Mushroom Lettuce Cups with Pressure Cooker Birria Sauce
Recipe by Danielle Lavallee
When we were in Mexico recently, we ate the most amazing mushroom birria tacos. Originating in Jalisco, birria is a spicy sauce or stew in which goat was traditionally braised for hours on low heat in intensely flavorful spices like cinnamon, cloves and chilis (mostly to mask the taste of the gamey goat). Today, birria is typically made with beef or lamb and served in quesadillas with a dipping sauce. The birria we had in Mexico was made from oyster mushrooms and served as tacos with homemade tortillas. It had incredible smoky layered flavors and fabulous meaty texture. I came back longing to recreate it.
There are many birria recipes out there, all with slightly different spices and preparations. I adapted what I liked from several different recipes, and instead of stewing the sauce for hours as is traditional, I simply popped mine in the pressure cooker for ten minutes. If you are looking for a super easy, incredibly flavorful Mexican sauce to add to your rotation, look no further than this plant-based birria.
Special Equipment Needed: Pressure Cooker and High-Speed Blender
Ingredients for the Birria Sauce:
4 large dried Gaujillo chilis (with stems and seeds removed, roughly cut into 1” pieces). Gaujillo chilis have a medium heat level and a fabulous smoky flavor. They are typically rehydrated before use, but the pressure cooker removes this step for us, so just toss them in dry.
Optional - 1 fresh chili. This is added for extra heat. If you prefer a milder sauce, simply omit this. I used a red Fresno chili, but you can use a jalapeño, a serrano, or whatever you like best. This makes for a super spicy sauce!
~ 2 cups cherry tomatoes (Or a couple of large roma tomatoes. Use what you have.)
2 cloves of garlic (or sub 1/2 tsp. garlic oil if you are looking to lower your FODMAPS)
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon Mexican oregano
1 teaspoon cumin seed
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 cups vegetable stock (I used 3 cubes of Massel 7 and three cups of water. Use any veggie stock you like.)
2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons of tamari or soy sauce (This adds umami, and is needed for this sauce. Trust me. You’ll never taste it.)
1 teaspoon salt
Place all sauce ingredients into your pressure cooker and cook on high pressure for ten minutes.
Once the sauce is cooked, carefully pour it into the container of a high speed blender (including the bay leaf). Place a kitchen towel over the top of your blender to avoid hot liquid splatters and blend until the sauce is smooth. Birria is traditionally strained and not blended, but because I am all about eating as much fiber as possible, I chose to blend the sauce, which retained all the plant fiber and still gave a silky smooth result that was the consistency of thin BBQ sauce. Once the sauce is blended, adjust the seasonings to your taste.
You can use your completed birria as a sauce for enchiladas, as a base for a Mexican stew, or as a dipping sauce. I chose to pour ours over shredded oyster mushrooms and sliced baby bella mushrooms.
I then tossed these to coat the mushrooms and baked them at 400 degrees until they were caramelized but still meaty and tender. This took approximately half an hour.
Just so you can see that kitchen disasters strike us all, I poured my extra birria into new storage jars, which I believed to be heat-safe. Alas, not so much. Ensue swearing and cleaning. Luckily, I had already coated the mushrooms, and reserved some sauce for pouring on our tacos. As you can see, this makes a lot of delicious sauce with a gorgeous color and fabulous smoky flavor. Too bad the majority of ours was lost. Sigh…these things happen.
Once my kitchen disaster was remedied, I prepped my toppings. We had our mushroom birria in butter lettuce wraps with avocado and cilantro.
These mushroom birria cups were packed with flavor, filled with plant diversity, and full of Ergothioneine. Mushrooms contain a specialized antioxidant called Ergothioneine. It is synthesized by most mushrooms, with the highest concentrations being found in oyster mushrooms, which contain approximately 10 times more Ergothioneine than other dietary sources. Ergothioneine is unique in its ability to protect the brain from oxidative stress, it reduces the risk of cancer, especially breast cancer, and it has been called a longevity vitamin due to its involvement in healthy aging. For more information on Ergothioneine, please see: www.thewell-nourishedbrain.com/blog/mushrooms-and-ergothioneine
Besides being packed with health benefits, oyster mushrooms are also lovely in their ability to mimic shredded chicken. Simply pull them into long shreds with your fingers and then bake them in a delicious sauce, like this one.
I made a taco salad with corn from the leftovers the next day, which was equally delicious.
I hope you like this quick and easy birria sauce. I will be using it as a base for a Mexican corn stew the next time I make it. It is totally customizable, inexpensive, simple to prepare, and can be used anytime you want a smoky Mexican sauce.
Happy eating!
🌱💕