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If you’re a fan of bold, tangy, smoky flavors, crispy taco shells, melty cheese, and tender, juicy chicken, then you will absolutely LOVE these chicken birria tacos as much as I do! This restaurant-quality dish is surprisingly easy to cook at home and makes enough to feed a group or double as tonight’s dinner and tomorrow’s lunch. Transform your basic Taco Tuesday with these saucy chicken-stuffed tacos!
Before You Get Started
- If you have an international market or a Mexican supermarket nearby, head there for your ingredients! Depending on your area, you may have better luck finding the dried chiles, Mexican cinnamon sticks, and Mexican oregano at a dedicated market.
- Guajillo and ancho chiles do have a bit of heat, but both are still on the mild side. Even the heat-averse among you should be fine with this sauce. Just make sure to remove the seeds before getting started – that’s where most of the heat is!
How to Make This Recipe
See recipe card below for full list of measurements, ingredients, and instructions.
Begin the Sauce
Bring a pot of water, peppers, tomatoes, onion, cinnamon stick, bay leaves, and peppercorns to a rolling boil, then immediately reduce the heat to low. Let the ingredients simmer for 10 minutes, then remove the bay leaves and cinnamon stick from the pot and toss them.
Cheryl’s Tip: It’s important to rinse the dried chiles before you cook them, to remove all surface dirt from packaging and transport. You also want to remove the stems and all of the seeds, too. The easiest way? Cut away the stem-end of each pepper, then slice each pepper down one side, like a hot dog bun. Once you can open the pepper, you can easily scrape out all the seeds with a metal spoon.
bLEND THE SAUCE
Transfer the rest of the solid ingredients to a blender, along with the remaining sauce ingredients and 1 cup of the water you used to boil the chiles. Blend everything together until the mixture is smooth.
Strain the Sauce
Fit a fine-mesh sieve over the pot you used before and pour the blended sauce directly into the sieve. Gently press on the mixture with the back of a wooden spoon, straining as much liquid out of the ingredient pulp as possible. When you’ve got everything you can, discard any solids caught by the strainer and place the pot of sauce on the stovetop over high heat.
Cook the Chicken
Bring the birria sauce to a boil, then immediately reduce the heat to low and add the pieces of bone-in chicken. Cover the chicken with sauce, then pop a lid on the pot and simmer the chicken in the sauce until it’s cooked through. Exact times depend on the sizes of your chicken pieces, but generally speaking it’ll take 30-45 minutes to reach your target internal temperature. Once you’re there, transfer the chicken to a cutting board and set it aside to rest 5 minutes before shredding it.
Cheryl’s Tip: For best results, check the chicken with an internal meat thermometer and remove it from the sauce when the internal temp reaches 162° Fahrenheit. The chicken will continue cooking as it rests, so this helps avoid overcooking.
Assemble the tacos
One at a time, dip a corn tortilla in the birria sauce, lightly coating the tortilla. Place the dipped tortilla in a large skillet of hot oil and pan fry it just for a minute or so, until it’s golden on the bottom. After that, flip the tortilla over and immediately top it with a layer of cheese, then cover the skillet with a lid and steam the cheese until it melts. Arrange shredded chicken over just one half of the cheese layer – once the tortilla’s browned underneath, you’ll fold it in half to cover the chicken, forming a taco. Repeat with the remaining corn tortillas, then serve the chicken birria tacos immediately with your favorite toppings and plenty of sauce for dipping.
What I Love About This Recipe
- The flavors! Chicken birria tacos are filled with amazing flavors, all thanks to the absolute dream of a sauce. It’s tangy and bold and just a little smoky, made with 2 types of dried chili peppers, roma tomatoes, yellow onion, bay leaves, and a smattering of rich spices.
- The process might look a little involved, but making your own chicken birria tacos is actually super easy! The ingredients for the sauce are boiled then blended into a smooth mixture that you then use to cook the chicken until it’s tender. From there, you’ll shred the chicken using your favorite shredding method and then it’s time to assemble the tacos!
Recipe Variations
- Cut the Heat: A dollop of sour cream on top of the tacos can help to offset the chile heat in the birria sauce.
- A Softer Side: If crunchy tacos aren’t your thing, feel free to replace the corn tortillas with flour tortillas and skip the frying altogether! Chicken birria soft tacos are equally as delicious, but slightly faster and easier.
- Make it Vegan: Replace the chicken in your birria tacos with tasty shredded jackfruit! Head over to my other site, Easy Healthy Recipes, for my magic vegan birria tacos recipe. I’ll walk you through everything you need to know!
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions or variations listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
Chicken Birria Tacos
Equipment
- Large, heavy-bottomed pot with lid
- Large wooden spoon
- Slotted spoon
- standard blender
- Fine mesh sieve
- internal meat thermometer
- Tongs
- Cutting board
- 2 forks
- Large cast-iron skillet with lid
- Spatula
Ingredients
For the Chicken Birria
- 1 tablespoon neutral-flavored oil avocado oil, vegetable oil, etc.
- 12 guajillo chiles washed, stems and seeds removed
- 6 ancho chiles washed, stems and seeds removed
- 2 large roma tomatoes approximately 2 ounces each
- 1 small yellow onion quartered
- 1 4-inch long Mexican cinnamon stick
- 2 large bay leaves
- ½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns
- water to fill pot
- 4 cups chicken broth or beef broth
- 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
- 2 ½ tablespoons minced fresh garlic approximately 5 large cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- 1-2 teaspoons salt to taste
- 1 5-pound whole chicken cut into pieces, or 4–5 pounds chicken pieces
Serving Suggestions (All Optional)
- 1 tablespoon neutral-flavored oil avocado oil, vegetable oil, etc.; plus more as needed
- 12 corn tortillas
- shredded fresh mozzarella or Oaxaca cheese
- diced onion
- diced fresh cilantro
- salsa
Instructions
For the Birria Sauce
- Place large pot on stovetop over high heat. Add 1 tablespoon neutral-flavored oil to pot and heat until oil is shimmery.
- When oil is hot, add 12 guajillo chiles, 6 ancho chiles, 2 large roma tomatoes, 1 small yellow onion, 1 4-inch long Mexican cinnamon stick, 2 large bay leaves, and ½ teaspoon whole black peppercorns. Stir ingredients together, then add enough water to fill pot.
- Bring water to rolling boil, then immediately reduce heat under pot to low. Cover pot with lid and simmer mixture over low heat 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, uncover pot. Remove and discard bay leaves and cinnamon stick.
- Using slotted spoon, transfer all remaining solid ingredients from pot to blender.
- After transferring solid ingredients to blender, add 1 cup of water from pot to blender. Discard any remaining water from pot and set pot aside.
- Add 4 cups chicken broth, 2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar, 2 ½ tablespoons minced fresh garlic, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano, ¼ teaspoon ground cloves, and 1-2 teaspoons salt (to taste) to blender.
- Blend ingredients together on high speed until fully incorporated into completely smooth mixture.
- Place fine mesh sieve over pot. Pour blended mixture into sieve and gently press mixture through mesh with back of wooden spoon, straining mixture well. Discard any solids caught in strainer.
For the Chicken
- Place pot of birria sauce on stovetop and increase heat to high. Add pieces of 1 5-pound whole chicken to pot. Stir to incorporate.
- Bring sauce to boil, then immediately reduce heat under pot to low. Cover pot with lid and simmer mixture 30 to 40 minutes, or until chicken pieces reach 160° to 163° Fahrenheit internally.
- When target temperature range is reached, transfer chicken pieces to cutting board and set aside. Allow chicken to rest 5 minutes, then shred chicken using 2 forks or method of choice. Discard bones.
To Serve
- Place large skillet (cast-iron preferred) on stovetop over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon neutral-flavored oil to skillet and heat pan until oil is shimmery.
- When oil is hot, quickly dip 1 corn tortilla in birria sauce. Let excess sauce drip off tortilla into pot, then place tortilla in skillet.
- Pan fry tortilla 1 minute or until bottom of tortilla is golden, gently pressing tortilla against bottom of skillet if needed.
- When bottom of tortilla is golden, flip tortilla over. Top tortilla with even layer of shredded fresh mozzarella then place lid on skillet and fry tortilla until cheese has melted.
- Remove lid from skillet and top one half of tortilla with shredded chicken. Continue cooking until bottom of tortilla is browned and crispy, then carefully fold tortilla in half, covering shredded chicken completely.
- Transfer taco to serving platter. Repeat process with remaining tortillas and chicken until all 12 corn tortillas have been made into tacos.
- Serve birria tacos immediately with diced onion, diced fresh cilantro, salsa, and plenty of birria sauce for dipping.
- Blender: If your blender is on the small side, you’ll need to work in batches to ensure everything is blended well.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
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