Birria tacos, one of Mexico’s most traditional dishes, are all of a sudden a social media sensation. If you are a new birria aficionado, you may be wondering what’s the best type of tortilla to use for birria tacos. In this blog post, we answer all your questions.
What You Need to Know About Tortillas
As you may know, there are two types of tortillas in Mexico: corn tortillas and flour tortillas.
Corn tortillas are made by shaping a dough of dried hominy, salt, and water into discs and then cooking them on a comal (a round, flat griddle).
Flour tortillas, on the other hand, are made with wheat flour, salt, water, and a dash of oil. Just like corn tortillas, they are flattened into discs and cooked on a comal.
Both corn tortillas and flour tortillas are soft — hard shell tacos were invented in the U.S.
Your typical taco in Mexico is made with corn tortillas, while flour tortillas are usually reserved for burritos.
What Type of Tortilla To Use for Birria Tacos?
Now that you are a tortilla expert, it’s time to tackle our question: what type of tortilla to use for birria tacos?
In Mexico, the unanimous answer seems to be corn tortillas. There are some good reasons for this choice:
- The tortilla in a birria taco is usually slathered with spicy birria broth and then dipped in it again when you eat it. Flour tortillas tend to be thinner than corn tortillas, so they can’t withstand the contact with all this liquid.
- When making birria tacos, the taquero usually presses the folded taco against the comal. This hardens the tortilla a little and adds to the culinary experience. You can’t really do this with flour tortillas, as they tend to burn when exposed to intense heat.
- If you like melted cheese in your birria tacos, then corn tortillas are the best choice. Again, flour tortillas are not particularly resilient and they can’t withstand the heat necessary to melt the cheese inside the taco.
In short, corn tortillas are the way to go for your birria tacos. If you really like flour tortillas you can use them too, but in that case you’ll be eating a birria burrito and you experience will be different.
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