Red Chile Beef Tacos Recipe

Authentic Red Chile Beef

My mother-in-law tells stories about visiting El Grande Market in Tucson, Arizona as a young mother in the 1970's. She would take her son (my husband) along to pick out hot chiles and learn how to cook and prepare authentic Mexican food. My mother-in law is very fair skinned with strawberry-blonde hair and my husband is a towhead, so they stood out from the normal customer at the market! The market employees were very welcoming and were happy to teach a young white mother. They thought it was so great that she wanted to learn proper Mexican cooking. My mother-in-law learned how to make many amazing dishes from the women at El Grande Market which included this Red Chile Beef. She ultimately taught my husband how to make it and in turn I also learned. It's amazing!!

The most important part of red chile beef is of course the chiles! Three different dried chiles are used in this recipe: roasted jalapeños, California red chiles, and chile arbols. You can most likely find these chiles at your local Hispanic grocery market.

Authentic Red Chile Beef
2 lb beef roast (preferably arm or round, well marbled)
2 whole roasted, dried jalapeños
3 whole dried California red chiles
20-30 whole dried chile arbols
1 cup beef stock
1 whole white onion, quartered
6 large cloves garlic
4 medium fresh tomatoes (quartered) or one 15 ounce can tomato sauce
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
Juice of one lime

Gather all ingredients...

Heat a large frying pan on high heat. Sear the roast on all sides until you get a nice brown sear on each side.

Place roast in a slow cooker and add one to two cups of water or about half way up the side of the roast. Set to high heat and cook 5-6 hours or until meat easily shreds with a fork.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a sharp knife remove stems from all chiles. Depending on the amount of heat you want the final red chile sauce to have keep or remove the seeds.

Add all chiles to a bowl of boiling water. Let stand 10-15 minutes or until chiles become soft and plump.

While the chiles are soaking roast onion and garlic on a baking sheet in preheated oven for 10-15 minutes or until they start to soften and char slightly. If using fresh tomatoes roast with onion and garlic.

Drain water off chiles. Reserve chile water and add one cup to blender along with chiles. Add onion, garlic, roasted tomatoes or can of tomato sauce, salt, beef stock, lime juice and honey. BLEND!

Using a fine mesh strainer and a ladle strain red chile sauce to remove all seeds, skin and membranes of chiles.

Add to a pot with shredded beef. Heat over medium heat for 20-30 minutes to infuse the chile sauce into the beef.

Serve on tacos with toppings and condiments of choice!

Eat and enjoy!