoa Chipotle
Step 1: Season and sear. In a hot cast iron skillet, sear the chuck roast for 3–4 minutes per side, until nice color develops.
Step 2: Add to slow cooker: But the seared beef in the slow cooker along with the chipotles, chiles, onion, vinegar, lime juice, spices, broth, bay leaves, and garlic.
Step 3: Slow cook & shred. Cook on low for 7-8 hours, until beef is tender and falls apart. Shred the meat with two forks and mix back into the sauce.
Step 4: Garnish and serve. Serve with tortillas for burritos or tacos, or add to a burrito bowl with your favorite fixings! Serve hot!
Tips & Tricks
- Choose the right cut: Opt for beef cuts like chuck roast or boneless beef short rib. They’re well-marbled and perfect for slow cooking, resulting in tender, flavorful barbacoa.
- Shred and Simmer: For the most flavor, after cooking, return the shredded beef to the slow cooker and let it simmer in its juices for about 30 minutes. This ensures the meat is fully infused with the maximum amount of flavor.
- Low and Slow: While it might be tempting to turn your slow cooker up to high heat to cut the time in half, you will get the best flavor and texture if you cook it low and slow. This allows the meat to tenderize and absorb all the seasonings.
Recipe Variations
- Bolded Variation Title: Paragraph explanation
- Barbacoa Tacos: Shredded beef, smoky and juicy, stuffed in tortillas. Load them up with onion, cilantro, salsa, whatever you like. Fast to assemble, hard to stop eating.
- Mexican Salad with Shredded Beef: Fresh and filling. Greens, beans, corn, avocado, and hot barbacoa straight off the slow cooker. Good contrast of textures and heat. Way more exciting than a basic salad.
- Barbacoa Burritos: Big, bold, and built to satisfy. Wrap that beef up with rice, beans, cheese, salsa, maybe some sour cream.
- Barbacoa Stuffed Peppers: Roasted peppers packed with barbacoa, beans, and cheese. Everything melts together, gets a little char, and you get your veggies in without even trying.
- Chipotle Barbacoa Breakfast Skillets: These are perfect for a weekend breakfast or lazy dinner. Crispy potatoes, barbacoa, and eggs are on top. Top with hot sauce or queso. Zero effort, full reward.
- Easy Barbacoa Fajitas: Skip the slicing. Just toss barbacoa with sautéed peppers and onions. Pile into tortillas and serve. Fast, flexible, and way better than takeout.
- Spicy Beef Chimichangas: Crispy on the outside, rich on the inside. Wrap barbacoa in a tortilla, fry it, then smother with queso or salsa. Messy in the best way.
This Barbacoa Beef goes great with some Homemade Mango Salsa too!
Recipe FAQ’s
Fun fact! The word “barbacoa” is where the word “barbecue” derives from. Barbacoa is the term for slow cooking shredded or chopped meats over an open fire or fire pit.
Barbacoa is traditional Mexican cooked meat with spices that is SUPER tender and flavorful. Making authentic barbacoa beef requires three things: the right meat, the proper spices, and time to cook it so that the flavors come together! In the US, barbacoa is made from beef. However, in Mexico, it can be made from beef or goat!
Barbacoa beef tastes very tender and melt in your mouth delicious., slow cooked shredded beef cooked in an adobo sauce with loads of flavorful Mexican spices. In other words, it tastes delicious!
The secret to cooking the best barbacoa is cooking it low and slow.
When you slow cook the beef it allows the flavors to come together in a truly mouth-watering and authentic way making it the best beef you will ever make.
Barbacoa is beef, goat, or lamb cooked low and slow until the meat is tender and then shredded. However, carnitas, are only made of pork. Although also cooked slow and low, before serving you brown the meat in a skillet to give it that crispy texture.
One of my favorite things about this recipe is that all of the ingredients are already keto, low carb, paleo, and Whole30. However, watch/check the sugars in your chipotle chiles in adobo if you are aiming for a Whole30 recipe.
– Barbacoa involves the slow-braising of beef over several hours to get perfectly tender meat. At Chipotle, their method starts with sous-vide cooking before the braising process.
– On the other hand, Carnitas features slow cooked pork, and it’s then brought to a delightful crispiness through roasting or pan-frying.
More Beef Recipes You’ll Love
- Crock Pot Steak Fajitas
- Chimichurri Steak
- Jalapeño Lime Air Fryer Steak
- Tex-Mex Flank Steak Salad With Avocado Lime Dressing
If you tried this Chipotle Barbacoa Recipe or any other recipe on my blog please leave a 🌟 star rating and tell me how it went in the 📝 comments below. I love hearing from you!
Copycat Chipotle Barbacoa Beef
Ingredients
- 4 pounds beef chuck roast, cut into 6-8 chunks & fat trimmed
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 4 chipotle peppers, from a can of chipotles in adobo
- 4 ounces diced green chiles
- 1 large sweet onion, diced
- 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- 2 limes, juice
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 3/4 cup chicken broth, beef broth works too!
- 3 bay leaves
- 5 cloves of garlic, smashed
- olive oil, for cooking
Instructions
- Season the beef with salt and pepper. Heat a cast iron skillet on medium-high heat with a splash of olive oil and sear the beef for 3-4 minutes on each side.
- Place the beef in the slow cooker with the chipotle peppers, diced green chiles, diced onion, white wine vinegar, lime juice, cumin, chili powder, ground cloves, dried oregano, chicken broth, bay leaves, and smashed garlic cloves. Cook on low for 7-8 hours until the beef falls apart.
- When ready, transfer the beef to a serving bowl and shred the beef with two forks.
Video
Notes
- This is the slow cooker I have!
- The beef is freezer-friendly. Store in an airtight freezer bag or container and pull it out when you need it!
