Beef Barbacoa Slow Cooker 5-Ingredient

Beef Barbacoa Slow Cooker 5-Ingredient. This easy slow cooker beef barbacoa uses just five simple ingredients to make juicy, smoky, fall-apart shredded beef. Chipotle peppers do all the hard work while you go about your day. Perfect for tacos, rice bowls, or anything else you can dream up!

This 5-ingredient slow cooker beef barbacoa is my kind of weeknight win. You just spoon smoky chipotle peppers over a big piece of beef chuck, throw in three things from your pantry, and let the slow cooker handle the rest. What you get is super flavorful, melt-in-your-mouth shredded beef that everyone at the table goes crazy for. This recipe takes ideas from Northern Mexican barbacoa, where meat is cooked low and slow in a pit. Here, canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce give you that same smoky, spicy taste without any hard work.

You can pile the shredded beef into warm corn or flour tortillas and top it with chopped onion, fresh cilantro, a squeeze of lime, and crumbled queso fresco. It also tastes amazing over cilantro-lime rice or plain white rice with black beans on the side. If you want something lighter, spoon it over shredded cabbage or a fresh salad with avocado. Got leftovers? Use them in quesadillas, nachos, burrito bowls, or even on top of a baked potato. Add some roasted veggies or a simple tomato-cucumber salad on the side to balance out all that rich, smoky flavor.

Ingredients

• 3 to 3½ pounds beef chuck roast, with the extra hard fat trimmed off
• 1 small can (7 ounces) of chipotle peppers in spicy sauc
• 1 cup beef broth (use less salt kind if you can)
• ¼ cup fresh lime juice (you will need about 2 limes)
• 1 tablespoon kosher salt, or 2 teaspoons fine sea salt, plus a little more if needed

Beef Barbacoa: Directions

1. Put the whole beef chuck roast into your slow cooker. If you can see a layer of fat on top, place that side facing up. This helps the fat drip down over the meat while it cooks and keeps it nice and juicy.
2. Open the can of chipotle peppers. Use a spoon to scoop the peppers and all the sauce from the can right on top of the raw beef. Spread them around a little so they cover the meat pretty evenly. This is where all that smoky, spicy flavor comes from.
3. Pour the beef broth around the sides of the meat, not directly on top, so you do not wash the chipotle peppers off. Then drizzle the fresh lime juice over the top of the beef.
4. Sprinkle the salt evenly over the beef and peppers. Take a look inside your slow cooker. You should see exactly five ingredients: beef chuck, chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, beef broth, lime juice, and salt. That is all you need.
5. Put the lid on the slow cooker. Cook it on LOW flame for 8 – 10 hours, or on HIGH heat for 4 to 5 hrs. The beef is ready when it is very soft and falls apart easily when you poke it with a fork. Cooking it on LOW gives you the best, most tender results.
6. When the beef is done, use tongs to lift it out and place it in a big bowl. Leave all the cooking liquid and peppers behind in the slow cooker. If you see large pools of fat floating on top of the liquid, you can skim those off if you want.
7. Use two forks to pull the beef apart into small, bite-sized pieces. Then put the shredded beef back into the slow cooker along with any juices that collected in the bowl. Stir everything together so the beef soaks up that chipotle cooking liquid.
8. Give the barbacoa a quick taste. Add a little more salt or another squeeze of lime if it needs it. Switch the slow cooker to WARM and let the beef sit in the sauce for about 10 to 15 minutes. This gives the meat time to soak up even more of those good juices before you serve it.
9. Serve the beef hot, using tongs or a slotted spoon to pick it up. If you like your meat a little less saucy, let some of the extra liquid drip off before you plate it.

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