Home-style recipes from around the world

EN
A burrito of beef machaca and egg cooked together and rolled in a flour tortilla
Serves4 servings (4 burritos)
CuisineMexican (Sonoran-style)
North America

Burrito: Sonoran Machaca and Egg in a Flour Tortilla (Burro de Machaca)

How to make a northern Mexican burrito with a Sonoran-style filling of beef machaca, egg, green chile, onion and tomato, wrapped in a large flour tortilla. Covers checking the machaca's salt on the label, cooking the egg until fully set, warming and rolling the tortilla so it doesn't crack or leak, honest substitutes when machaca is hard to find, and how this simple wrap differs from Ciudad Juárez fillings and the large rice-and-bean style that grew up in the United States.

Level: Beginner

Cooking flow

Cooking steps

STEP 11 / 7

Prepare the vegetables and check the machaca's label

Chopped onion and northern green chiles, with tomatoes and beef machaca ready
Onion, chile, tomato, machaca and eggs prepared separately before the pan goes on

Chop the white onion. Cut the tomatoes into medium dice. Have the 300g of machaca and the 4 eggs ready.

How you prepare the chiles depends on the kind you use. If you are using Anaheim or Hatch chiles, roast them first and peel off the skin before cutting. With other green chiles, don't apply that roasting step automatically: check the seeds and how hot the chile is, then slice it into rounds or strips.

Check the machaca's saltiness by reading the product label, not by tasting the meat. Follow the label on whether the product needs to be cooked. You will taste the filling only once it is fully cooked, in step 4.

After handling hot chiles, wash your hands and avoid touching your eyes.

STEP 22 / 7

Soften the onion and chile, then add the tomato

Onion and green chile sautéing in a skillet, with tomato added and its moisture cooking off
The vegetables soften but stay distinct; the tomato is not cooked into a sauce

Heat the 2 tbsp oil in a large skillet. Add the onion and chiles and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, until the onion just begins to turn translucent. Don't let it scorch, or it will turn bitter.

Add the tomatoes and cook for about 2 minutes, until they release their juices and everything comes together. You are not cooking the tomatoes down into a liquid sauce. Cook off enough of the tomato's water at this stage that it won't leave the eggs watery later.

STEP 33 / 7

Add the machaca and warm it through

Beef machaca added to the sautéed onion, green chile and tomato, warmed through
The machaca is warmed and mixed in, not charred or dried out

Add the machaca and stir it into the vegetables for 3–4 minutes. The aim is to warm the already-processed meat and combine it with the vegetables, following your product label if it gives cooking instructions. Don't keep frying it for a long time, or it will dry out.

STEP 44 / 7

Add the eggs and cook until no liquid egg remains

Beaten egg added to the machaca and vegetables, cooked until no liquid egg remains
Soft curds with no raw liquid egg left in the pan

Beat the 4 eggs with the 1/3 tsp black pepper and pour them into the pan. Over medium heat, keep turning and stirring until no liquid egg remains and everything has set.

Cook the eggs fully, following home food-safety guidance from Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, which gives 75°C at the center for at least 1 minute as a guide for foods cooked at home. Without a thermometer, cook until you can see no liquid egg anywhere. How long that takes depends on your pan and heat.

Now that the filling is fully cooked, taste it and add the pinch of salt only if it needs it.

Egg safety

Cook the egg until it is completely set. Don't take the filling off the heat while any liquid egg remains.

STEP 55 / 7

Warm the tortillas in a dry pan

A large flour tortilla warming in a dry pan until pliable
No oil: just enough heat to make the tortilla flexible

Warm each tortilla in a dry skillet or comal for about 30 seconds per side, until it is soft enough to fold without cracking. Cold or dry tortillas split when rolled, so warm them right before wrapping.

STEP 66 / 7

Fill and fold

Machaca and egg filling placed near the center of a warm flour tortilla, just before folding the sides in
A compact line of filling with generous margins left for folding

Divide the filling into 4 equal portions. Place one portion on a warm tortilla, slightly toward you from the center, keeping it compact. Don't spread it to the edges: leave a margin on the left and right. Fold both sides inward, then roll up from the edge nearest you. Don't overfill; a modest portion holds together far better.

STEP 77 / 7

Serve, or toast the seam first

A rolled burrito warming seam-side down in a dry skillet
Start on the seam so the burrito holds its shape while the outside warms

Cut the burritos just before eating, or hold them whole. If you'd like a little color on the outside, place each burrito seam-side down in a dry skillet over low to medium heat, so the outside warms and the seam holds. TV Azteca's machaca burrito, a separate recipe, browns the surface in a pan in this way.

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Ingredients

Ingredients

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Ingredients

Ingredient Amount Role and notes
Vegetable oil (aceite vegetal) 2 tbsp For softening the onion and chile. Any neutral oil works
White onion (cebolla blanca) 1 Sweetness and aroma. Chopped
Northern green chiles (chile verde del norte) 3 Green aroma and heat. Preparation depends on the type; see step 1
Red tomatoes (tomate rojo) 2 Moisture and acidity. Medium dice
Beef machaca (machaca de res) 300g Dried, shredded beef: the salt and fibrous texture of the filling
Eggs (huevo) 4 Bind the filling. Cooked until no liquid remains
Black pepper (pimienta negra) 1/3 tsp Aroma
Salt (sal) 1 pinch Only if needed, after tasting the fully cooked filling
Large flour tortillas (tortillas de harina grandes) 4 The wrapper
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Burrito: Salty Shredded Beef, Set Egg and Green Chile in a Soft Flour Tortilla

What this burrito should keep

A soft, pliable flour tortilla; dried, shredded beef with its own saltiness and fibrous bite; and egg and green chile bound together with the meat. Nothing more needs to go inside.

A large flour tortilla softens on a dry pan while onion, green chile and tomato hiss in the skillet beside it. Shredded dried beef goes in, then beaten egg, and the filling comes together into something you can fold up and carry in one hand. This is machaca con huevo, a Sonoran-style filling, wrapped as a burrito.

Many people hear "burrito" and picture a huge wrap packed with rice, beans and cheese. In northern Mexico, though, a burrito is often a flour tortilla rolled around a single cooked filling, and that filling changes from region to region. This recipe makes one of those regional examples: four burritos of beef machaca and egg, following the Sonoran-style recipe published by Recetas Mexas. It is not the only northern burrito, and it is not the standard for all of Mexico; it is one clear, simple version you can make at home.

Country guide: Mexico. For other ways tortillas appear on Mexican tables, see tacos and chilaquiles.

Ingredients: 4 Burritos, Set by the Machaca's Salt and the Tortilla's Size

Beef machaca, eggs, green chiles, onion, tomatoes and large flour tortillas laid out as burrito ingredients
Machaca, eggs, northern green chiles, white onion, tomatoes and large flour tortillas, with nothing extra

These amounts make 4 burritos. Machaca is dried meat, and its saltiness varies from product to product, so the salt is only a pinch and is decided at the very end.

Allergens and labels

The main allergens here are egg and wheat (in the flour tortillas). Machaca is a processed product: check its label for additives such as soy and for any shared-facility statements, and do the same for the tortillas.

Choosing and Substituting: Machaca Is Not Ground Beef or Jerky

Machaca. This is dried, shredded beef. It is not the same thing as ground beef, and it should not be treated as an equivalent of beef jerky. To look for it, search by its general names, such as machaca de res or beef machaca, at specialist or imported-food shops. Before you cook, read the product label for its salt content and for whether it needs cooking.

If you can't find machaca, stir-fried thinly sliced beef is a convenient stand-in, but be clear about what changes: the dried-meat saltiness and the fibrous chew are lost, and you end up with a different home-style filling rather than a reproduction of machaca con huevo.

Green chiles. If you can't get northern green chiles, use another green chile you can find and add it while tasting. The aroma and heat will not match, so treat the amount as something to adjust.

Tortillas. Choose large flour tortillas. Small or stiff ones crack more easily when you roll them. Corn tortillas don't give the same soft, wrapping texture, so they make a different way of eating this filling rather than this burrito.

Onion and tomatoes. An ordinary onion can stand in for white onion, though sweetness and moisture vary between onions. Tomatoes also differ in variety and size, so judge how far to cook them by eye rather than by the clock alone.

Equipment

  • A large skillet (or a comal), roomy enough that the filling doesn't spill
  • A flat, dry skillet for warming the tortillas and, if you like, lightly toasting the rolled burritos (the same skillet works once it's wiped clean)
  • Knife and cutting board
  • A bowl for beating the eggs
  • A spatula
  • A food thermometer, if you have one

Method: Cook the Filling, Warm the Tortillas, Roll

Timing

Allow 15 minutes of preparation and 15 minutes of cooking. Burners and pans vary, so use the times below as guides and watch the state of the onion, the tomato and the egg.

Cracked, Leaking, Salty, Watery: Fixing It in the Pan

Problem Likely cause What to do
The tortilla cracks It is cold or dry Warm both sides right before wrapping until it bends easily
Filling leaks from the roll Too much filling, or spread too far Keep each portion small and compact near the center, and leave margins on all sides for folding
Too salty Salt from the machaca Taste the fully cooked filling before adding any salt; balance with the proportion of tomato, egg and tortilla
Watery egg Tomato moisture not cooked off Cook the tomato a little longer before adding the eggs, then cook until the egg is fully set
Dry filling Machaca fried too long Don't keep frying after the machaca goes in; set the egg fully, then stop before the filling dries out

Serving and Leftovers

A Sonoran-style machaca and egg burrito served at the table with roasted tomato salsa
One burrito, cut once, with a small bowl of salsa on the side

The burrito is complete on its own. A small bowl of salsa on the side is optional and not part of this base recipe; TV Azteca's separate machaca burrito recipe serves salsa alongside.

Don't leave egg-based filling sitting at room temperature. If you have filling left over, divide it into shallow, clean containers and refrigerate it quickly, then reheat it thoroughly before eating. How long it keeps depends on when you eat it and how it was chilled, so this recipe doesn't give a fixed number of days.

Variations: Changes Worth Making, Kept Separate from the Base

These change the character of the burrito, so make them deliberately rather than mixing them into the base recipe.

  1. Spread beans inside. TV Azteca's machaca burrito spreads refried beans on the tortilla. If you try this, start with a thin layer: the beans' moisture changes how easily the burrito rolls and makes it heavier.
  2. Add cheese. If you use a melting cheese, roll the burrito while the filling is hot. Cheese adds salt of its own, so be careful with extra salt.
  3. Use thinly sliced beef. Easy to find, but the dried saltiness and fibrous texture of machaca are gone. Treat it as a different arrangement.
  4. Adjust the chile heat. Add chile a little at a time. To tame the heat, remove the seeds and membranes, though the aroma weakens too.
  5. Make smaller wraps. Splitting the filling across smaller tortillas makes wrapping easier, but the filling-to-tortilla ratio and how filling each one is will differ from the large-tortilla version.
  6. Try a Juárez-style filling. Frijoles con queso, barbacoa, asado, or a red or green guisado are each separate fillings in their own right. Make them as different burritos rather than mixing them into the machaca.

A Northern Mexican Meal Built to Be Carried

At its core, a burrito is a flour tortilla wrapped around a guisado, a cooked or stewed filling, and carried in paper or foil. It needs no plate or cutlery, and it is described as a meal that people at work could take with them, which is part of how it settled into the way the north eats. Rice, beans and cheese are not required.

In Ciudad Juárez, burritos are part of the city's identity. The municipal government's report on the parade for the city's 363rd anniversary calls them a source of Juárez pride. The city also tells the story of Juan Méndez, a vendor who carried food by donkey, as the origin of the name. That story is local lore rather than settled history: there are other explanations of the origin, and some sources point to dictionary records of the word from before the Revolution-era donkey-vendor story, though those sources disagree on the year. Depending on the region, the dish is also called burro or burrita.

The fillings change across the north. Juárez accounts list frijoles con queso, barbacoa, asado, and red or green guisados. Sonora has machaca con huevo; machaca also appears in Chihuahua and Baja California; Sinaloa has chilorio. Sonora is also home to the tortilla sobaquera, a very large flour tortilla, and the burro percherón, a big wrap filled with meat, cheese, vegetables and more. The recipe on this page is the Sonoran-style machaca con huevo, one example among these, and not the standard Juárez burrito.

The large wrap packed with rice, beans, cheese and other fillings that became common in the United States is a development of the burrito in its own right. It is worth knowing, but it is not the template for every burrito in Mexico.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is rice normal inside a burrito in Mexico?

Not as a rule. Fillings vary by region, and the large style stuffed with rice and beans that spread in the United States is not the benchmark for northern Mexican burritos as a whole. This Sonoran-style version holds only machaca, egg and vegetables.

Can I use corn tortillas?

You can eat the filling with corn tortillas, but they don't have the flexibility of a large flour tortilla, so you won't get this wrapped form. It becomes a different way of eating the filling.

Is it settled that the burrito comes from Juárez?

No. Juárez tells its origin story strongly and with pride, but there are several explanations of where the dish and its name come from, and none of them can be stated as fact.

What should I do with leftover filling?

Move it promptly into shallow, clean containers and refrigerate it, then reheat it thoroughly before eating. There is no single safe number of storage days to give here.

What can I use if I can't find machaca?

Stir-fried thinly sliced beef is the practical option, but it is a different filling: it lacks machaca's dried-meat saltiness and fibrous texture. Ground beef and beef jerky are not equivalents either.

Sources