Birria Inspired Chili Recipe

Thousand Oaks Chili Cook Off

Ingredients for 1 Gallon

This is a flexible recipe. You can skip the soy sauce and fish sauce. Swap orange juice for vinegar. It’s OK. Use any type of tomatoes. What makes it birria is the toasted chilis and onions being blended into the sauce and the mix of spices that are cooked along with the meat.

Prepare Dried Chiles: Remove stems and seeds from dried chiles. Reduce spiciness by skipping the chile de árbol; make it spicier by adding.

Toast Dried Chiles in oven, instant pot or saute pan: Instant Pot: Press “Saute” button to heat up the Instant Pot. Add chilis. Stir/flip occasionally. Saute Pan: heat pan medium-high. Add chilis. Once you smell the chiles' aroma (~4 mins), remove and put in cooking pot.

Meat Prep: Apply salt or a favorite dry rub and let the tri-tip sit for at least an hour.  Heat 2T oil in instant pot or frying pan. Brown one side for 4 minutes, turn and brown the other. Set aside the browned meat to cool then cut into about 6 big chunks.

Saute Onions, Garlic and Spices: Add 1 tbsp vegetable oil to Instant Pot or pan that you browned the beef in. Add in onions, then saute for 3 minutes. Add in garlic cloves, cinnamon, dried Mexican oregano / marjoram, ground cumin, and paprika. Saute for another minute. Add to pot.

Deglaze Instant Pot/Sauté Pan: Pour 2 cans of crushed tomatoes into pot or pan to deglaze brown bits off the bottom if needed.

Pressure Cook Birria: add apple cider vinegar, fish sauce, soy sauce, and water to cooking pot with the onion/spice mixture, tomatoes, and the dried chiles. Place the browned beef chunks into pot and add water if the tomatoes aren’t enough to cover.

Pressure Cooking: Pressure Cook at High Pressure - Tri-tip chunks (3" thick) for 50-60 minutes - natural release for 15 min.

Stove Top: Use a dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot. Bring to a low boil and then simmer over a very low flame for 2-3 hrs. Or do the same in the oven at 300F. Cook until tender.

Make the birria sauce: Remove beef chunks and set aside in large bowl or rimmed baking sheet. If you are worried about too much spice, take out the hot little chili if you can find it. Leave the remaining chiles, onions and liquid in pot. Blend with an immersion hand blender until smooth or transfer to blender or food processor in batches to blend until smooth. If you are worried it will be too spicy, pull some of the chilis out of the pot for the first blending and then add back in to the blended broth until you are happy with the taste.

Process the beef to desired size: Chop, crush, or shred the beef as you prefer and then transfer into the sauce. Cook it down, or dilute, until it’s the thickness you prefer.

Season Birria: Taste and add salt if desired

Serve: If serving as a bowl of stew or chili, provide lime wedges, diced white onion and finely chopped cilantro. Top with grated melting cheese (Oaxacan or Mozzarella) if desired.

If making tacos, dip corn tortillas into a pie pan of the sauce to moisten, fill with meat and melting cheese, cook the sauce into the tortilla in a sauté pan while the cheese melts. It should get kind of chewy.

The grilled tacos are dipped in a cup of the birria broth. The sauce might need to be diluted with hot water or unsalted broth in order to provide the traditional consommé used for dipping tacos at the table. Serve with lime wedges, diced white onion and finely chopped cilantro. Provide hot sauce on the side for those who think the only good chili is a very spicy chili.