Birria Tacos with Beef Tamales
October 24, 2026
Someone made the birria in-house so you wouldn’t have to braise anything for six hours. Respect their sacrifice.
Birria is slow-braised, chile-seasoned beef, and it’s the reason taco trucks across the South have lines out the door. The hard part is the braise. We already did it. Our Birria Taco Beef comes ready to heat, and our Beef Tamales come ten to a pack, so dinner is mostly warming things up, frying tortillas and dicing a few toppings.
Forty minutes, start to finish. Feeding four heavy eaters? Grab two pans of birria.
Why Birria Starts with the Tough Cuts
Birria is made from the hard-working cuts: shoulder, shank, the parts of the animal that do the walking. Those cuts are full of connective tissue. Cook one fast, like a steak, and you’ll be chewing it until next week. Cook it low and wet for hours and that connective tissue melts into gelatin, which is what lets braised beef pull apart with a fork and stay moist.
A lean cut can’t do that. Braise a sirloin for six hours and you get dry, stringy beef, because there’s no connective tissue to melt. The tough cut is the one that ends up tender. It’s the most backwards rule in the meat case, and it’s always true.
That’s also why reheating birria takes a light hand. The cooking is done. All you’re doing is getting it hot without driving out the moisture the braise put in: low heat, a lid and a splash of water.
Cooked Weight Isn’t Raw Weight
A pan of birria can look smaller than you’d expect for four people. It isn’t. It has already been through the shrink.
Braised beef loses roughly a third of its raw weight to rendered fat and moisture on the way to tender. A 3-pound roast you braise at home ends up around 2 pounds on the plate. When you buy birria ready to heat, every ounce in the pan is the eating part. Nothing is left to cook off.
That’s also why we tell heavy eaters to grab two pans. One pan with ten tamales on the side covers four normal appetites. If your table includes teenagers, linemen or anyone who has ever said “I’m not that hungry” and then eaten four tacos, plan on two.
Birria Tacos with Beef Tamales
Prep time: 15 minutes · Cook time: 25 minutes · Serves: 4 (heavy eaters, grab two pans of birria)
You’ll Need
- 1–2 pans Lil Butcher Shoppe Birria Taco Beef
- 1 pack Lil Butcher Shoppe Beef Tamales (10 tamales)
- 12–16 corn tortillas
- 2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- 2 ripe avocados, diced
- 1 small white onion, finely diced
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
- 2 limes, cut into wedges
- Cooking oil
Let’s Cook
- Steam the tamales. Stand them upright in a steamer basket over simmering water. Cover and steam 15–20 minutes, until hot all the way through. If you’re short on time, wrap 3 or 4 at a time in a damp paper towel and microwave 1–2 minutes. Leave the husks on until they reach the plate.
- Warm the birria. Put the beef in a skillet over medium-low heat with 2 tablespoons of water. Cover and warm 5–7 minutes, stirring once, until hot.
- Build the tacos. Heat 1 tablespoon of oil on a griddle or second skillet over medium-high. Lay a tortilla flat, cover half with cheese and beef, fold it over, and cook 2–3 minutes per side until crisp. Add a little more oil between batches as the pan dries out.
- Serve. Top the tacos with tomatoes, avocado, onion and cilantro, and put the tamales and lime wedges alongside.
Someone made the birria in-house so you wouldn’t have to braise anything for six hours. Respect their sacrifice.
More from Our Homemade Cooking Case
Birria and tamales aren’t the only things we cook so you don’t have to. Our Homemade Cooking lineup includes meatloaf, gumbo, chicken pot pies, casseroles, crawfish pies, stuffed pork chops, stuffed bell peppers, stuffed jalapeños and Stuffed Potatoes in sour cream, bacon and cheddar, ham and cheddar, shrimp, crawfish and crabmeat.
For taco night specifically: stuffed jalapeños make the appetizer, and our fresh chorizo is there for the next taco night, when you want to cook something yourself.
Tips from Behind the Counter
- Steam tamales standing up, open end on top. That keeps the filling in and keeps condensation from dripping into the masa and turning it gummy.
- Leave the husks on until the plate. The husk is what holds the moisture in. Peel one early and it dries out while you finish the tacos.
- Use corn tortillas, not flour. Corn tortillas fry up crisp in a little oil. Flour tortillas go chewy and greasy.
- Shredded Mexican blend is the cheese for this. It melts fast and holds each taco together, so you get the cheesy pull without a grater. Straight cheddar gets greasy on a hot griddle.
- Dice the avocado last. Cut it right before you serve and squeeze a lime wedge over it. It browns fast once it’s open, and the lime slows that down.
- Hold finished tacos on a rack in a 200°F oven. Stacking them on a plate steams the bottoms soft. A rack keeps them crisp while you fry the rest of the batch.
- Reheat leftovers all the way through. The USDA puts leftovers at 165°F on its safe temperature chart. If your birria or tamales came home frozen, thaw the birria overnight in the fridge. Tamales can steam straight from frozen; give them about 10 extra minutes.
Ways to Change It Up
- Birria nachos. Spread leftover birria over tortilla chips, cover with cheese and broil until bubbling. Finish with the leftover tomatoes and avocado.
- Smothered tamales. Lay unwrapped tamales in a baking dish, pour red enchilada sauce over them, add leftover birria and cheese, and bake at 375°F until melted. It’s an enchilada that skipped a few steps.
- Birria grilled cheese. Texas toast, Mexican blend cheese and birria, griddled in butter until the cheese gives up.
- Birria and eggs. Warm leftover birria in a skillet, crack two eggs into it and cover until the whites set. Top with avocado. Breakfast, handled.
- Tamale bar. Steam a second pack, set out salsa, sour cream, diced tomato, avocado and shredded cheese, and let everyone dress their own.
One Stop for Taco Night in Hattiesburg
Family owned and operated in Hattiesburg since 1991. Hours: Monday–Tuesday and Thursday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Closed Wednesday and Sunday. Phone: 601-261-2765. Address: 1910 Broadway Drive, Hattiesburg, MS 39401. Smoked sausage ships nationwide; also on shelves across Mississippi and the Gulf South.
Planning this for a Wednesday or Sunday? We’re closed those days, so pick it up the day before. Everything here is built to wait in your fridge.
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