Quick Birria Tacos on the Flatrock

From prep to the table in under 15 minutes, these quick birria tacos on the Traeger Flatrock will soon be on the regular rotation at your house. Perfect for a quick weeknight meal that uses up leftovers, these delicious tacos are a quick take on traditional birria tacos. Pantry ingredients plus some leftover steak and a few minutes and you will have a fantastic dinner to enjoy with your family.

BIRRIA TACOS BUT MAKE THEM QUICK

If you’ve been around taco trucks in the past couple years, you’ll be familiar with birria tacos and the creative and delicious ways that birria has become somewhat mainstream in the foodie world. Think ramen + birria… it’s amazing.

And while getting a plate of birria tacos at a taco truck can be pretty quick, the reality is that someone slaved over this dish for nearly a dozen hours to produce these cheesy, saucy tacos for your enjoyment. Birria is inherently not a quick cook, and you can check out a recipe I have for it here— low and slow.

But this recipe cuts some corners, uses pantry and staple fridge ingredients and gives you a quick copycat experience of low-and-slow birria.

WHAT IS TRADITIONAL BIRRIA?

Traditionally made with slow-cooked goat meat, birria is a dish that has been around for a long time but has only recently taken the taco world by storm outside of Mexico. Originally from the region of Jalisco in Mexico, it’s a slow-cooked stew of goat meat, peppers and spices that is then used in tacos, burritos, as a topping for baked potatoes, or served with rice and tortillas on the side.

If you’ve had traditional goat birria, you’ve really experienced the true dish. In America these days, most birria is made of beef. The recipe for more traditional birria on my website uses chuck roast. It’s smoked and seared and then braised for up to 15 hours in a thick broth of peppers, tomatoes, beef stock and aromatics.

Once the meat is fork-tender, it is removed from the braise, shredded and then used in various applications. But the braising liquid isn’t tossed– instead it’s served alongside the birria dishes you enjoy as a consommé for sipping or dipping.

MY LONG-FORM BIRRIA RECIPE

Shared first back in April 2021, my recipe for birria uses chuck roast, a variety of fresh and dried chiles, cinnamon, anise and bay leaf along with canned crushed tomatoes and chipotle chiles in adobo sauce. The peppers are roasted along with onion and then blended until smooth to create the base for the braise.

Once the sauce was made, I smoked the chuck roast to imbue it with lots of wood-fired flavor, seared it to get some caramelization and then braised the meat in the prepared sauce for about 5 hours.

It took a long time, was a labor of love, and had amazing results. But in reality, this recipe was something we cooked before we had twins and before those twins were 22 months. Now– in June 2023– quick and easy dinners we can get on the table in under 30 minutes are a priority and we wanted to find a way to make birria but easy.

QUICK BIRRIA SHORTCUTS

The base of some of our favorite home-cooked meals is leftovers. When we have time (and the energy to do so) we, like to cook up big cuts like an amazing tri-tip to enjoy for dinner that night and then use for leftovers in the days to come. As the toddlers are still sort of finicky eaters, they haven’t been consuming as much tri-tip as we expect they will in the future, and we have ended up with generous amounts of leftovers from cooks like tri-tip.

STEAK SHORTCUT

We took the cooled, seared tri-tip and sliced it into 1/3 inch slices. Then cut the meat into 1/3 inch cubes. Once the meat was all cubed up, we ran a sharp knife through the whole pile a few times, creating a rough and uneven chop throughout the meat. This gave it a chopped-steak feel, which would be more reminiscent of the texture of pulled meat in the traditional birria recipe.

SAUCE SHORTCUT

As a key component of any good birria experience, we needed to create a rich and flavorful sauce that would emulate that of birria consommé without all the ingredients or effort. We turned to a can of red enchilada sauce and pumped up the flavor by adding some dissolved beef bouillon, hot sauce and fajita seasoning. Once combined and heated through, it had flavors reminiscent of traditional birria, but made quick for a weeknight dinner.

HOW TO COOK QUICK BIRRIA TACOS

With the introduction of the Traeger Flatrock griddle grill this past spring, we have found so many unique and creative ways to make dishes we love in our outdoor kitchen. Things you’d expect– like fajitas and omelets, and things you wouldn’t expect like orange chicken and cinnamon roll pancakes– have all turned out amazing. So we knew that we could turn to the Traeger Flatrock to make these quick birria tacos happen, and fast.

PULLING TOGETHER YOUR INGREDIENTS

Once the steak was chopped and the sauce was assembled, we heated up the Traeger Flatrock and got cooking. Our saucepan of quick consommé heated up while on the griddle and all the remaining ingredients would come together quickly on the big cast iron griddle of the Flatrock.

We added a few spoonfuls of the prepared sauce to the chopped steak and then put the steak on the hot griddle to sear. The sauce caramelizes a bit while cooked, adding depth of flavor and some crunchy bits to the griddled tri-tip.

The flour tortillas were dipped in the sauce and then onto the griddle, creating a baked-in layer of flavor to each tortilla, which is reminiscent of how traditional birria is made.

Once the tortilla was hot on one side, we flipped them over, added shredded Oaxaca cheese, chopped white onion and some of the griddled steak and topped with some more cheese. The tortillas were folded in half and allowed to continue cooking until crispy on the outside and the cheese was melted within.

SERVE AND ENJOY QUICK BIRRIA TACOS

To serve, we stacked a pile of these cheesy birria-style stuffed folded tacos on a cutting board and poured a dish of the prepared sauce to serve alongside. A sprinkle of chopped cilantro and these quick birria tacos on the Flatrock were ready to enjoy.

PRIMARY INGREDIENTS

• Leftover steak (we used tri-tip)
• Flour tortillas
• White onion
• Cilantro
• Oaxaca cheese (or other melty cheese like mozzarella)
• Red enchilada sauce
• Beef bullion cubes
• Fajita seasoning
• Hot sauce

WHY COOKING QUICK BIRRIA TACOS ON THE TRAEGER WORKS 

The new Traeger Flatrock griddle grill is making it so easy to prepare dinner for my young family in no time. With the three different temperature zones, the huge grilling surface and the ease of use, I definitely don’t have any good excuse anymore why takeout is easier than dinner at home.

When you take the Flatrock and combine it with delicious leftovers like seared tri-tip, you have a path to super easy and delicious dinner in short order. You can definitely make these quick birria tacos on the Flatrock with other steak you have leftover– or experiment with other meats you have (pulled pork, chicken, etc) to see what kind of birria-inspired dishes you can make.

STEP-BY-STEP

• Preheat Traeger Flatrock to medium heat– using all three zones.
• Using a big sharp chef’s knife, chop up the leftover steak in to 1/3-1/4 inch cubes.
• Then run your knife through the meat again, cutting into slightly finer pieces with irregular shapes.
• In a saucepan, combine the canned enchilada sauce, hot sauce, fajita seasoning and beef bouillon (dissolved in a small amount of hot water).
• Stir to combine and place on the griddle to begin heating through.
• Chop the cilantro and white onion into fine dice.
• Shred the Oaxaca cheese.
• To the bowl of chopped steak, add 2 large spoonfuls of the papered sauce. Stir to combine.
• Transfer the sauced steak to the hot griddle and being searing.
• Dip the tortillas in the prepared sauce and put the dipped tortillas directly on the hot griddle, sprayed with cooking oil.
• Cook the tortilla for 2 minutes, then flip.
• Add a big handful of shredded cheese to the tortilla.
• Then top the cheese with a generous portion of the griddled steak.
• Sprinkle the steak with chopped onion.
• Add more cheese atop and continue cooking on the Flatrock.
• When the cheese begins to melt, carefully fold each tortilla in half and press down with your spatula.
• Continue cooking the tacos until the cheese is melted throughout, about 5 minutes.
• Transfer the cooked tacos to a cutting board or platter.
• Sprinkle with chopped cilantro.
• Pour some of the heated sauce into a serving bowl.
• Serve your quick birria tacos hot off the Flatrock along with a bowl of sauce for dipping.

ALTERNATE RECIPES/PRODUCT LINKS

Here are some recipes to try if you like these quick birria tacos on the Flatrock:

• Traditional birria (cooked low and slow)
• Salmon tacos with citrus slaw
• Sweet potato and chorizo tacos
• Quick carne asada
• Also check out my cookbook, which you can get here, that has a recipe for chicken Tinga tacos!

PRODUCTS USED IN THIS COOK

• Traeger Flatrock griddle

Give this recipe for quick carne asada on the Traeger a try and let me know what you think! 
If you cook it up, tag me at @thisjewcanque so I can see your results!