Birria Quesa Tacos

Quesa tacos are a super popular street food made of corn tortillas, beef, and a cheese. With these you’ll have a delicious broth to dip them in to make them more juicy.

Jump to:

• What are quesa tacos?
• What type of cheese should I use?
• Step by step process
• Other Recipes You Might Enjoy!
• Birria Quesa Tacos Recipe

Quesa tacos de birria de res or beef birria cheese tacos have started to become very popular among street food venders all around, but especially in southern California and in Tijuana, Mexico.

They usually offer to sell the tacos with the broth the meat has been cooked in so you can dip your crispy taco into what they call a consomé. It makes it juicy, slightly spicy and adds a ton of flavor.

What are quesa tacos?

It’s basically a quesadilla with meat filling, but instead of it being between 2 tortillas sandwiched together, it’s one corn tortilla folded in half over the filling. It’s also very common for the tortilla to be dipped either in regular oil or a red chili oil before it’s placed onto the griddle for that extra crispy taco feel.

What type of cheese should I use?

A good neutral melting cheese would work great. Chihuahua cheese is our favorite, but the easiest to find will probably be mozzarella cheese. It works out great because it is mild and very melty. If those don’t work, any mild cheese that melts well would work just fine.

Step by step process

You want to start by make the beef birria. Do this early if possible because it’s the part that will take the longest. The meat has too cook for at least 3 ½ hours so that it’s super soft and tender.

For the beef birria

Start by chopping the pot roast into smaller chunks about the size of your palm and adding to a pot.

For more details pictures checkout the Birria with BEEF BIRRIA WITH CONSOMME recipe.

Then, to the same pot add 1 onion cut in half, 8 garlic cloves, 4 bay leaves, and 1 tablespoon salt or to taste, 8 cups of water, and cook while making sure to skim the impurities from the top.

While the meat cooks prepare the sauce.

Start by opening the dried chili pods and removing all of the seeds and veins and running them under water to remove any dirt on the outside. Please wear gloves when removing the seeds and veins!

To a medium pot, fill with enough water to cover the dried chili pods and bring the water to a boil

Once it has come to a boil add the chili pods to the water and simmer for 20 minutes.

To another pot, add some water and boil the tomatoes until soft and set aside.

Then, To a blender add all the spices, tomatoes, chipotle pepper, cooked chilies, and some of the chili cooing water. Blend until you have a smooth puree.

To the pot with your meat, over a strainer, pour the chili sauce.

You should be left with only the pulp of the chilies in the strainer. Discard the pulp and repeat until all of the sauce has been strained into the pot.

Continue to cook until the meat is soft and tender or it has been approximately 3 ½ hours of cooking time. Once soft, turn off the heat and set aside.

Remove the meat from the beef broth and chop into smaller pieces or shred and set aside. Also, remove any large chunks of fat and discard.

You will notice that the rendered fat has settle at the top. With a ladle or a large spoon skim the liquid fat from the top trying not to take to too much or any of the actual broth onto the spoon and place that into a bowl. You only want to pick out as much of the rendered beef fat as possible. We will use this to dip our tortillas in when we start to make our cheese tacos.

For the quesa tacos

Start by warming up a griddle, non-stick pan or comal on medium heat.

Dip part of a corn tortilla into the rendered beef fat we had set aside in a bowl. Dip about ⅓ of it more one one side if possible.

Place your tortilla on to the griddle swishing it around for a couple of seconds so that the grease coats the rest of the tortilla.

To one half of the tortilla add some of the shredded beef and cheese, then fold over and let it crisp on that side, after about 2 minutes flip over and crisp on the other side for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and onto a plate.

Repeat until you have finished making all of your quesa tacos.

Consomé for dipping

To a small bowl approximately the size of 1 cup, add some of the beef broth and some chopped meat.

Optionally you can also add diced onion, cilantro, your favorite salsa, and some lime to the broth.

Serve the tacos with a cup of the broth for dipping.

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