Carne Guisada Recipe (Mexican Style)
This easy carne guisada recipe is for Tex Mex style or Mexican beef stew. Chunks of beef simmered in fragrant brown gravy until tender. It's so simple to prepare and you probably already have the ingredients on hand!
Recipe for Carne Guisada
Carne means "meat" in Spanish. Carne de res is how you say "beef" and it often gets shortened to just "carne." Authentic carne asada is grilled and carne guisada is stewed.
Carne guisada is a comforting, filling, flavorful dinner that is traditionally served with homemade flour tortillas, rice and beans.
My cousins in Texas like to serve it over mashed potatoes which is really yummy, too.
You can also roll it up taco style and top with cheddar cheese - yum!
I highly recommend serving with the homemade flour tortillas if you can. They melt in your mouth and complement the meat perfectly.
You don't even need utensils to eat when you can scoop it up with a tortilla!
The beef cooks low and slow so that all the ingredients melt down into a stew.
To make it an even heartier meal, you can add potatoes and carrots while it's simmering.
I love to cook it all in my cast iron skillet for even more flavor.
How to make Carne Guisada
What type of meat is carne guisada? You'll want to use stew meat which can be any kind of beef chuck or beef round.
I typically pick up the packet of meat that says "stew meat" and is already conveniently diced up.
If using a chunk of meat such as top round, you'll need to cut the beef into 1-inch cubes.
Dice up an onion. Optionally, you can also dice up a green bell pepper.
We typically don't make it with the green pepper, but it's a common ingredient in carne guisada.
Some people will even substitute a spicy pepper such as jalapeño or poblano.
You'll also need tomato or tomato sauce. We usually use Spanish style tomato sauce since we always have it on hand, especially when tomatoes are not in season.
The beauty of this recipe is that is can be made on any night with whatever you have on hand.
Besides the beef and vegetables, the sauce is seasoned with ground cumin. Of course, if you can freshly grind your own it tastes the best.
All-purpose flour is used to thicken it up into a nice gravy.
This carne guisada recipe cooks low and slow for at least 1 ½ hours.
The meat should be fall-apart tender and the gravy thick and rich.
It's not a quick meal, but it produces the best flavor!
If you want a delicious dinner in about 20 minutes, try my Mexican Pork Stew (Puerco en Salsa Roja) recipe instead.
That guiso has only two ingredients yet tastes like it was simmering for hours!
Carne Guisada Recipe (Mexican Style)
Tender chunks of beef simmered in a flavorful Mexican gravy. Flour tortillas are the perfect accompaniment for this carne guisada recipe.
Ingredients
- 3 lbs stew meat
- 1 tablespoon oil (lard, bacon grease, etc)
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 small green bell pepper, diced (optional)
- 3 tablespoons tomato sauce or 1 large tomato, diced
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder or 3 cloves of garlic, minced
- 2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons salt
- ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 cup water or chicken stock
- Flour tortillas, rice or mashed potatoes, for serving
Instructions
- In a large pan, brown the stew meat in oil of choice with onions and green pepper (if using) over high heat.
- Add the tomato sauce (or tomato), garlic powder (or fresh garlic), cumin, salt and pepper and stir well.
- Sprinkle the flour over the meat and mix well. Add the water (or stock) and mix well so there are no lumps.
- Bring to a boil, cover pan and reduce heat to low. Cook for 1 ½ hours, or until meat is tender.
- Taste and adjust seasonings if necessary.
- Serve with rice, tortillas or mashed potatoes.
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Nutrition Information:
Yield: 6 Serving Size: 8ozAmount Per Serving: Calories: 606Total Fat: 21gSaturated Fat: 7gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 13gCholesterol: 226mgSodium: 982mgCarbohydrates: 27gFiber: 2gSugar: 4gProtein: 78g
Nutritional information provided is an estimate only. Please consult the labels of ingredients you use for more accurate results.
Try this Mexican pork stew:
You might also like this great Southwestern side dish packed with veggies and cheese! Calabacitas con Queso:
I made this recipe in my deep dutch oven. I browned the meat alone using high heat to produce the fond. I set the meat aside and softened the onions with salt, making sure I stirred up the fond. I added oregano, chili powder cayenne, coriander and tomatoe paste. 1 cup of beef broth, A can of tomatoes, stirred the meat back in and cooked 1 and a 1/2 hrs at 325 in the oven. added bell peppers and diced potatoe and cooked another 45 min. serve on tortillas with tomatoe slices and scallions for garnish. oh boy oh boy oh boy.
Had to simmer an extra hour...but this is soooo good... everyone loves it!!!
I’ve tried so many times to make this and I flopped every time. I tried this recipe and it was so easy. The hardest part is waiting for it to be done. I’m here to tell everyone when you taste it the flavor will knock your socks off. It is so Yummy. Your have got to try it.
I have made this recipe twice and I have to say it was an easy recipe to follow. The flavor of the meat and stew was very good and as in any thing the more you make it the better it gets as you may make a few changes. On it's own it's quite good.
what if i have only 11/2 lbs of stew meat
Make it. Lots of yummy gravy for your tortillas. You could add diced potatoes too.
@bruce chastain, You have more left over gravy!
@Rebekah, No potatoes to Carne Guisada! With the flour and then adding in potatoes will change the texture due the starch of the potatoes in combination with the flour. Water is traditional, adding "no salt" chicken broth will add a little flavor. Beef broth is too heavy. Replace 1/2 teaspoon of salt with an additional teaspoon of cumin (comino). At least 1/2 of a green bell pepper is a must! Two essential ingredients to Carne Guisada is cumin and green bell pepper for the true flavor of Carne Guisada. Two cups water or chicken broth, maybe more, depending on how you like your gravy. Before I sear the meat, I season the meat and then toss them in a shallow bowl of flour while the oil in the skillet is getting hot. This is what thickens the gravy while the meat is simmering. Here in San Antonio, we love our gravy with tortillas! Tomato sauce (unsalted), it's either half a 4 oz. can or the whole can. Note: If you're not a fan of green bell peppers, that's okay I'm not either. It does not stand out in Carne Guisada but adds a great flavor! I chop it in small pieces so I can't even see it when it's done.
@Ruth, thanks for tips!! I’m a San Antonio native also!!
@Ruth, Trying this today during the cold snap! Perfect cold weather meal. My husband and I are also SA natives, and live just east of the city now. As soon as I poured that beef into the pepper and onions, I was like….I know that smell!
Substituted tomato sauce for a can of Rotel.😋
What did you say about potatoes in this dish and can I season it with rotel tomatoes ?
Yes it will taste a little different but I love Rotel. You can add diced potatoes.
I put guisada in a taco with homemade flour tortillas with mashed seasoned pinto beans and
Monterey or usually Oaxaca cheese ..
Homemade salsa 😋 for me . Spicy
Most delicious dish ever!!
Omg! It was soooo delicious! Thank you!
Making this today. I like the ingredients list but I doctor’d it a bit. I used reduced salt beef stock instead of chicken. Lots more garlic with a little cayenne pepper and some Mexican oregano. It’s in the slow cooker after browning the meat in the onion and chopped garlic. I also added a LITTLE seasoning salt instead of the 2 teaspoons of regular salt, which is excessive in my opinion. It smells so good! Waiting for this to tenderize will be difficult! Thanks so much for the recipe!
I've cut back on salt a lot over the last year! I feel like this recipe turns out amazing no matter how you tweak it to your taste.
I made this delicious recipe last night, thank you for sharing!! I’ll be saving it for future reference!!
I made this tonight but modified the recipe some. Used 2 lb. Chuck roast, cut roast in half lengthwise, then cut each half into 1” cubes. I added one can of rotel with green chilies and added 1 4 ounce can of hatch green chilies. Added 2 cups of beef broth. Seared meat in Instapot, with some salt,pepper,garlic powder and 2 tablespoons of flour.filled rest of recipe and cooked for 4 hour on slow cooker setting. When meat was tender, added slurry of 1/2 cup beef broth and 2 tablespoons corn starch. Returned insta pot to sear setting after adding slurry to thick up the broth. Served with homemade flour tortillas and some cheddar cheese. Added some cilantro for garnish.
We enjoy these for breakfast tacos too!!
Mash potatoes on the side? As a fellow Hispanic here in San Antonio in the hotspot of Mexican food, I have never seen or heard of that before! If you like it good! But we prefer Mexican rice and beans on the side and wouldn’t dare put mash on there. We usually just make tacos and add cheddar cheese inside and they are an all day food. Breakfast especially.
My family are potato fiends, it's true. 😁
@Genna,
Born & raised in West Texas, came from a "tater loving family " and still haven't heard of putting this on mashed potatoes!! That's a no-no in my house.
Maybe it's just a thing my cousins do 😂 but always with homemade flour tortillas too
Yes, my 4 sons love it, they request it about every 2 weeks!!!!!