Birria Pizza: Chewy crust topped with tender shredded birria beef, smoky birria stew, loads of melted cheese, chopped sweet onion, fresh cilantro, a squeeze of fresh lime, and a bowl of red chile sauce for dipping. Imagine the best tacos you’ve ever tasted turned into a pizza and you have an idea just how fabulous this pizza is.
It’s no secret that I love pizza and I love tacos, so a pizza inspired by one of my favourite tacos? I’m naturally inclined to be a fan. But mercy, this one delivered above and beyond what I expected.
Birria is so much more than just a spicy stew. The rich, fall-apart tender beef is saucy, complex, and habit-forming whether served as a stew or tucked into tacos. But of the many wonderful ways to eat birria, this pizza just may be my favourite.
No need to hit up taco trucks for your birria de res, either. Our homemade instant pot birria will give you the tender beef and “consomé” or birria stew you need for sauce and dipping.
And our cheesy birria pizza recipe is far more than just unfolded quesabirria tacos or an open-faced birria quesadilla. No corn tortillas are harmed in the making of this pizza.
As much as this delicious birria pizza recipe is a departure from the normal pepperoni-and-cheese pie, it’s actually a remarkably easy pizza to make. Let’s dig into the ingredients and equipment needed for making this gorgeous and easy meal.
Pizza Birria
For a pizza with such big flavour, this recipe has a pretty short list of ingredients. Each item on the list is easy to make or find, so you can satisfy your pizza birria cravings whenever you want!
Ingredients
- Leftover Birria Meat: Make your own instant pot birria recipe or buy a quart from your favourite local Mexican restaurant!
- Leftover Birria Broth or Consomé: This is the star of the show! The thick, flavourful, spicy sauce stands in for tomato sauce and doubles as a dipping sauce in this crazy good pizza.
- Pizza Dough: This is a recipe that requires pizza dough rather than a pre-baked pizza shell. Make your own homemade pizza dough recipe or buy fresh dough from your grocery store or favourite pizzeria.
Please don’t use canned pizza dough for this recipe! It just doesn’t have the structure to hold up to this pizza. - Cheese: I love this made with Oaxaca cheese, but you can substitute Monterey Jack cheese or Mozzarella cheese.
Oaxaca cheese is ultra melty with a great taste. It is not from the Mexican state of Jalisco like traditional birria is, but it goes quite nicely with it and is pretty easy to find in the United States.
Whichever cheese you choose, I do recommend grating your own cheese for this pizza.Freshly grated cheese melts better than the pre-grated stuff.
Pre-grated stuff is great for other options, but is coated with a food-safe powder that prevents it clumping. That also keeps it from being as gooey and luxurious as it could be when melted. - Onion: Whether you go for diced sweet onions, white onions, red onions, or green onions is up to you. Just do go for the onion!
- Cilantro: Oh hello you fabulous, controversial, delicious herb. If you’re opposed to cilantro, sub in parsley.
- Lime Wedges: It may sound crazy to squeeze lime wedges over a pizza, but I’m telling you this elevates the entire pizza into the realm of the sublime.
Get it? Sub-Lime? But for real. It’s amazing.
Birria is very rich and so is that gloriously melty cheese, so you need something bright and acidic to keep it from being too, too much. Lime juice, cilantro, and fresh onion to the rescue!
Now that we’re all good and hungry, let’s chat about the equipment you’ll need for your birria pizza! You can go as basic or as pizza-pro as you’d like; we have options.
Equipment
- Oven: Well, duh, right? But for real… you need an oven. You can most certainly make this pizza in a wood-fired pizza oven, but a standard household oven that can go to 450ºF will do fine.
- Cheese Grater: I’m going to go ahead and assume you’re grating your cheese. This makes life easy.
- Pizza Pan, Pizza Steel, or Pizza Stone: Any of those three will do the job quite nicely. A steel or stone will give you a crispier bottom crust. But if you don’t have a stone or steel, don’t let that stop you from making this pizza.
- Pizza Peel: This is pretty obligatory if you’re using a stone or a steel, but optional if you’re using a pan.
- Chef’s Knife
- Pizza Cutter: You surely do not need a specialized pizza cutter. A chef’s knife will do the job, but a pizza cutter makes an already quick job faster. Besides that, it’s fun.
- Cutting Board: You’ve got to slice those lime wedges, chop the cilantro and onions, and cut that pizza somewhere!
And I know you’re not cutting those directly on the pan or counter. This is the most used cutting board in my kitchen.
Birria Pizza
Preheat your oven to 450ºF. If you’re using a pizza stone or steel, preheat it in on the center rack along with the oven.
If using a pizza pan or sheet pan, grease the pan liberally and scatter cornmeal over it.
Use your hands to stretch the pizza dough gently into a circle about 12 to 14-inches in diameter. If you’re using a pizza steel or stone, scatter cornmeal over your pizza peel.
Transfer the dough to your prepared pan or peel. If using the peel, shimmy it once or twice to be sure it doesn’t stick. Add more cornmeal under the dough if necessary.
Brush the edges of the dough with the extra virgin olive oil Spread half of the birria consommé over the dough.
Scatter half of the grated cheese over the dough, followed by the birria meat, and the remaining half of the grated cheese. Dollop the remaining consommé around the top of the pizza by tablespoonfuls.
Carefully transfer the pizza to the stone or steel, or slide the pizza pan into the oven. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the pizza crust is golden brown, the cheese is melted and golden, and the sauce is bubbling.
Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer it to a cutting board. Let it rest for 3 to 5 minutes before slicing.
Top with cilantro leaves and onion before serving. Squeeze a lime wedge over each piece as you eat it!
Remove the pizza from the oven and transfer it to a cutting board. Let it rest for 3 to 5 minutes before slicing.
Top with cilantro leaves and onion before serving. Squeeze a lime wedge over each piece as you eat it!
Birria Pizza
Rate RecipeEquipment
- oven
- Pizza stone or steel or pizza pan
- cutting board
- chef's knife
- cutting board
Ingredients
- 1 pound pizza dough
- Cornmeal
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil plus extra if using a pizza pan
- 1 cup birria consomé stew, plus more for serving
- 1 cup leftover birria
- 2 cups grated Oaxaca cheese or Monterey Jack or Mozzarella cheese
- ¼ cup chopped white, red, or sweet onion
- 2 tablespoons fresh cilantro leaves
- 1 lime cut into wedges
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 450ºF. If you’re using a pizza stone or steel, preheat it in on the center rack along with the oven.
- If using a pizza pan or sheet pan, grease the pan liberally and scatter cornmeal over it.
- Use your hands to stretch the pizza dough gently into a circle about 12 to 14-inches in diameter. If you’re using a pizza steel or stone, scatter cornmeal over your pizza peel.
- Transfer the dough to your prepared pan or peel. If using the peel, shimmy it once or twice to be sure it doesn’t stick. Add more cornmeal under the dough if necessary.
- Brush the edges of the dough with the extra virgin olive oil Spread half of the birria consommé over the dough.
- Scatter half of the grated cheese over the dough, followed by the birria meat, and the remaining half of the grated cheese. Dollop the remaining consommé around the top of the pizza by tablespoonfuls.
- Carefully transfer the pizza to the stone or steel, or slide the pizza pan into the oven. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until the pizza crust is golden brown, the cheese is melted and golden, and the sauce is bubbling.
- Garnish with the chopped onion and cilantro, slice, and serve.
Nutrition
Nutritional information is an estimate and provided to you as a courtesy. You should calculate the nutritional information with the actual ingredients used in your recipe using your preferred nutrition calculator.
did you make this recipe?
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Reader's Thoughts...
Nunu says
What do you do with the onions?
Rebecca says
Hi Nunu- Thanks for asking! The instruction for that was left off, but I’ve fixed it now. You garnish the pizza with the diced onion and the cilantro just before serving.
Aeil says
Pizza is easy delicious awesome
I made three of them for dinner
There no leftovers
Thanks for sharing and recipe
My go to when friends call
Coming to see you
👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️