Chef Lupita
Birria Tacos with Consome
Jalisco's goat birria, born around Cocula and carried into Guadalajara's markets, slow-braised in ancho, guajillo, cascabel, and chile de arbol, then tucked into corn tortillas crisped in its own red fat.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Tlayuda Clásica con Tasajo de los Valles Centrales
Created by
The canonical tlayuda from Oaxaca's Valles Centrales: a massive comal-dried tortilla spread with asiento and black beans fragrant with hoja de aguacate, pulled quesillo, grilled tasajo, and roasted chile de agua. This is not a big tostada. This is architecture.
Sandwiches & Wraps
Mexican
Comfort Food
Dinner Party
Game Day
40 min
Active Time
2 hr 30 min cook•3 hr 10 min total
Yield4 servings (4 tlayudas)
This is Oaxaca's dish. Valles Centrales. If you have walked through the Mercado 20 de Noviembre in Oaxaca city, you have seen the senoras at the pasillos de carnes asadas grilling tasajo over mesquite coals, the smoke thick enough to taste from across the hall. The tlayuda is what that tasajo goes on, and it is not a tortilla in the way the rest of Mexico understands the word.
The tlayuda tortilla is 30 to 40 centimeters across, made from a coarser grind of nixtamalized corn, and dried on the comal until it turns leathery and stiff. That stiffness is the point. It is the plate, the structure, the thing that holds everything without collapsing into your hands. When you heat it over coals or on a comal, the edges char and the center stays pliable enough to fold. If your tortilla is soft and floppy, you do not have a tlayuda. You have a quesadilla grande.
The spread is asiento, not butter, not oil, not even regular manteca. Asiento is the dark, grainy sediment that settles at the bottom of the pot when you render pork lard slowly. It tastes like smoke and pork and the comal it was made on. Over that goes a layer of refried black beans cooked with hoja de aguacate, the toasted avocado leaf that gives Oaxacan beans their anise-like perfume. Then quesillo pulled into strings, then tasajo off the grill, then shredded lettuce and roasted chile de agua. Cada estado, su propia cocina. This one is Oaxaca's and nobody else's.
My mother did not make tlayudas. She was jalisciense. But she had a page in her notebook where she had written, in her careful pencil: 'Tlayuda, Oaxaca, preguntar por asiento en el mercado.' She never made it, but she knew it mattered enough to write down. I made my first one in a market stall in Tlacolula de Matamoros, watching a senora who had been making them since before I was born. She did not measure anything. She spread the asiento by feel, folded the tlayuda in half, and set it directly on the coals. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
The tlayuda has pre-Columbian roots as a travel and storage food in the Valles Centrales of Oaxaca, where the partially dehydrated tortilla could last several days without refrigeration, making it essential provisions for merchants walking to market towns like Tlacolula, Ocotlan, and Zaachila. The word 'tlayuda' likely derives from the Nahuatl 'tlaolli' (corn) combined with a Zapotec suffix, reflecting the linguistic mestizaje of a region where Zapotec communities have cultivated native corn varieties for thousands of years. The modern street-food format, assembled with asiento, beans, and grilled meats at market stalls, became codified in the mid-20th century as Oaxaca city's mercados expanded, and the dish's 2010 inclusion in broader discussions around Mexico's UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage inscription cemented its status as one of the country's most recognized regional preparations, though Oaxacans had never needed outside validation to know what they had.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
tlayuda tortillas
Quantity
4
30-40 cm diameter
asiento (unrefined pork lard sediment)
Quantity
1/2 cup
dried black beans (frijol negro)
Quantity
1 pound
dried hojas de aguacate (avocado leaves)
Quantity
3
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
garlic clove
Quantity
1
salt
Quantity
to taste
tasajo (Oaxacan salted dried beef)
Quantity
1 pound
sliced thin
quesillo Oaxaqueno (Oaxacan string cheese)
Quantity
300 grams
pulled into strings
fresh chile de agua
Quantity
4
romaine lettuce
Quantity
1 small head
shredded
tomatoes
Quantity
2 medium
sliced into rounds
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
sliced radishes (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| tlayuda tortillas30-40 cm diameter | 4 |
| asiento (unrefined pork lard sediment) | 1/2 cup |
| dried black beans (frijol negro) | 1 pound |
| dried hojas de aguacate (avocado leaves) | 3 |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 2 tablespoons |
| garlic clove | 1 |
| salt | to taste |
| tasajo (Oaxacan salted dried beef)sliced thin | 1 pound |
| quesillo Oaxaqueno (Oaxacan string cheese)pulled into strings | 300 grams |
| fresh chile de agua | 4 |
| romaine lettuceshredded | 1 small head |
| tomatoessliced into rounds | 2 medium |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| sliced radishes (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Large cast iron comal or flat griddle (at least 30 cm across)
- •Heavy skillet for refried beans
- •Bean masher or sturdy wooden spoon
- •Tongs for grilling tasajo and roasting chiles
- •Charcoal grill (optional, for the most traditional finish)
Instructions
- 1
Cook the black beans
Rinse the black beans and pick through them for stones. Place in a large pot and cover with water by three inches. Add one whole hoja de aguacate and the garlic clove. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a low simmer. Cook partially covered for two hours, until the beans are completely soft and the broth is dark and thick. Add salt only in the last 20 minutes. Salt too early and the skins stay tough. Check the water level every 30 minutes and add hot water if the beans start to peek above the surface. They should always be submerged.
If you already have a pot of cooked black beans, use those. Every Oaxacan kitchen has beans on the stove. This is not the time to be precious about cooking from scratch if you have a batch from yesterday. - 2
Make the refried beans
Toast the remaining two hojas de aguacate on a dry comal over medium heat for about 10 seconds per side, until fragrant and brittle. Crumble them with your fingers and set aside. Melt the manteca de cerdo in a heavy skillet over medium heat. Ladle in about two cups of cooked beans with enough broth to keep them loose. Mash with a bean masher or the back of a wooden spoon, working them into a thick, spreadable paste. Stir in the crumbled hoja de aguacate. The beans should smell like anise and pork fat. Cook for five to seven minutes, stirring constantly, until the paste pulls away from the sides of the skillet and holds its shape on a spoon. If they are too thick, add a spoonful of bean broth. Too thin and they will slide off the tlayuda.
The hoja de aguacate is not optional. It is what makes Oaxacan beans taste Oaxacan. Without it, you have refried beans. With it, you have frijoles oaxaquenos. If you cannot find dried avocado leaves, check a Mexican grocery or order them online. There is no substitution that works. - 3
Prepare and grill the tasajo
Tasajo is already salted and partially dried. Lay the slices flat in a shallow dish and cover with cold water for 15 minutes to pull out excess salt. Taste a small piece after soaking. If it is still aggressively salty, soak for another 10 minutes. Drain and pat dry with clean towels. Heat a comal or cast iron griddle over high heat until it is screaming hot. Grill the tasajo for about one to two minutes per side. The slices are thin, so they cook fast. You want dark grill marks and slightly charred edges, but the center should still be tender. Do not overcook or it turns to jerky. Set aside and chop into rough strips when cool enough to handle.
If the tasajo you find is very thick, ask your carnicero to slice it thinner. At the Mercado 20 de Noviembre, the cuts are almost translucent. Thick tasajo will not cook through in time and the texture will be wrong. - 4
Roast the chile de agua
Place the chiles de agua directly on the hot comal. Roast them, turning with tongs, until the skin is blistered and charred in spots on all sides. This takes about five to eight minutes. The chile de agua is a fresh chile specific to Oaxaca, mild to medium in heat, with a grassy, slightly sweet flavor. Do not remove the skin. Do not sweat them in a bag. The charred skin is part of the flavor. Slice each chile in half lengthwise and remove the seeds if you want less heat. Leave the seeds if you want the full experience.
- 5
Pull the quesillo
Unwind the ball of quesillo Oaxaqueno and pull it into long, thin strings with your hands. This cheese is meant to be pulled, not sliced. It is Oaxaca's string cheese, salty and elastic, and when it melts on the hot tlayuda it stretches and browns at the edges. If you slice it into discs, you lose the texture that makes it work. Pile the strings loosely on a plate and keep them ready for assembly.
- 6
Char the tlayuda tortilla
Heat the comal over medium-high heat. Place one tlayuda directly on the comal and warm it for about two minutes, flipping once. The tlayuda should become pliable in the center but stay stiff at the edges. You are not making it soft. You are waking it up. If you have a gas burner, you can hold the edges briefly over the open flame to char them. The char is the flavor. A tlayuda without char marks is a cracker with toppings.
If you are working with a charcoal grill, even better. The senoras at the Mercado 20 de Noviembre assemble and finish their tlayudas directly over mesquite coals. That smoke is part of the dish. - 7
Spread asiento and beans
With the tlayuda still on the warm comal, spread about two tablespoons of asiento over the entire surface using the back of a spoon. The asiento will melt immediately on contact. Then spread a generous layer of the refried black beans over the asiento, leaving about a one-inch border at the edges. The asiento goes first because it waterproofs the tortilla and keeps the beans from making it soggy. This is the engineering of the dish. Every layer has a reason.
- 8
Add quesillo and fold
Scatter the pulled quesillo strings over the bean layer. At this point you choose: open or folded. For a tlayuda abierta, leave it flat and let the cheese melt on the comal for another minute. For a tlayuda empalmada, fold it in half like a giant quesadilla and press gently. The empalmada is how you see them at the market stalls, folded and placed directly on the coals until the cheese melts and the outside chars. Either way, cook until the quesillo is soft and beginning to stretch when you lift the edge. Two to three minutes, no more.
- 9
Top and serve
Transfer the tlayuda to a cutting board or clay plate. If serving open, pile the chopped grilled tasajo down the center. Lay the roasted chile de agua alongside. Scatter the shredded lettuce and tomato slices over the top. Squeeze lime over everything. If serving folded, open it slightly and stuff the tasajo, lettuce, tomato, and chile inside. Serve immediately. A tlayuda does not wait. The second it cools, the tortilla loses its char-crisp texture and the quesillo seizes up. Asi se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Asiento is not the same as lard. Manteca is the clean rendered fat. Asiento is the dark, grainy sediment that sinks to the bottom of the rendering pot. It has a deeper, smokier, more complex pork flavor. If you cannot find asiento where you live, you can approximate it by cooking lard in a skillet over low heat until the solids at the bottom turn dark brown and the fat takes on a toasted, porky aroma. Strain out the solids and use that darkened fat. It is a compromise, not the real thing, but it gets you closer than plain lard.
- •Tlayuda tortillas are available online from Oaxacan producers and in Mexican grocery stores in the United States. Do not substitute regular corn tortillas. A regular tortilla, no matter how large, does not have the dehydrated, leathery texture that gives the tlayuda its structure. If you truly cannot find them, a large flour tortilla is wrong. A large corn tostada is wrong. Wait until you can source tlayudas. Preguntale a las senoras del mercado.
- •Quesillo Oaxaqueno is the only cheese that belongs on this dish. Mozzarella is the most common substitution and it is not terrible, but the flavor is different. Quesillo is saltier, tangier, and has a specific pull when melted. If you use mozzarella, add a pinch of salt to the cheese layer to compensate.
- •Chile de agua is almost impossible to find outside Oaxaca. It is a fresh, medium-heat chile grown in the Valles Centrales with a unique grassy flavor. If you cannot find it, a roasted chile poblano is the closest in size and mildness, though the flavor is not the same. A jalapeno is too small and too hot. Know what you are substituting and why.
Advance Preparation
- •The black beans can and should be cooked a day ahead. They improve overnight as the hoja de aguacate flavor deepens into the broth. Store in their broth, refrigerated.
- •The refried beans can be made several hours ahead and rewarmed in a skillet with a splash of bean broth to loosen them before spreading.
- •The tasajo can be soaked and patted dry up to four hours ahead, kept refrigerated on a plate. Grill it just before assembly.
- •Do not assemble the tlayuda ahead of time. Assembly to table should take no more than five minutes per tlayuda. This is a dish that is built and eaten in real time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 600g)
Calories
1445 calories
Total Fat
65 g
Saturated Fat
28 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
36 g
Cholesterol
165 mg
Sodium
2050 mg
Total Carbohydrates
131 g
Dietary Fiber
25 g
Sugars
8 g
Protein
84 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Oaxacan Tlayudas, Tacos & Handhelds
Browse the full collection
Chef Lupita
Burrito de Chicharrón Sonorense
Sonora's working morning burrito: chicharrón de cáscara stewed in chile colorado with diced potato, rolled tight in a paper-thin tortilla sobaquera and eaten standing up at the carreta.
Chef Lupita
Burrito de Chilorio Sinaloense
Mocorito's pork chilorio, shredded and confited in lard with chile ancho and pasilla, rolled into a thin handmade flour tortilla. The burrito Sinaloa sends out into the world.
Chef Lupita
Burrito de Frijoles Sonorense
Sonora's morning burrito of mashed pinto frijoles puercos and melted queso asadero, wrapped in a paper-thin sobaquera and seared on the comal until the cheese pulls in long strings.