What’s The Best Cut Of Meat For Birria Tacos?

These days, almost any taco shop in the United States sells birria tacos — but that wasn’t always the case. The popular tacos had a major buildup in the late 2010s, when the flavors of these slow-cooked beef tacos caught on with Americans. These days, birria is often added to a tortilla and paired with melted cheese — referred to as quesabirria — and consommé, which is a broth for dipping. If you’re making beef birria tacos at home, there are a few cuts of meat you can go with, but a lean, tough chuck roast is probably your best bet.

It’s important to note that original birria is made with goat meat, so if you’re looking for the most traditional birria, then that’s what you’ll want to use. Goat meat is lean, gamey, and tough, and since people in Jalisco, Mexico (where birria was born) had an abundance of goats, they needed a way to cook it low and slow to help tenderize that meat. However, beef birria is far more popular in the United States, so chuck roast will likely be your cut of choice.

There are a few big reasons why chuck roast is the best option for birria: its price, its convenience, and its texture. Not all cuts of beef are created equally; beef cuts that are tender with plenty of fat tend to be more expensive than leaner, tougher cuts of meat. By that scale, chuck roast is pretty affordable. Plus, it should be readily available at your local grocery store. While you could certainly talk to your butcher about preparing another cut of meat, the convenience of chuck — coupled with it being a more inexpensive cut of meat – is hard to beat.

Chuck roast’s texture is important here. It has plenty of connective tissue and muscle, meaning if you just seared it then sliced it up, it would be difficult to cut and chew. It needs plenty of time over heat to help break down those tough fibers and build out that tender mouthfeel. Chuck is great for birria because it lets it tenderize slowly for hours; the meat is submerged in liquid while it cooks, and chuck can hold up in that liquid for a long time.

Although chuck roast is the best for its ease and cost, it isn’t the only cut of meat that will make delicious birria tacos. If your local grocery store is out of chuck, you can use any other cut of beef that tastes best when it’s cooked low and slow. Beef shank or brisket are two solid options.

Beef shank comes from the cow’s leg, making it another lean cut of beef that needs extra time to tenderize. It can easily be substituted for chuck because of their lean, tough similarities. Brisket is another good option for similar reasons; it comes from just above the top of a cow’s leg — close to where the shank comes from — meaning it also is lean with connective tissue and fibers that need to be broken down. It can hold up well to braising liquid just like chuck and shank. The downside to brisket is that it’s a pricier cut of meat, so expect to pay more for this than you would for either of the others.