Beef Barbacoa for Tacos

I have only been to Chipotle Mexican Grill twice, but both times ordered the Beef Barbacoa Tacos - once soft, once hard. I loved the flavor of the meat and was surprised to find something so good at a fast food restaurant.

The other night Jon cooked Beef Negimaki using flank steak, so we had some uncooked flank steak left over. I planned on making tacos tonight so decided that I had to try to make beef that tasted like Chipotle's Beef Barbacoa.

After googling, I found this copycat recipe for Beef Barbacoa. I used the recipe for the marinade only, and cooked it on the stove instead of in the slow cooker. Also, I had about 1/3 lb meat, not the 1.5 lbs that the recipe called for so I adjusted the amounts accordingly, as noted below.

Ingredients

• 1/3 lb flank steak; the beef we had leftover was pounded thin
• 1 diced tomato
• 1 cup chicken broth
• Dash red wine
• Juice from 1/2 of a lime
• 1/3 tsp ground cumin
• 1/3 tsp ground oregano
• 1 seeded and sliced jalapeno (the recipe for 1.5 lbs meat also used 1 jalapeno..I could have actually used more!)
• 2 Tbs. cilantro
• 1/3 large onion,thickly sliced
• Dash each salt and pepper
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• For cooking: 8 oz beef broth and 2 tbsp crushed tomatoes

Directions (these are my own directions; for slow cooker directions, see the original post)

• Mix all marinade ingredients and marinate the beef overnight.
• When ready to cook, remove the beef from the marinade
• Heat olive oil in a deep saute pan or Dutch oven
• Add beef to pan and cook about 2 minutes on each side, until browned.
• Add marinade to pan and bring to a boil; let simmer, uncovered, about 30 minutes. Cooking time will be longer for more meat.
• Remove meat from pan and shred.
• Drain marinade, pressing on solids, and return liquid portion of the drained marinade to the pan with the beef broth and tomatoes. Discard the solids from the drained marinade.
• Return shredded beef to the pan and let simmer for 10-15 minutes.

I can't believe how much this beef tasted like Chipotle's beef, but even better, and nowhere near as salty. I also think Chipotle uses a chipotle pepper in their marinade, but I didn't miss the flavor.

I served the meat in hard taco shells, but think soft corn tortillas would work well as they wouldn't get as soggy.