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Instant Pot Shredded Beef Tacos. How to make instant pot taco meat for your next taco Tuesday. Full of flavour, so easy to make and can be made with cheap cuts of meat such as beef shin or a beef chuck roast.
Even better, it makes an amazing taco sauce that you can use for dipping or serve with some of your other Mexican favourites.
Table of Contents
- Instant Pot Taco Meat
- Are You New To The Instant Pot?
- What Kind Of Beef For Shredded Tacos?
- Instant Pot Beef Tacos With Salsa
- How To Season Shredded Beef For Tacos?
- Beef Tacos Instant Pot Ingredients
- How To Make Shredded Beef Tacos?
- Beef Taco Tips & Tricks
- More Instant Pot Beef Recipes
- Instant Pot Shredded Beef Tacos Recipe
- Can’t make it now? Then save it for later!
Instant Pot Taco Meat
This instant pot beef taco meat was one of the last instant pot recipes that we made in Portugal, until we relocated back to England.
One of the main things that we enjoy about being back in England is the amazing food choice. With many foods not available to us when we lived in Portugal.
One of those meats that was not reasonably priced for in good supply was beef.
It was always so tiny, tough, and overpriced for what you got.
But there was one that stood out from the crowd and that was Portuguese beef shin.
It was only available at Christmas and on Boxing Day when they reduced down all the Christmas meat, I would buy the beef shin in bulk.
I said to Dominic as I defrosted my last frozen pack of beef shin, that I wanted to make something amazing with it and we both agreed that to celebrate going back to England and the last of Portugal, that it must be instant pot beef tacos.
We would cook beef shin in the instant pot pressure cooker, then also make a thick sauce that will become a homemade barbecue sauce/beef gravy.
We would then load it up and Sofia would run into the kitchen as she just loves tacos and that is exactly what we did!
If you want a simple, tasty, and saucy way of doing instant pot beef taco meat, then this is it!
Are You New To The Instant Pot?
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What Kind Of Beef For Shredded Tacos?
My favourite cut of beef for tacos will always be beef shin. It has an amazing depth of flavour, is so tender after being pressure cooked, and it shreds perfectly.
But beef shin isn’t always available and if you can not get shin I recommend braising steak or chuck roast as you call it in the US.
Instant Pot Beef Tacos With Salsa
I also recommend that you use salsa in your Mexican beef tacos. Because you are pressure cooking the meat, it can lose its flavour a little and by using salsa, instead of just tinned tomatoes, it can make it a lot more flavoursome.
How To Season Shredded Beef For Tacos?
There is no secret that when you make pressure cooker taco meat that the pressure cooker strips the flavour.
The best way around this is to make sure you add more seasonings than you would normally do and then if its not flavoursome enough add extra after cooking.
What I usually do is season the beef prior to searing and this starts the seasoning process.
And then I cook the beef with salsa which adds extra flavour and then add some more extra seasonings too.
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Beef Tacos Instant Pot Ingredients
Beef – For the best pulled beef tacos I recommend a slow cooking beef that once cooked shreds easily with meat claws. The best are braising (also known as chuck), beef shin (what we are using) and the Mexican favourite which is beef tongue.
Veggies – I recommend a mix of veggies that will work well as your homemade sauce but will also compliment the beef. I recommend onion, carrots, and celery and a small potato. The potato is then the special ingredient that will create a thick sauce.
Stock – You can use any stock, but beef stock works best. Sometimes when I am out of beef stock, I will swap it for instant pot veggie stock.
Seasonings – Then for seasoning for your pressure cooker tacos I recommend salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, cayenne pepper and paprika. Then when you make the taco sauce I recommend adding in some salsa.
Extras – Also if you are using the beef to make homemade shredded beef tacos then I would recommend your favourite wraps and some avocado.
Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this instant pot beef tacos recipe it has just been our Instant Pot. We have this one and its my favourite and great for speeding up the process of cooking tough meat.
Plus, we recommend you head over to our instant pot recipes category as we have many electric pressure cooker recipes and have been using instant pots for 5 years.
How To Make Shredded Beef Tacos?
- Prep – Peel and dice your carrot, onion, celery, and potato and put to one side.
- Season – Then season your beef shin with salt and pepper.
- Sauté. Load the beef into the instant pot pressure cooker with extra virgin olive oil and sauté until you have a nice sear on your beef.
- Veggies – Then remove the beef and sauté your vegetables.
- Deglaze. Next, I recommend a deglaze with your beef stock. You can keep the veggies in for this and make sure you scrape any bits of meat stuck to the bottom. If you don’t know how to do this, do listen to our how to deglaze the instant pot.
- Load. After a sauté and a deglaze its time to add your seasoning and place your beef back in.
- Cook. Pressure cook, then after a 15 minute natural pressure release remove the remaining pressure.
- Sauce. Then remove the beef from the instant pot and place on a chopping board to sit for a little while. Then place half your stock in the blender with a jar of salsa. Blend until smooth and then you have your sauce.
- Shred. Finally shred your beef and then load the taco meat into the sauce and then the taco meat in sauce into wraps and serve with avocado.
And I am sure you can see now why I love cooking taco meat in instant pot and why it has become one of my favourite taco Tuesday treats.
Beef Taco Tips & Tricks
- Always allow the taco meat to rest. Both with a natural pressure release and with time on the chopping board. This will help make them more and more tender and juicy.
- If you don’t want a taco sauce you can skip the adding of the potato.
- You can also save any leftovers and make into a taco pie. The sauce also works brilliantly towards a stock for a future Mexican beef instant pot recipe.
Interesting Instant Pot Trick – Add in the garlic at the last moment before turning off the sauté. Garlic sticks to the instant pot (A LOT!!!) and it will save you a deep clean on your instant pot.
More Instant Pot Beef Recipes
- Instant Pot Frozen Pot Roast
- Instant Pot Beef Tongue
- Instant Pot Beef Cheeks Ragu
- Instant Pot Brisket Sliders
- Instant Pot Beef Stew & Dumplings
Your shredded beef tacos instant pot recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.
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Instant Pot Shredded Beef Tacos
Ingredients
- 2 Beef Shin
- 1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 Medium White Onion
- 2 Celery Sticks
- 2 Medium Carrots
- 1 Small White Potato
- 1 Tbsp Frozen Garlic
- 240 ml Beef Stock
- 3 Tsp Cumin
- 2 Tsp Oregano
- 2 Tsp Paprika
- Pinch Cayenne Pepper
- Salt & Pepper
- Salsa, optional
- Tortilla Wraps, optional
- Avocado, optional
Kitchen Gadgets:
Instructions
- Peel and dice your onion, celery, carrots, and potato and put to one side.
- Season your taco meat with salt and pepper, then add your meat to the instant pot.
- Sauté with extra virgin olive oil until you have a good sear on your beef.
- Remove the beef, put to one side, and then add into the instant pot your onion, celery, potato, and carrots. Then sauté for a couple of minutes to add flavour onto the veggies from the beef. Cancel the sauté and stir in the garlic. Add in beef stock and seasonings and use a silicone spatula to deglaze the instant pot.
- Then place the taco meat on top. Then sprinkle extra salt and pepper over the meat.
- Place the lid on the instant pot, set the valve to sealing and cook for 45 minutes on meat/stew.
- Then do a 15 minute natural pressure release before releasing the remaining pressure.
- Then remove the beef from the instant pot and put to one side. Move half of what’s left in the instant pot to a blender with a jar of salsa and blend until you have a creamy sauce. Or you can use a hand blender like we have done and blend it directly in the instant pot.
- Shred the beef with meat claws and load into the sauce.
- Serve in taco shells or tortilla wraps with avocado.
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then save it for later!
Shredded beef tacos now your talking my language. These were fantastic and the Instant Pot cooks the meat so quick, i am still in shock how quick it cooks things like meat so quick and so so tender, thanks and another great recipe from you.