Shredded Beef Tacos with Tequila Short Ribs and Creamy Salsa Verde
Shredded beef tacos made with tender and spicy beef short ribs slow cooked with tequila and habanero peppers, tomatoes, avocado, cilantro, crumbled cheese and a easy homemade creamy salsa verde.
Tacos are good any time of the year, they aren’t just for summer time. Amiright? Tacos are a favorite meal for both of our families and we eat lots of them all year round. They are also great to serve at casual gatherings when your friends come over and you want to serve something easy, but delicious and something that everyone loves. The best part about serving tacos for dinner is that you just have to set out the fixings and people can serve themselves and make their tacos just how they like them.
For these shredded beef tacos the fixings are super easy! Diced tomatoes and avocado, crumbled cheese, chopped cilantro and a really easy, but soooooo good, salsa verde. Simple and fresh. In these short rib tacos, the fall apart, tender beef short rib meat is the star of the show.
Make these shredded beef tacos even easier:
Butcher Box is a fabulous company that delivers grass-fed, pastured, free range, humanely raised meat products right to your door. Grass-fed meat is full of healthy fats, omega-3s and antioxidants. Plus, they have a fabulous price point (better than the same quality of meat in the grocery store) AND your order is delivered directly to your door! Its win win!
If you click the link below, you will get 10$ off your first order and free bacon! They often sweeten the deal from time to time and you will see that offer by clicking on the picture as well.
Short ribs take a little while to cook, but the actual work is pretty minimal. You sear the ribs on all sides and then throw them in a covered pot with some liquid and let them cook for a few hours. You need to check them every once in a while and add more liquid if necessary, but that’s it! And the result is worth the wait…
My new Le Creuset braiser worked like a hot damn to make these ribs. I just love this braiser so much!!
Now… if you have an instant pot, you could cook these short ribs much quicker! I just got an instant pot and a recipe for short ribs will be coming to the blog shortly. We are in love with short ribs lately and now we are in love with the instant pot! Debbie just ordered hers last week. These are exciting times in our lives lol… There will be lots of shredded beef tacos in our future!
Did you happen to notice how perfect our little corn tortillas are? Just look again. They are awesome! And we made them ????.
Last November in Puerto Vallarta, a woman making tortillas at a restaurant with this massive wooden tortilla press. It was kick ass! So Debbie and I looked high and low for a wooden tortilla press that we could take home. We couldn’t find ANY… On the last day, Debbie and Mark went looking again and some guy took them on a hunt way back into the less touristy part of the city and finally found a wooden tortilla press. I cant remember how much they paid for it, but it was likely way over priced, but at that point, they were going to pay it! Later at the airport they were all set to board the plane with the tortilla press in their carry on bag, but were told at the last moment they couldn’t carry it on board. Maybe they figured you could use it as a weapon lol. Its definitely heavy! Mark had to rush back to the counter and pay again to check the tortilla press into the belly of the plane. Such a pain.
It was worth the hassle! It makes perfectly thin, round tortillas like nobody’s business. There is this wooden tortilla press on Amazon that has great reviews and looks a lot like the one we got in Mexico (only a little nicer). If you love tacos and you know how much better your tacos taste when you make your own tortillas, then you need to check this one out! It’s worth the money…
I have owned a couple of the aluminum tortilla presses and they just don’t work at all. They don’t get the tortilla flat enough. These wooden ones will!
We also found the best corn flour for tortillas! There is a restaurant in New Westminster called El Santo and it has THE BEST food. After our meal the manager was kind enough to share the local shop where they get their white corn flour for tortillas and I went and picked some up. So worth it! It makes super pliable and tasty corn tortillas.
You can find that corn flour here or if you live in the Fraser Valley, like we do, you can get it at www.donchendo.co in Burnaby.
Now, armed with a kick ass tortilla press and proper corn flour, we will be shredded beef taco making queens!
Things we love to make these Shredded Beef Tacos Easier:
- Wooden Tortilla Press – this one looks like the one we have and it has great reviews
- White Maseca Corn Flour – so far the best we have tried for making corn tortillas!
- Cast Iron Braiser – I love this braiser for making dishes like this! Its amazing and pretty too 🙂
Shredded Beef Tacos with Tequila Short Ribs and Creamy Salsa Verde
Ingredients
MAKE THE SHORT RIBS
- 4-6 lbs beef short ribs at least 8 short ribs
- salt and pepper to cover
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 2 habanero peppers with seeds removed and cut in half
- 4 oz tequila
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 1 cup water or more as needed
FOR THE SALSA VERDE
FOR THE TACOS
- 1 corn tortilla
- 1/4 cup shredded short rib meat
- 1 tbsp tomato diced
- 1 tbsp avocado diced
- 1 tbsp cotija cheese crumbled
- 1 tsp cilantro chopped
- tbsp salsa verde
Instructions
MAKE THE SHORT RIBS
- Heat an ovenproof skillet that has a cover to med heat and wait till it gets nice and hot. Don't put in the oil yet. Salt and pepper the ribs liberally then sprinkle the ribs with the garlic powder, chili powder and cumin. Rub the spices in well. Add the oil to the pan when its hot and sear ribs on all sides till they are nicely brown doing only a few at a time. Transfer to plate and repeat till all the ribs are seared (this can take 3-5 mins per side).
- Add all the ribs back to the pot and then pour the tequila, chicken broth, and water in. Cover and cook for 2 - 4 hours over low heat. Check the ribs after 2 hours and see if they fall apart nicely. If not, recover and cook for another hour. Then check again. Check every hour to see if there is still liquid. If it's looking dry, just add a little liquid.
- When they are done, remove the ribs from the pan and let them cool a little. Then remove the bones and separate the meat from the big chunks of fat. Shred the meat into bite sized chunks and set aside.
MAKE THE SALSA VERDE
- Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Add the tomatillos, onion, jalepenos and garlic to a oven tray or pan. Pour the oil on top and toss well. Sprinkle on the salt and toss again. Bake in the oven for an hour or until roasted and nicely browned.
- Remove from the oven and let the veggies cool slightly. Pour them into a blender with the sour cream. Blend until the salsa reaches your preferred consistency. We like ours somewhere between chunky and smooth!
- Add the cilantro and blend slightly or just mix in, depending on if you like big pieces of cilantro or not. Set the salsa aside.
MAKE THE TACOS
- Set out a few tortillas. Add the shredded meat first, then the tomatoes, avocado and cheese. Sprinkle with cilantro and drizzle with sauce generously. EAT!
This sounds amazing!!! Any tips on doing some of the steps ahead of time and how to reheat?
For sure. You can make the meat and the salsa ahead of time for sure. Just make sure to cover the meat with a tight lid right away. Don’t let it sit out or it will dry out. When you reheat it, use some of the liquid that it was originally cooked in so it doesn’t dry out then either.
you used 8 lbs beef ribs…how many people will this recipe serve?
thanks
Hi Patty, Ive updated the recipe slightly… 4-6 lbs which is about 8-10 shortribs which will feed 6 people assuming everyone has about 3 tacos.