Easy Carne con Chile Recipe

Dee
May 31, 2020
2 min read

Updated: Nov 6

Carne con Chile

Guess what? I have a beef recipe today. If you haven’t noticed, it’s rare in this house. I picked up some cheap thin cut chuck over the weekend and decided to cook one of my favorite childhood meals - carne con chile. It translates to "meat with chili". Not cornbread chili though. Think salsa. We’re cooking thin slices of beef in red salsa.

There are multiple ways to make carne con chile. This is my Mama’s quick version. She used to make this for my Dad and serve us kids the pan fried beef before adding the salsa. If you have picky eaters or little ones, I suggest doing the same. Oh, and if you want to make extra salsa for huevos rancheros, I’d do that too. Two meals out of one is so my thing.

The ingredients are basic ingredients that you can find at any grocery store.

INGREDIENTS:

1.5 lbs steak of choice cut into strips (I used thin-cut chuck steak)

2 garlic cloves

4 tomatoes

4 jalapeños

1 serrano

½ medium onion

Chicken Bouillon (Tomato)

Salt & Pepper to taste (or season salt)

Note: This recipe initially called for 6 to 8 jalapeño or serrano peppers. However, due to the generally larger size of chiles these days, I’ve revised it to use 4 jalapeños and 1 serrano.

*If you prefer less heat, omit the serrano and use just one or two jalapeños.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Salsa

Place peppers, tomatoes, garlic and onion in a saucepan with water. Bring to a boil and cook until they are tender. My tomatoes usually burst to let me know they’re done (my bad). Turn off heat and cool before transferring to the blender. Prep the steak while you wait.

Beef

Heat olive oil in a large pan. Place slices of steak in the pan, lightly season with salt and pepper, sear steak until there’s no pink visible.

Go back to the salsa veggies. Pour all contents into the blender with a cup of water (the same water they boiled in) and 1 spoonful of Knorr. By spoonful I mean the small spoon from the silverware set. One of those equals a spoonful to me. Blend for salsa consistency.

Add the salsa to the steak in the pan. Add another cup of water and 1 more spoonful of Knorr. Reduce heat and low simmer for 30 minutes. This is to marinate the flavors and tenderize the steak. The more the merrier in my opinion but aim for a 30 minute low simmer.

SERVE:

Serve with beans, rice or both! I usually choose beans since I need all the fiber I can get.

Warm tortillas work too! We like to roll them up and dip into the salsa.