Chicken Birria  Recipe (2024)

buy your dried chiles at a mexican market or pay 5x-10x the price at supermarkets like whole foods

This worked really well in the slow-cooker. I browned chicken, then onion and spices in a frying pan then dumped everything in the slow-cooker following the recipe. The chicken was buttery soft after 6 hours.

Toasted chilis and pan fried blacked onion and garlic cloves before placing in blender to give more depth to of flavor. Made a double batch. Good flavor. Not much heat. Very mild. Will add a couple tsp of chipotle en adobo sauce when I reheat to spice it up and give a little more smokiness

hmmmm, that's strange. reading thru the recipe it sounds "all there" and ought to be quite tasty. I cook with dried chilis pods all the time (today for instance). I would up the amounts on every ingredient - 4/6 chilis each, more cumin and oregano, whole peeled tomatoes w/no liquid from the can 4/5 garlics. the vinegar is essential for any chili. cheers

Some Mexican cooks separate the broth from the Chiles before the blender and add fresh broth or water instead. The idea of cooking Chiles in liquid is to soften them for pureeing. The water they are softened in can tend to be bitter.

As I was putting this together I kept tasting and, as another reviewer pointed out, it really did taste like a spicy ketchup so I doctored it a bit. Now, that is not my MO with new recipes…I like to cook as written before modifying but I knew this just wasn’t going to work. Not for someone who looooves birria like me. So I added a cinnamon stick, dried thyme, some allspice, a couple more cloves of garlic, some anchovy paste, amped up the cumin and threw in some walnut oil. It was PERFECT.

After you blend the chilis in the food processor, don't forget to strain everything through a fine mesh strainer by pressing the cooked ground chilis into the screen. This rids the sauce of all the fine specks that can get caught in your teeth!

It turned out a bit bitter and I discovered why thanks to a previous comment warning to discard the cup of broth the recipe says to soak the chilis in. Next time I will discard that broth. In the meantime, to eliminate the bitterness, I put 2 additional tablespoons of white vinegar into the sauce as well as a pinch (just a pinch!) of baking soda. It tasted better after that!

Delicious chili birra! I made the chili sauce pretty much as written. We had rotisserie chicken breast that we shredded and sauced and made into enchiladas. The left over sauce went into freezer. Easy, heat for us was nicely warm but not hot. Bought chili’s via Amazon. Absolutely would make again in a double batch and freeze for future use

Terrific recipe, especially for one that takes under an hour. I had pasillas on hand and used those instead of anchos. The thick broth is an appealing rust color. I sliced the chicken, warmed tortillas, and ladles some broth into a cup so I could dip my taco after each bite. I was puzzled by the slow cooker suggestion from another commenter. That adds five hours to prep!

Easy to make plant-based by replacing the broth with veggie or mushroom broth and the chicken with cauliflower. I charred the cauliflower florets first then added them to the stew. Great. Could also use mushrooms, tofu, tortillas, etc.

Upped the chiles to 4 each, 1 T oregano (Mexican).1T Balsamic vinegar near the end,1 Whole onion.Cooked the sauce 1 1/2 hours before adding the chicken back in for 30 minutes.

This was a fantastic recipe! Delicious, with a depth of flavor unique for a Mexican dish. With the help of commenters here, I changed the following:Used 4 guajillo & ancho peppers and toasted them first. Boiled in water instead of broth and then drained them before adding to the blender. Used 1 cup of broth in the blender instead of water and added 2 tsp.of chipotle adobo sauce & 1/4 tsp.of cocoa. Used 2 lbs.of chicken and only added 1 cup of broth to the pot. Simmered on lo for 2 hrs. Perfect!

It was really delicious, but with one major correction in the recipe: Step 3 says to cook for 25 minutes, but it actually needs to cook for about 2 hours so the chicken becomes tender and stew-like.

Excellent. Bought dried chilies from this year's crop at the Bodega (Tucson/Ft.Lowell) here in Tucson. Taking heed of cooking notes, threw in 4 dried Chiltepin peppers to up the heat and used 2.5lbs of chicken. Perfect for 4 with another meal in the leftovers - lunch time burritos. Will definitely make this again.

After making this amazing recipe several times, here are my most recent adjustments:- Combo of Ancho, California, and Guajillo chilis (3, 2, + 2)-3C of veggie stock to rehydrate chilis (strained)- 1 onion: 1st half, deglaze pot and caramelize; 2nd half, add for one minute as stated- 7 cloves garlic- 1.5T cumin- 1.5T organo- 1 cinnamon stick, only 30 minFINISH: 1/2t cayenne pepper; 2T brown sugarAlways cook long enough for meat to fall off the bone. Magnifique!

Came out great, followed the recipe. Made more sauce than I anticipated, only;y suggestion is to go 2,5#s of chicken.

So so so delicious. I did not have dried guajillo or ancho chiles. So I skipped step 1 and used some canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce and some fresh shish*to peppers I had in the fridge. Otherwise, I followed the recipe. This was so gooooood!

I took a few shortcuts and this still came out wonderfully! I subbed chili powder and Anaheim chili powder for the peppers, and used tomato sauce instead of whole tomatoes. This allowed me to skip the step on pureeing - I kept the garlic cloves, but minced them. I also shredded the chicken after the 25 min mark and let it sit in the sauce for another few minutes. Served with beans and rice and plenty of the sauce. Yum!

I was a little dubious about making this given all the comments about it being bland. I followed the recipe, the only change being to double the garlic and onion. I served this over rice with cilantro, grated sharp cheddar cheese and sour cream. It was really good. It is definitely not super spicy, but it delivers plenty of smoky flavors and a gentle heat. A definite keeper for an easy weeknight dinner.

Excellent. Subbed in dried chipotles for the others because that's what the store had.

Remove seeds before blending. Used combo of ancho and California chili pods. Could have moved pepper a around liquid more - top chilis were not as finished. Used Berkeley Bowl veggie broth bouillon. Discarded pepper liquid, added new broth to blender. Increased to 5 cloves garlic, an entire onion, 1.5 T cumin, 1.5 T oregano. Added 1/2t cayenne pepper, 2T brown sugar toward the end. Had removed skins, added seared breasts as well toward the end. Served on dipped and fried corn tortillas.

An excellent recipe for a multitude of potential dishes. The sauce freezes well, the chicken can be shredded for tacos, used for tostadas, etc. As noted by other reviews, add chipotle in adobo or another source of heat for more spice. My only note would be that I was able to almost double the amount of chicken in the recipe. If you plan to serve this as a stew it might be different, but it easy enough to cook as described and reserve remaining sauce for another batch of protein.

S liked better than I did. Tasty but very soupy

Based on some of the earlier notes: added 2 chipotles in adobo; added a 1/4 tsp of habanero chili powder; boiled the chiles in water 2-3x as long and mixed separately with broth; and cooked for 50, rather than 25, minutes. A rich, vibrant, punchy dish - served with warm tortillas. The recipe is very good!

3 3 chiles1 cup broth total Bump up aromatics and spices Add smoked paprika and smoked salt

My first batch turned out delicious and flavorful. If yours came out bland, your chiles are probably not great. Got guajillos from Penzey's and anchos from the local Mexican market.

I did the slow-cooker thing mentioned below and added a few tbsp of unsweetened cocoa to make a really nice molé sauce. You can also thicken this a bit with stew vegetables like carrots and potatoes. Délicioso!

This was perfect as written. I cooked chicken in same pot as everything else and browned all the chicken at once. Not paying attention and added onion to chicken but turned out fine. It was pretty soupy. Is that the way it's supposed to be? Might cut back on stock. Also added a handful of semi sweet chocolate chips. Tasted wonderful. Would like to try it with about 2 lbs of pork shoulder. Served with corn tortillas, cilantro rice and black beans. Everyone loved it.

This was delicious. I ended up using the leftovers to make enchiladas. Just shove the chicken in the tortillas, pour the rest of the sauce over the top, cover in cheese and pop it in the oven. Awesome leftovers.