Beef Carnitas Tacos

I absolutely love this recipe. I give it to everyone. It's like Chipotle's Beef Barbacoa. but better because you get to tweak the heat and the toppings yourself. The soft corn shells are lower in calories and add such flavor. I use more orange, more red pepper flakes, and top them with sweet red bell peppers, low fat cheese, lots of lettuce, and fresh homemade salsa. I make a double batch, and freeze in portion sized bags. This freezes wonderfully, and is super easy to make! Good bye, Chipotle', and hello to even better beef carnitas tacos!

Great tasting meat. I served like nachos with unsalted tortilla chips and a little jack cheese.

I've made this many, many times over the years. So simple and SO delicious. If you want to be naughty, just a tiny bit of fat-free sour cream goes a long way.

Super delicious. Next time I'd make a little more of the topping. I only used 2 tbsp of it per taco and I ran out. I ended up using 4 tomatoes on the vine to make 2 cups of diced tomatoes, almost a whole avocado, and a little extra onion to begin with. These are also really generous portions - you could easily use 1/3 cup beef to 2 tbsp topping to stretch the recipe even further (would make 10 tacos easy). One guest said that they were the best taco he'd ever had and another commented that they were amazing so I'd definitely say this is a 5 star recipe. Served with Mexican Black Bean-and-Citrus Salad (CL Nov 1998) and Grilled Mexican Corn with Crema (CL Aug 2003). The citrus in the salad picked up on the lime juice in the tacos and was offset by the creaminess of the corn. Awesome.

Wow!!! Pleasantly surprised by this recipe. We don't eat a lot of beef but had some leftover stew meat in the freezer, so I made these. Absolutely amazing. They tasted like restaurant food. I did use flour tortillas rather than corn and although it significantly increases the calories, I think it really made them extra yummy. I just toasted them in a dry skillet briefly on each side before filling them. I would NOT use a jarred salsa, I think the freshness of the tomatoes, and the addition of guacamole, really makes the recipe. Fresh salsa from a grocery store salsa bar might be good.