Chipotle's Barbacoa Beef - Or at Least a Close Approximation

I love Chipotle's Barbacoa Beef Burrito. I love it so much that for a long time Mr. Gooch and I had "Chipotle Wednesday." Translation: we would have Chipotle for dinner every Wednesday (with leftovers for lunch the next day). On many occasion, just knowing CW was coming helped me get through the early days of the week.

Since I am trying to do more cooking at home, I Googled "Chipotle Barbacoa Beef" to see if I could find the recipe. I found one that proclaimed to be the official recipe but it looked way more complicated and had a number of ingredients I would need to purchase (I mean don't we all have packets of avocado leaves in the pantry) so I continued to search.

I then found the recipe below. Simple, without complicated ingredients, and didn't require me to have my oven on for 7+ hours. In other words, my kind of recipe!

Result: This recipe was close but not exact. The taste and texture were a bit different, not as spicy and much moister. Not much I could so about the moistness but I did add Chipotle Tabasco to my burrito to spice it up a bit.

Chipotle Barbacoa Chuck Roast
From recipezaar.com

Ingredients
1 (2 lb) chuck roast
2 (2 ounce) packets seasoning (Ortega Chipotle Taco Season)
2 tablespoons cooking oil (I used Olive Oil)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 dash hot sauce
2 cups water (enough to barely cover roast)

Directions
I have a 2 pound roast so the directions will vary due to weight. (1 packet of seasoning per pound, 1 TBS of cooking oil per pound, 1 TBS of apple cider vinegar per pound).

I put 2 cups of water in my crock pot and put the 2 packets of Ortega chipotle taco seasoning in and wisked. Then I added 2 TBS of cooking oil, 2 TBS of apple cider vinegar, and a dash of hot sauce and wisked again.

I placed the roast into a large skillet and seared both sides then placed in crock pot. (I skipped this step to save time.)

Set the crock pot to low setting and let it slow cook for at least 8 hours on low. Remove meat from crock pot and shredded with fork on cutting board and placed in serving dish. Cook time I would say 8 hours minimum on a low setting and less time for higher settings. (I did 2 hours on high and 4 hours on low)

We served with Le Tortilla Factory low-carb tortillas, lettuce, shredded cheese, cilantro basmati rice (click here for recipe), black beans and sour cream.

These were delicious and pretty darn close to the real deal. Depending on what size tortillas you use and how much meat you put into them determines how many servings this will make.

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