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Barbacoa
PIN THIS RECIPE!So when I need a quick lunch, Chipotle is my go-to for something delicious and crazy satisfying. Have you seen the amount of guacamole they give you there? Jesus. Qdoba is still decent, but they cheat you on guac portions, disappointing…and selfish.
Anywho, I almost always get the barbacoa at Chipotle. It’s fantastic. I used to eat the pork like it was going out of style, but thought I needed to change it up and expand my horizons. Sometimes their barbacoa is a bit salty, but most of the time it’s incredible. So I tried to duplicate it. I failed at duplication. But it still came out wonderfully. I will not complain about it one bit!
Ok, I’ve come to a decision. I like shredded meat far more than chunks of meat. Shredded chicken, shredded pork, shredded beef. I would even eat shredded fish if you could do that, but it would be difficult, and tedious. I’ve been shredding most of my meat lately. Why? Because I don’t have a grill so I crock pot most meals. That means shreddy shreddy-meat meat for me!
Oh and BTW, stop looking at this ingredient list and thinking it’s incredibly long and this meal will take you forever to cook. Your crockpot does all the work so stop whining. And if you don’t have all the spices, whatever! Grab whatever spice sounds good to you, spicy or mild, and add it in! Nothing will make this taste bad. It’s a rump roast for gosh sakes! Rump + Roast = ummmmmm hello, pure happiness.
PrintBarbacoa
Ingredients
For the first round of cooking
- 1.5–2 lbs beef rump roast, trimmed of extra fat (if you’d like)
- 6–8 garlic cloves, peeled
- 2–4 bay leaves
- 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 cup gluten free beef broth (or water would work)
- 1 yellow onion, roughly chopped
- 1/2 red onion, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon cumin
- 2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, roughly chopped
- 1 tablespoon adobo sauce (from the can of chipotle peppers)
- 1 container of chopped mushrooms (optional–I just needed to use it before it went bad)
For the second round of cooking
- 1 16oz can tomato sauce
- 1 12-16oz can green chiles
- 1 tablespoon chipotle chili powder
- 2 teaspoons cayenne pepper
- 1 teaspoon ground red pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
- salt and pepper, to taste
If you want to do a little extra work since your crock pot already did everything for you
- 1 red onion, chopped however you like
- 1 yellow pepper, roughly chopped
- 1 red pepper, roughly chopped
- 1 green pepper, roughly chopped
- 1/2–1 jalapeño, thinly chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- cilantro and green onions to top off
Instructions
- Pull out your crockpot. Actually, just leave it on your counter like me. It gets used a lot. If it doesn’t, shame on you!
- Add to your crock pot: garlic cloves, bay leaves, apple cider vinegar, broth, chopped onions, cumin, chipotle pepper and sauce, and rump roast. Mix ingredients around to help coat the rump roast.
- Cover and let cook for 6 hours on high or 8 hours on low. Run a fork along the rump roast at the end of cooking to make sure it is done and easily shreddable (word? I don’t think so).
Once the roast is done cooking:
- Pull out the meat and shred it on a plate.
- Then use a slotted spoon to scoop out all the onions, garlic cloves and mushrooms. Put those ingredients either on top of the shredded meat or in a separate bowl–it will all be going back into the crock pot anyways. Discard the bay leaves and liquid mixtures.
- Add the shredded meat and onions, garlic cloves and mushrooms back to the crock pot.
- Add in tomato sauce, green chiles, and spices. Mix thoroughly
- Let cook on high for 1.5-2 hours.
While the meat is finishing cooking:
- Slice up your onions, peppers, and jalapeño.
- Heat up your fat of choice under medium-high heat and first add your onions.
- Let the onions cook down for about 3 minutes, then add your peppers and jalapeño.
- Add about 1-2 tablespoons of water to your pan and cover with a lid. Let those veggies cook down, randomly stirring them at times so they don’t burn.
- Add a bit of salt and pepper to the veggies after they’ve cooked for 8-10 minutes.
Notes
Top the veggies off with your meat after it has cooked for a couple hours. So freagin’ good.
Grocery List Helper:
- Rump Roast: On sale at Sunflower Market for $2.99/lb
- Bay leaves: in bulk at Sunflower Market
- Apple Cider Vinegar: Kroger Brand
- Gluten Free Beef Broth: On sale (2 for 1 special) at Sunflower Market
- Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce: in the ethnic foods isle at King Soopers (in the Mexican section)
- Veggies: on sale on Sunflower Market
Oh, Hi! I’m Juli.
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19 thoughts on “Barbacoa”
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I made it for my husband and I – it was delicious!!!
Just made this tonight, sooo good! Perfect amount of spice!
Glad you liked it guys!
hells to the yeah – this was amazing! i didn’t put all the spicy-spices in, cause i’m currently breastfeeding a babe that is pretty sensitive to spicy food (no surprise, cause her mommas quite the spice wuss too)… regardless – it was delish! have enjoyed leftovers with eggs this morning and again for lunch – yums!
thanks for such a great blog – you constantly keep me entertained! keep it up! 🙂
★★★★★
Good Tracy!! That’s what I’m here for! Glad you enjoyed it!
OMG. Juli. This barbacoa rocked my world! I didn’t drain anything out. Just added tomato sauce on top of all those juices. Keep up the great work! I love your recipes!
★★★★★
Hey, lady! You seem pretty adventurous in what you eat. Try this simpler version (and how many Mexicans make it nowadays down here on the Mexican border). All you need is: 1 cow tongue (find it without the gray mark on the tongue, if possible) that’ll fit in your crock pot; minced garlic lathered of the tongue; and your crock pot!
I set mine overnight to have for breakfast…unless it’s after a night out 😉
Make yourself a homemade salsa and presto 😉
Thanks from New Zealand – made this tonight and it’s fab! Think I might’ve over-chillied mine a touch but that’s all good for my palate!
Cheers!
★★★★★
Also, I have a question(s):
I’ve read that having spices in the crock pot for the whole of the cooking can make them go a bit acrid or mess up their flavours. Is this why you add most of the spices in just those last two hours?
If not, then why is the cooking broken into the two parts? – And would you recommend that technique for most crock pot dishes or is it just this one?
i have no clue, i do it in two steps here to just add extra flavoring, but i don’t usually do that in other recipes. just this one.
Well, whatever the case, it worked 🙂
I currently looking at converting a stovetop Indian curry recipe into a slow cooker recipe and I’m thinking frying some of the spices and adding them in a similar way to how you’ve done yours is going to be an interesting experiment. I’m assuming that it will work better for those ‘bright’ flavours (as with your nutmeg here), and is in-keeping with how a lot of the time we add pepper to dishes near the end (and also true of garam masala in my curry recipe).
So yeah, just thinking and typing here, but maybe some food for thought to share 🙂
I’m so excited to make this tomorrow night! I’ve used a few of your recipes during my first Whole 30 and am loving them 🙂
Hi Julie! Thank you so much for all your amazing recipes! They have changed our lives and helped us lose weight without losing flavors! With that said, I made this barbacoa recipe today and I followed it almost to the “t”. We like spicy food but ours turned out WAY spicy! Any hints on what we can cut down on or what I can add to help chill it out? Thanks for putting so much love into your food and sharing with us all!!
avocado!
Hi juli,
I have this cooking in my Crockpot right now and I was just curious about one ingredient amount: you said 1/4 beef broth, do you mean 1/4 cup, or 1/4 of your Crockpot?
Thanks!
P.S. My son is the pickiest eater I have encountered, as a result of too many treats from grandparents;) but every recipe I have made from your website website, which has been an almost daily occurrence for the past six weeks, he has Loved! Aside from the occasional guest post 😛
You’re website has been a lifesaver!
1/4 cup! sorry about that, i’ll fix that now. here is an updated version of the recipe: https://paleomg.com/leftovers-barbacoa/
Juli –
did you see this? it’s def. your recipe…but almost word for word on the Chipotle thing as well…
http://paleospirit.com/2011/barbacoa-beef-recipe-for-crockpot-or-pressure-cooker/
Love your site, love your cookbooks –
best,
m.
Can I use Beef Top Round or London Broil to make the barbacoa? I’m clueless when it comes to meat so no clue how it differs from rump roast. Thanks!
This was so good! Love the spice. Put it over cilantro lime cauliflower rice