Carne Guisada Tacos — The Crockpot Dinner My Crowd Goes Crazy For
Dump It In the Crockpot and Thank Me Later
Every Thursday night, our house fills up. Our college girls come home — and they bring friends. It started as a simple family dinner and somehow turned into this beautiful, loud, wonderful crowd of hungry college kids piling around our table. I love it so much. It is one of my absolute favorite things about our week.
Carne guisada tacos have become one of my go-to dishes for these Thursday nights, and honestly? I should have been making them years ago. I needed to use up some beef stew meat one week, went searching for something I could throw in the crockpot before our crowd arrived, and found this recipe. The first time I made it, it was such a big hit that I knew I would be making it again.
Here’s the other thing I have to tell you. The recipe calls for eight ounces of tomato sauce. The day I filmed this video, I thought I had tomato sauce and I didn’t. What I did have was a ten-ounce can of green chile enchilada sauce. I love green enchilada sauce, so I figured — why not? We are never going back. The flavor it adds is absolutely incredible. I’ll keep tomato sauce listed as an option in the recipe, but trust me when I say: use the green chile enchilada sauce. You can thank me later. (Stephanie’s video is embedded in the recipe card and her story continues after the recipe.)
This post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase through my links, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting StephanieCooksForACrowd.com!
Tools & Ingredients I recommend for This Recipe
- My Favorite 7-Quart Slow Cooker (Shop on Amazon) — This is the exact crockpot I use for recipes like this one. It holds a generous amount of meat, the removable stoneware is easy to clean, and the warming setting is a lifesaver when the crowd is still trickling in for dinner.
- Better Than Bouillon Beef Base (Shop on Amazon) — This stuff is gold. A small spoonful adds deep, rich beef flavor to everything it touches. It is so much better than a bouillon cube and I use it constantly. The beef version is my absolute favorite.
- Extra Large Plastic Cutting Boards Set of 3 (Shop on Amazon) — A good cutting board makes prep so much easier. I love this set — different sizes for different jobs, easy to clean, and they hold up beautifully.
- Need to stock your pantry? Find all the basics — flour, sugar, salt, and more — in the Stock Your Pantry section of my Shop My Kitchen page!
Carne Guisada Tacos
Ingredients
Method
- Coat stew meat with salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. Place into the slow cooker.
- Add taco seasoning, garlic powder, and minced onion over the meat.
- Dissolve beef bouillon in 1/4 cup hot water and pour over the meat.
- Pour in the green chile enchilada sauce (or tomato sauce). Mix everything together well.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6–7 hours.
- In the last 30 minutes, remove the lid and turn the slow cooker to HIGH to reduce the liquid slightly.
- Scoop out all the meat and pour out all but about 1/2 to 1 cup of the remaining juices.
- Shred the meat and return it to the slow cooker with the reserved juices. Turn to WARM.
- Fry corn tortillas in a shallow layer of oil until golden and crispy.
- Serve shredded beef in crispy tortillas with queso, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream, and pickled onions.
Video
Notes
Let me tell you a little more about why this recipe works so well for a crowd. Beef stew meat is affordable, widely available, and when you give it six to seven hours low and slow in the crockpot, it transforms into something spectacular. The meat gets so tender it practically shreds itself. You just scoop it out, pour off most of the liquid (leave about half a cup — that’s your flavor), shred it with two forks, and put it back in to soak up all that goodness on warm.
The prep time is about seven minutes. Seven. You coat the meat with a little oil, salt, and pepper, throw it in the crockpot, add the taco seasoning, garlic powder, minced onion, Better Than Bouillon with a splash of hot water, and your sauce. Put the lid on and walk away. That’s it. The crockpot does all the work while you live your life.
Now — the crispy fried corn tortilla situation. We recently started frying corn tortillas in a little oil before loading them up, and I cannot overstate what a game changer this has been for our family. We will never go back to plain corn tortillas. The outside gets this gorgeous golden crunch and the inside stays soft enough to hold everything together. If you have never tried it, please do yourself a favor this week.
We served ours with queso cheese, lettuce, pico de gallo, sour cream, and pickled onions. The pickled onions especially — if you have never put pickled onions on a taco, stop what you are doing and go make some. The bright, tangy flavor cuts right through the rich savory meat and it is absolutely perfect. Set out all your toppings and let everyone build their own. That’s half the fun when you’re feeding a crowd anyway.
Carne guisada — which translates to “stewed meat” — is a classic Mexican and Tex-Mex dish with deep roots in South Texas cooking. Stephanie’s version keeps it simple and crowd-friendly with pantry staples and a crockpot, perfect for busy families who need a big, delicious dinner without a lot of fuss.
Find the slow cooker and all the tools I use in my kitchen on my Shop My Kitchen page!
More Crowd-Pleasing Slow Cooker Dinners
If you love a dinner that practically makes itself, these are some of my favorites from the site:
- Crock Pot Pork Chops — The Ultimate 2 Ingredient Dinner — Two ingredients, one crockpot, zero effort. This one is almost too easy to be this good.
- Daddy’s Famous Crockpot Chili — With a Secret Ingredient! — Jason’s most-requested recipe in this house. Rich, hearty, and the secret ingredient makes all the difference.
- 4 Ingredient No-Peek Chicken and Rice — Jason’s Mom’s Recipe — The name says it all. Four ingredients, one pan, and you cannot peek. Trust the process — it is worth it.
Want crowd-friendly recipes like this one in your inbox every Saturday? Join Stephanie’s weekly newsletter — it’s free, it’s fun, and there’s always room at the table!
Carne Guisada Tacos — About Stephanie’s Recipes
Stephanie’s recipes are a little bit of everything — treasured old family recipes passed down through generations, dishes she has developed and made her own over the years, great finds from church ladies (because if you want a good recipe, ask a church lady!), and inspiration from food bloggers and corners of the internet. Sometimes she flexes her culinary muscles and creates something spectacular. But most of the time? Quick, easy, and absolutely delicious. Because at the end of the day, Stephanie cooks for her family and her people — and the best recipe is the one that brings everyone to the table, keeps them there a little longer, and leaves them happy and full.
