This homemade Chicken Barbacoa is easy and your hungry crowd will love it. Pollo Barbacoa is perfect for burritos, tacos, salads and more. Braising a whole chicken in the oven at low temperature, smothered in an array of Mexican spices yields tender melt in your mouth pollo barbacoa tacos.
What Is Barbacoa?
Barbacoa is an authentic Mexican dish where beef, goat or sheep are steam cooked overnight in an underground pit until very tender and succulent. Once the meat is cooked tender, it’s shredded and then the meat is added back into the rich juices and is used to build tacos, burritos, tamales and enchiladas.
For this recipe, we’re bucking the system and making pollo barbacoa (chicken barbacoa) in the oven.
About This Recipe and Why it Works
Pollo barbacoa is straight forward and easy to make.
Traditional Mexican Barbacoa benefits from a long slow cook in an underground pit. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have one, so my oven, and my turkey roaster will have to take its place and a sheet of tin foil will be used to slow steam cook the meat.
You’re basically relying on a well sealed pan to do all of the work.
Who doesn’t love an easy barbacoa de pollo that’s full of flavor and super easy to make. Not to mention it will feed your hungry crowd.
Once the chicken is placed in the roaster, it’s sprinkled with our favorite Mexican spices and topped with dried chile pods. Dried chile pods are wonderful when used in any Mexican dish and add earthy rustic drama to the end result.
This recipe works because it’s easy to prepare and using a low oven temperature insures fall off the bone flavor-infused chicken that makes one dynamite taco.
This recipe comes from the Avery Brewing Company in Boulder, Colorado. A brewery that produces eccentric ales and lagers, with a tasting room that serves up some tasty pub cuisine to compliment. The recipe I found in the cookbook A Bite Of Boulder, cooking at home with Boulder’s best restaurants.
Let’s take a look.
Ingredients for Chicken Barbacoa
- Dried Chile Pods: Guajillo dried chile peppers are commonly found on the Mexican aisle at the grocery store. They are mild with heat, and earthy in flavor. This recipe also calls for hotter chile arboles, a spicier pepper on the heat scale.
- Bay Leaves
- Pickling Spice: Look for pickling spice on the Mexican aisle at your grocery store. It’s a slightly spicier blend than regular pickling spice. But either will work here.
- Spices: Salt, pepper and garlic.
- Onion: Use a sweet or yellow onion.
- Water or Chicken Broth: For braising liquid.
- Lime Juice: Optional. The recipe didn’t call for it but I added four tablespoons.
Ingredient Swaps
- Chicken: Swap out a whole chicken for chicken pieces. Use a combination of chicken thighs, chicken breasts and wings. Just make sure the weight equals about eight pounds of chicken.
- Tortillas: This recipe calls for corn tortillas and would also be great with warmed small flour tortillas to make soft tacos. Or even the hard shell corn tortillas sold on the Mexican aisle at the market.
- Pickling Spice: If you can’t find a bag of the spicier pickling spice on the Mexican food aisle, use a standard pickling spice found on the spice aisle.
- Adobo Sauce: If you don’t have, or simply don’t want to use dried chile pods, substitute in some Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce. Use about two – three of the peppers from the can (scraping seeds and veins if you want to remove the heat) and a generous tablespoon of the sauce. It will add a wonderful smoky flavor for pollo barbacoa.
How To Make Pollo Barbacoa
Chicken barbacoa is easy! The hardest part about this recipe is cutting the whole chicken in half so it will lay flat inside the roasting pan. But if you have a sharp boning knife, you’re in business.
- Step 1: Cut the chicken in half (or have your butcher do it) by cutting on each side of the back bone. Remove the back bone, and lay each half of the chicken in a turkey roasting pan along with the back bone.
- Step 2: Sprinkle the dried chile pods, the chopped onion and the spices over the chicken.
- Step 3: Add enough water or chicken broth to cover the chicken half way. Seal the turkey roaster well with foil and bake 325 degrees for 2 ½ hours.
- Step 4 and To Finish: Once the chicken is fall off the bone tender, let it cool enough to handle. Shred the chicken using two forks. Scoop about four cups of the broth to include onions and chile pods into a food processor. Process in batches until smooth. Once drained in a collander, mix with the shredded chicken and you’re ready to build those tacos.
Tips and FAQ’s
Absolutely, yes. You’ll need a large 6-quart slow cooker to do the job. Or half the recipe for a smaller cooker. Just place the chicken in the slow cooker and top with the ingredients. Cook on high for four hours, or low for eight hours.
Those brittle dried chile pods will soften during the cooking time. When it’s time to blend the sauce in the food processor, the chiles will blend well. Just blend long enough to where there are no large chunks of the chiles left. If needed, use a colander to strain the sauce into a large bowl.
The recipe itself is naturally low carb. The tortilla’s especially the flour are where the carbs come from. Use the shredded chicken to make a Mexican Salad. Greens, veggies, the shredded chicken drizzled with a citrus mint dressing makes a lovely meal.
Tips For Success
- Seal The Roaster Well. For optimal flavor, make sure the roasting dish is sealed well. Use heavy duty foil if you have it. Crimp the foil around the edges of the pan, going around the edge a couple of times. I actually placed a sheet pan cross-wise over the foil covered dish before I placed it in the over. To make sure the foil was secure on the roaster.
Pollo Barbacoa Toppings
To serve barbacoa tacos, place a large bowl of the shredded chicken and a plate of warmed tortillas on the table. You can use corn or flour tortillas. Offer an array of topping so your guests can build their own tacos.
I highly suggest you take the time to make some Mexican Pickled Onions for this recipe. They’re easy and full of flavor. After all, friends don’t let friends eat Mexican food without pickled onions.
- Sliced radishes
- Cubed avocado
- Sour cream
- Mexican Pickled Onions
- Mexican crumbling cheese, such as Cotija
- Chopped cilantro
- Lime wedges for squeezing
- Chile powder for more spice
- Fresh chopped tomatoes
- Your favorite salsa
Storage:
Store any leftover chicken in an air-tight container for up to 5 days in the refrigerator. Use a microwave to gently reheat. I like to use my 50% power setting so the chicken doesn’t dry out.
Pollo Barbacoa will also freeze well in an airtight freezer container for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator.
Recipe for Chicken Barbacoa Tacos
I hope you give this recipe for Pollo Barbacoa a try. And if you do please come back and give the recipe a star rating and leave a message about your experience with the recipe.
And if you have a favorite chicken taco recipe, let me know, I’d love to give it a try.
What to serve with Pollo Barbacoa
- Pineapple Slaw with Buttermilk Jalapeno Dressing
- Mexican Chorizo Instant Pot Pinto Beans
- Mexican Toasted Green Rice
More Mexican Chicken Recipes
And if you love tacos as much as we do, check out my category for Taco Recipes. You’ll find lots of fun recipe ideas, including the most popular taco recipe on my site for Fried Ground Beef Tacos.
If you liked this recipe, please leave a star ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ rating in the recipe card below and leave a comment. I always appreciate your feedback and hearing how everything went.
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Chicken Barbacoa (Pollo Barbacoa)
Ingredients
- 4-5 pound whole chicken back-bone removed
- 2 sweet onions chopped
- 4 cloves garlic
- 8 dried Guijillo peppers tops removed and seeded
- 4 dried chile arboles or thai chiles
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 teaspoons pickling spice
- 4 Tablespoons lime juice About 3 limes. (this is my addition)
- 3 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 8 cups water or chicken stock
- 3 Tablespoons olive oil
- 2 sweet onions sliced
- 12 corn tortillas warmed
Instructions
- In a big roasting pan, add the chicken halves and the removed back bone.
- Add chopped onions, garlic, dried peppers, bay leaves, pickling spice, lime juice, salt, pepper and water or chicken stock.
- Seal the roasting pan well with foil and cook 2.5 hours at 325 degrees, or until chicken is fall off the bone tender.
- Remove the chicken from the broth and set aside to cool. Discard the backbone.
- Once the broth has cooled to a safe temperature to handle, using a blender or food processor, puree the broth in batches. Make sure to scoop up as many onions and chile pods as you can.
- Place a colander over a large bowl. Pour the pureed chile sauce into the colander and with the back of a wooden spoon, push the mixture through the strainer to remove any unblended skins, remaining seeds and any remaining chunks of spices.
- Once the chicken has cooled enough to handle, using forks or your hands, pull apart. It will shred easily.
- Heat a a large braising pot over medium high heat. Add the pulled chicken and enough of the pureed strained broth just to cover chicken at an even height.
- Simmer on stove top for 10 minutes or until the chicken and broth are well combined.
- Grab your favorite tortillas, cheese and taco condiments and enjoy.
Notes
- Sliced Radishes
- Cubed Avocado
- Pickled Onions
- Mexican crumbling cheese, such as Cotija
- Chopped cilantro
- Lime wedges for squeezing
- Chile Powder for more spice
- Lime wedges
- Fresh chopped tomatoes
Nutrition
Pollo Barbacoa … It’s what’s for dinner
Why Trust These Recipes? Lea Ann Brown has lived, worked and played in Colorado for 45 years. She has immersed herself in the Colorado Culinary space, is a Culinary School Graduate and publishes her Colorado food Blog, Cooking On The Ranch.
You don’t have an underground pit? 🙂 Wouldn’t that be wonderful! Bet your house smells wonderful after 2 hours of braising with all those spices. This is a great recipe!
Love this stuff! Your version looks great — need to try that. I think slow cooker for me — this just seems like a natural for that appliance. Thanks!
I would have thought your condo complex would have a community underground pit. The meal looks and sounds delicious.
As much as we pay in HOA fees … I agree 🙂