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Cuban Shredded beef or Ropa Vieja can be made in the slow cooker or instant pot! We sear the meat and then braise it for hours with onions, garlic, and spices until the meat is just falling apart tender. Serve this Ropa Vieja recipe with avocados, black beans, and rice!
Ropa Vieja is one delish Cuban dish!
And a lot fancier sounding than the amount of energy actually required to make this dish.
Because let’s face it, we’re talking about a quick sear on the meat and into the slow cooker or instant pot it goes! Out comes braised, cuban shredded beef that is falling apart tender and delicious with rice, on tacos, and even with eggs and black beans for breakfast. Or maybe mixed in with migas.
This recipe is a dream for chilly evenings in the fall.
Warm, cozy, comforting, meaty, and saucy. The tomato sauce seasoned with oregano, cumin, and garlic adds such a nice balanced warmth to the dish. Plus there’s the whole thing about not having to turn on the oven and just a quick 10 minutes of stovetop.
If you’re making this in a a pressure cooker, you don’t even have to turn on the stove. Just sear the beef on the saute setting before setting it to pressure cook. It’s a cozy bowl served with smashed sweet plantains, slow simmered black beans, all served on a bed of white rice.
Cuban shredded beef is my jam.
So what is Cuban shredded beef (Ropa Vieja)?
Literally translated ‘Ropa Vieja’ means old clothes. And it’s the most amazing braised Cuban shredded beef of your life. Start with flank steak or chuck roast. Then you simmer it in a homemade tomato-based sauce. And what you’re left with is a shredded beef stew-ish type dish that you didn’t even know you were missing.
This was great! My husband loved it! It will certainly become part of my regular rotation of crockpot recipes! Thanks for a great recipe!
Ingredients for homemade Ropa Vieja recipe
- Beef: I suggest using a tough cut of meat that does well with braising. Flank steak, chuck roast and or any other type of meat that requires a slow cooked method.
- Garlic: You’ll want to insert a few of the garlic cloves into the meat so that it flavors the inside. The rest gets chopped up and used for the sauce portion of the recipe.
- Avocado oil: Or any high heat oil works here. This is simply to sear the meat. You can do this over medium-high heat in a dutch oven if you are slow cooking this in a crock pot. Or feel free to just saute in the pan of your pressure cooker.
- Tomato sauce: Is the base of the ropa vieja sauce.
- Green bell pepper: Thinly slice the peppers, then stir them into the sauce ingredients. They’ll cook up nicely with the onions and green chilies.
- Onion: You’ll want to thinly slice your onions for this recipe. Feel free to use a yellow or white onion!
- Chopped green chilies: The stuff that comes in a can, is exactly what you need. They usually have it near the pickled peppers section of the grocery store. You’ll need a 4 ounce can.
- Tomato paste: Just gives the recipe a concentrated shot of tomato paste!
- Seasonings: You’ll need ground cumin, dried oregano, salt, and red pepper flakes. Feel free to toss in a couple bay leaves if you’d like!
- White vinegar: This helps tenderize the meat so that it’s fall apart tender.
- Beef Broth: This is an ingredient that you would just need if you were making this recipe in the instant pot or pressure cooker. It helps build adequate steam in the pressure cooker so that the meat cooks through without burning and sticking to the bottom.
- Cilantro: This helps add color and flavor because we eat with our eyes first!
- Optional ingredients: Some people like to use capers or green olives for this recipe, but I’ll be honest, I save those for when I make Picadillo!
How to make Cuban shredded beef:
- Start by seasoning the meat. Sprinkle the beef with kosher salt and black pepper (optional) and then score a few ‘x’ in the meat to hide garlic cloves in the thickness of the meat. Let the meat sit for 30-45 minutes if time permits, if not, you can go right to the next step.
- Sear the meat. This is EVERYTHING. When you sear the outer surface of a piece of meat in a hot pan with a little bit of oil it forms a crust on the outside which then allows for crazy amounts of flavor to develop and helps get the meat extra tender. This is especially helpful in a pressure cooker because we’ll layer the flavors with peppers and onions when it boils.
- Toss in the rest. Then add the onions, garlic, bell peppers, tomato sauce, and all of the seasonings into the slow cooker or instant pot. Keep in mind if you’re making this in a pressure cooker, you’ll also need a bit of beef broth to help it reach a boil. Add the seared beef and allow it to braise for 6-8 hours on the low setting in a crock pot or cook for roughly 20 minutes per pound for a pressure cooker. Once the timer goes off, twist the valve to release the steam and use two forks to help shred the protein. Let it simmer in the tomato sauce so that it soaks up all that flavor. Then taste and adjust with more salt if need be.
That’s it. It’s seriously the easiest dinner ever and you can start it right before you go to work and have it ready and waiting for you when you get home. Perfect, tender, and a crowd pleaser. And seriously, the comfort factor — it’s to a whole new level. I serve it on a bed of cilantro lime rice with a side of cuban-style black beans. And obvi, in 10+ years we’ve been together now, you know I need tons of chopped cilantro and lime wedges to serve on the side.
That’s how we do. ✌️
If you like this recipe, you might also like:
- Cuban Mojo Chicken Quinoa Bowls with Mango Salsa
- Cuban Black Beans with Cilantro and Lime
- Very Best Cuban Black Bean Soup
- Marinated Mojo Steak Tacos with Quick Guac
Ropa Vieja Recipe (Cuban Shredded Beef)
Equipment
Ingredients
Seared Beef:
- 6 garlic cloves
- 2-2 ½ lbs. beef chuck roast or flank steak
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
For the Ropa Vieja recipe:
- 2 cans tomato sauce 8 ounce
- 1 green bell pepper thinly sliced
- 1 medium onion thinly sliced
- 1 can chopped green chilies 4 ounce
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons dried oregano
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon white vinegar
- ½ teaspoon red pepper flakes
- ½ cup beef broth for pressure cooker only!
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro + more for serving
serving:
- cuban-style black beans for serving
- white rice for serving
Instructions
- SEARING THE MEAT: Take the beef chuck roast and using a small paring knife, make 3 small 'x' marks into the meat. Take 3 cloves of garlic and insert them into the 3 'x' marks so that the clove is completely inserted into the thickness of roast. Season both sides of the meat generously with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large, deep skillet or do this directly in your saute pan for the pressure cooker. Add the beef in one piece and fry on each side for 5 minutes, turning only when the exterior is browned. This will splatter a bit but don't cover the pan as the meat will end up steaming rather than searing.
- SLOW COOKER: Chop the remaining 3 cloves of garlic into thin slices and add to the slow cooker along with all the remaining ingredients. I used a 6-quart slow cooker but a 3-quart slow cooker will work too. Cover and let cook on the low setting for 7-8 hours.
- INSTANT POT: Once the beef has seared, remove it to a plate and saute the onions, peppers, and garlic in the remaining oil for 30 seconds. Add all the remaining ingredients and cover. Set the pressure cooker to cook for 20 minutes per pound. My roast was 2.5 pounds, so I did this for 50 minutes. Once the timer goes off, allow a natural pressure release.
- SHRED: Shred the beef with the forks and give it a stir. If it doesn't, slow cook or pressure cook for additional time as needed. Taste for seasonings, season with additional salt and pepper as desired.
- TO SERVE: Serve over a bed of rice with black beans on the side topped with additional cilantro and a few lime wedges. You can also use the shredded beef for burritos, breakfast quesadillas, or tacos! The possibilities are endless!
Notes
- Leftover beef can be kept in an airtight container and refrigerated for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 2 months.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Absolutely amazing! I will be making this regularly from now on!!!
Since finding this my family has requested it every 3rd week. It’s the perfect Sunday evening meal! It’s super easy to tweak it to make it work for a keto/low carb diet too! It reheats great the next day, but I don’t after that because we never have enough left over to go that far….
We LOVED this recipe! Even my 9 month old grand-daughter ate heaps of the beef as she siphoned off the sauce of each bite. Black beans are another family favorite so, along with some butter corn off the cob, we had a delightful and filling dinner. The combination of spices is perfect and no need for modification. I prepared it in my insta-crockpot but increased the time to 1.5 hrs. A few pieces had to be shredded and put back into the sauce to simmer. I cannot say enough good about this dish. Thanks again for sharing it!
Delicious. The first time I made it my husband and I both loved it. I am making it again tonight for the family. I also serve with Cuban black beans and rice cooked in chicken broth. So good!
There is no way this recipe only takes 10 minutes of prep time. I just started it this morning before work thinking I had plenty of time to put it together and get to the office on time. Nope. I even began with a frozen roast and didn’t sear the meat or stuff garlic cloves inside of it and from start to finish it took me 20 minutes. I was attempting to hurry through all the can opening and veggie slicing too. I’d say that with the searing of the roast this would be at least a 25 minute prep time, if not 30. And that’s just for the stuff that winds up in the slow cooker too.
I loved this recipe. Easy and delicious. I served this in bowls with quinoa on the bottom, layered with beans and meat and then a salad made with corn, quartered cherry tomatoes, chopped red onion, avocado, crumbled feta and fresh lime juice. A dab of sour cream on top and then sprinkled with chopped cilantro. Yum.
Great recipe, I love cooking big roasts in my crockpot. I cut back on the salt and added some chopped olives as I had seen in some other similar recipes. Delicious!
Hi, I absolutely love this recipe. Do you think I could make it in my pressure cooker rather than a slower cooker? I just got an instapot.
Hi Mandy! I’m so glad to hear you enjoyed the ropa vieja recipe! Unfortunately, I’m not too confident this would work in the pressure cooker. The recipe only contains 16 ounces of liquid in total and since it’s a thick sauce, I’m afraid you may end up getting a burn notice on your instant pot. You could try diluting the sauce with broth or water but I’m not sure how much it would change the overall recipe.
This recipe was amazing! I work long days and use my slow cooker a good bit. My daughter and grandkids were coming to visit for New Year’s weekend. I wanted a crock pot meal so we could spend time together instead of me cooking all day. It was a huge hit with my grand kids and I used the chiles…it was delicious! Thanks for the recipe!
Can you omit the can of green chilies?!?! We really are not fond of the flavor
Yes, you can omit them if you’d like.
I found this recipe on Pinterest and thought it sounded really good. In all actuality, it blew my mind! My entire family loved it and it has been added to my list of must cook recipes. It was easy to follow, simple ingredients and tastes gourmet. Thank you so much for sharing!!
One of the best things I have made in a long time. But I hint next time I make it,I will use first cut(flat cut) brisket..as I can get a bigger piece to make bigger shreds.But the sauce..incredible…
This recipe was amazing!! I made it with the grass fed beef we raise and we loved it so much, I would like to link your recipe to my blog. Thanks!!
Absolutely delicious! Have made this twice.
The first time, I wasn’t able to get a chuck roast of the right size, so i ended up using i think a Bottom Round, seemed to work perfectly well, and since its not as fatty a cut, the beef ended up absorbing a bit more of the sauce so the liquid level at the end wasn’t as high.
Second time used orange pepper instead of green, and the right cut and it tasted basically the same.
So, so good! My husband and I both loved it and the leftovers were just as tasty. It tastes exactly like the Ropa Vieja I order at a Cuban restaurant, except now I don’t have to go there to get it. I will be making this again and again and again!
Do you think I could use crushed toms or purée instead of the two 8 oz cans of tomato sauce since I’d be adding tomato paste and spices?
Crushed tomatoes would work well with this recipe and you’d replace the sauce with equal parts of crushed tomatoes. For the puree, you’ll need to thin it out a bit. So I’d suggest using a 15oz can of puree along with 1 oz of water.
I made this the other day and it’s amazing! I polished off the whole thing in a couple days and can’t wait to make it again!
After visiting Cuba this summer and becoming OBSESSED with their food, I can’t wait to try this recipe!
i cooked this for my family dinner last night..and what they said?they totally love it..thanks for the recice 🙂
This was sooo good. My hubby said it was the best beef burrito he has ever had. I served his in a tortilla with cheese and mine with sliced green olives.
I also made it in my instant pot in under an hour! Cook on high for 52 min, came out awesome! Thanks for a delicious recipe.
This recipe looks delicious. I was hoping to see an Instant Pot adaptation. Did you follow the recipe exactly, then cook on high pressure for 52 minutes on high pressure with all ingredients in the pot? Also, did you cut the meat into smaller portions for the Instant Pot?
Did you have to adjust the liquid at all? Did you sear the meat in the Instant Pot first?