The Best Venison Birria Quesatacos

Venison Birria Quesatacos (also known as Quesabirria) are a cross between a taco and a quesadilla. Nothing is better than melted cheese with delicious shredded meat.

We eat so many deer roasts in this house, I wonder when I'll run out of ways to eat them. Nonetheless, my home office is covered with sticky notes with enough recipe ideas to last me a lifetime. The mountain of inspiration grows with every new immigrant I meet that has come to work here in North Dakota. From West Africa to Western Caribbean Islands, the ingenuity in how human beings revolutionize their food is awe-inspiring.

One of those amazing people is my sister-in-law, Flor, who is from Ensanada, Mexico. My wife's brother and their girls spent the first few years of marriage south of the border. But they recently moved to Roseville, Minnesota where Flor teaches Kindergarten.

Venison Birria Ingredients

This Venison Birria recipe came to fruition after my sister-in-law taught me how to make homemade tortillas. We used them to when turning a Montana mule deer roast into birria the whole family devoured in minutes. My version isn't exactly like hers, but my recipe taste-testers are all pretty happy with it.

Venison Birria is my way of trying to lift the spirits of those around me on a frigid wintry day. There is so much joy to be had in coming in from a job well done of cleaning the driveway of snow and ice, and then holding a bowl of food in your hands, your fingers gradually warmed by the dish and its fragrant contents. That's my favorite way to eat birria - a bowl of shredded venison roast in a birria broth, with a sprinkling of diced onion, fresh cilantro, and a squeeze of lime. But you can also use this new venison recipe to transform your next Taco Tuesday into something magically delicious you'll want to repeat over and over again.

Using a pressure cooker, you can take a guajillo chile-and-spice-braised venison roast and transform it into something so tender that it falls into fine shreds with little effort making it perfect to stuff into a tortilla and feed to your hungry family and friends.

Everybody makes birria a little differently and their recipes are often a closely guarded secret. But with a little guidance from my sister-in-law, I was able to create my own version to share with all of you. The key to my birria sauce recipe is using just the right amount of garlic and guajillo chiles. You want to be able to taste the garlic and chiles with just a hint of spice. While developing this venison birria recipe, I tried lots of different versions of birria that included spices like cinnamon and ground cloves that tended not to go over well with my wife and daughter's tastebuds. But the girls are both huge fans of garlic! In fact, you'll often catch our 8-year-old eating huge spoonfuls of minced garlic right out of the jar.

The simple blend of spices like salt, pepper, cumin, and Sazon Goya makes finding the birria ingredients for this recipe something most everyone can do at your local grocery store.

Where Is Birria From?

Birria is a dish that originally hails from Jalisco, Mexico, where it is traditionally made with lamb or goat. The nearby Mexican states of Zacatecas and Colima have their own unique versions of birria as well. If you see it on a restaurant menu in the United States it will most likely be made with beef. But here in North Dakota we make quesa birria with a venison roast off the hindquarter of a deer or elk or moose.

How To Eat Venison Birria Tacos

I love this venison birria recipe because it's so versatile. You can simply enjoy the birria consommé as a soup on a brutally cold winter day like we're currently having in North Dakota or make tacos like we're doing here. Just shred the venison roast, then heat up the tortillas and dip them in the birria broth before adding the meat and serving it with diced onion, fresh cilantro, and lime. 

Venison Roast Substitutions

If you don't have access to a venison roast, feel free to substitute 3 to 4 pounds of beef chuck roast or country style ribs or even a boneless leg of lamb from your local grocery store.

You can also use about 5 pounds of venison shanks instead of a venison roast. If you are looking for more great venison shank recipes, be sure and check out my Cuban Ropa Vieja.

Birria Sauce Recipe

1. On a cutting board, cut up the venison roast into about 10 pieces then season all over with 2 teaspoons of the kosher salt and 1 teaspoon black pepper.

2. Add 2 tablespoons of canola oil to the pressure cooker and heat on the highest Brown setting for 5 minutes. Add the venison and sear until browned on all sides, about 10 minutes.

3. Now add all of the remaining birria ingredients into the pressure cooker and use a large spoon to stir and blend well.

4. Switch pressure cooker setting to "Pressure Cook" for 60 minutes. Place lid on the pot and turn to locked position. Make sure the vent is set to the sealed position. 

5. When the cooking time is up, do a natural release for 15 minutes (don’t touch anything on the pot, just let it de-pressurize on its own for 15 minutes). After 15 minutes, turn vent to the venting release position and allow all of the steam to vent and the float valve to drop down before removing the lid. This extra time is important because it allows the pressure cooker to continue to work its magic on the birria sauce before you open it up to shred the meat.

6. Preheat the oven to 250 degrees F.

7. Now you can shred the venison using two forks. Taste and season the venison and cooking liquid (consommé) with the remaining 1 teaspoon of kosher salt if needed.

8. Heat a large nonstick frying pan over medium heat. Working with two tortillas at a time, dip the tortillas one at a time in the consommé. Place both of them in the frying pan in a single layer.

9. If making quesa birria tacos (cheese birria tacos), sprinkle about ¼ cup of the cheese onto each tortilla first. Top one half of each tortilla with about ¼ cup shredded venison. Drizzle the meat with a little consommé. When the cheese is melted, fold each tortilla in half and cook 2 minutes per side until nice and crispy.

10. Transfer the tacos to a rimmed baking sheet and keep warm in the preheated oven. Repeat and continue to cook the remaining tacos.

11. Serve the tacos garnished with cilantro, chopped onion, lime wedges, and a little extra hot sauce along with small bowls of the birria consommé for dipping.

How To Serve Venison Birria Tacos

After you shred the venison, you have two options for serving: you can serve it as a soup and spoon it into a bowl with plenty of birria consommé and a side of warm corn tortillas, or as tacos or quesabirria with the consommé on the side. If you want to make tacos, you’ll dip the tortillas in the warm birria consommé, fill them with cheese and shredded meat, and crisp them on the stovetop until the cheese is melted and the tortillas are browned and crispy. You can choose however you want to do it, but either way, I always prefer a few simple toppings to go along with my Venison Birria Tacos - fresh cilantro, chopped onion, lime, and a little hot sauce is a must.

Homemade Taco Seasoning

You can also try my recipe for homemade taco seasoning and have some ready to go next time you want to make wild game tacos!

More Great Venison Recipes

If you are looking for more great ideas on how to cook with some of that venison in your freezer, be sure and check out these family favorites:

• Slow Cooker Venison Roast
• Venison Big Mac Tacos
• Easy Pizza Roll Ups
• Deer BBQ Sandwiches with Pimento Cheese
• Shawarma Spiced Deer Shanks
• Venison Rogan Josh
• Venison Shank Frito Pie
• Venison Tikka Masala

Come Deer Hunting in North Dakota

If you are headed our way for North Dakota deer season, check out the North Dakota Game & Fish Department website. And if you want me to come along with you as your camp cook, photographer, or butcher, you can find out more details here.

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