Chef Lupita
Bocoles con Huevo Huastecos
Veracruz's Huasteca breakfast of thick corn cakes worked with manteca de cerdo, cooked on a dark comal, then split open for scrambled egg, black beans with epazote, and serrano salsa.
Culinary Explorer
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Cecina de Naolinco
Created by
From the mountains above Xalapa, Naolinco's cecina is beef salted, rested, air-dried in thin sheets, then griddled for breakfast with beans, totopos, eggs, and a serious salsa.
Breakfast & Brunch
Mexican
Make Ahead
Comfort Food
35 min
Active Time
15 min cook•24 hr 50 min total
Yield6 servings
Veracruz, the mountain corridor around Naolinco de Victoria, is where this cecina belongs. Not the beach Veracruz people imagine first. This is the highland road above Xalapa, damp mornings, cattle country nearby, market stalls selling long sheets of salted beef beside bread, leather goods, and clay dishes for the table.
Cecina de Naolinco is not adobada. Do not paint it red and call it the same thing. The defining ingredient is salt, worked into thin beef so the meat cures, firms, and dries just enough before it touches the comal. The women who perfected this were not chasing a trend. They were preserving meat in a humid state where you had to understand air, salt, and timing or the food would teach you a hard lesson.
I learned to respect this dish in Naolinco from a señora who sold cecina by the sheet and corrected me before I even asked a question. Thin, she said. Dry on the surface. Fast on the comal. Serve it with frijoles negros, totopos, eggs if it is morning, and a salsa with chile morita because smoke belongs beside the salt. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
This recipe uses the refrigerator for the drying because most home kitchens are not Naolinco market stalls with cooks watching the weather like accountants. No me vengas con atajos. The shortcut is not skipping the cure. The practical adjustment is controlling the cure so the meat stays safe and tastes right.
Cecina in Mexico descends from older Spanish salt-curing traditions adapted to local cattle economies after the 16th century, but each region made the method its own. Naolinco, a mountain town in central Veracruz near Xalapa, became known for its beef cecina through local markets where salted sheets could be sold, transported, and cooked quickly at home. Unlike the red cecina enchilada associated with parts of Morelos and the center of the country, Naolinco's identity rests on salt, thin slicing, controlled drying, and the breakfast table.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
beef top round, eye of round, or sirloin tip
Quantity
2 pounds
trimmed of silver skin
fine sea salt
Quantity
2 tablespoons, plus 1 teaspoon if needed
coarse sea salt
Quantity
1 tablespoon
manteca de cerdo
Quantity
1 tablespoon
corn tortillas
Quantity
12
cut into triangles and toasted or fried as totopos
frijoles de olla or refried black beans with epazote
Quantity
2 cups
eggs
Quantity
6
fried to order
queso fresco (optional)
Quantity
1/2 cup
crumbled
white onion (optional)
Quantity
1/2
thinly sliced
lime halves (optional)
Quantity
for serving
salsa de chile morita and tomatillo (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| beef top round, eye of round, or sirloin tiptrimmed of silver skin | 2 pounds |
| fine sea salt | 2 tablespoons, plus 1 teaspoon if needed |
| coarse sea salt | 1 tablespoon |
| manteca de cerdo | 1 tablespoon |
| corn tortillascut into triangles and toasted or fried as totopos | 12 |
| frijoles de olla or refried black beans with epazote | 2 cups |
| eggsfried to order | 6 |
| queso fresco (optional)crumbled | 1/2 cup |
| white onion (optional)thinly sliced | 1/2 |
| lime halves (optional) | for serving |
| salsa de chile morita and tomatillo (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Sharp slicing knife
- •Wire racks set over sheet pans
- •Cast iron comal or heavy skillet
- •Nonreactive glass or ceramic curing dish
Instructions
- 1
Slice the beef
Freeze the beef for 30 minutes so it firms up but does not turn hard. Slice it across the grain into long sheets about 1/8 inch thick. If the slices are uneven, lay them between two sheets of plastic and pound them gently. Naolinco cecina is thin because salt has to reach the center and the comal has to finish it quickly.
- 2
Salt the sheets
Lay the beef on a tray and season both sides with the fine sea salt. Use your hands and be exact. Every surface needs contact with salt, but you are not burying the meat like bacalao. Sprinkle the coarse salt more lightly over the top for the mineral bite that makes cecina taste like cecina.
- 3
Cure overnight
Stack the salted sheets in a nonreactive dish, cover, and refrigerate for 12 hours. The meat will darken and release liquid. That is correct. Salt is pulling moisture out and seasoning the beef all the way through. Do not leave raw beef on a warm counter because someone told you that is more traditional. Tradition also knew the weather. Your apartment does not.
- 4
Dry the beef
Drain off the liquid and pat the beef very dry. Lay the sheets on wire racks set over trays and refrigerate uncovered for 8 to 12 hours, turning once. The surface should feel tacky and dry, not wet. If you have a screened, cool, dry place under 60F, you can air-dry it there for a few hours. If the day is humid, use the refrigerator. Veracruz knows humidity. Respect it.
This cecina is not shelf-stable jerky. Keep it refrigerated and cook it before serving. If the meat smells sour or feels slimy, throw it out. - 5
Warm the comal
Heat a comal or heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Add the manteca de cerdo and let it melt into a thin shiny film. La manteca es el sabor. You need only a little because the beef is thin, but that little bit matters.
- 6
Griddle the cecina
Lay the cecina on the hot comal in a single layer. Cook 45 to 90 seconds per side, depending on thickness, until the edges tighten, the surface browns in spots, and the meat stays flexible. Do not cook it into leather. Cecina should chew, not punish you.
- 7
Serve breakfast style
Serve the cecina immediately with hot black beans scented with epazote, totopos, fried eggs, sliced white onion, queso fresco, lime halves, and salsa de chile morita with tomatillo. Put it on barro from Veracruz if you have it. This is breakfast from the mountain towns, not a steakhouse plate. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •Ask the butcher for beef top round or eye of round sliced thin for cecina. If they give you thick bisteces, you will fight the meat all morning. Thin slicing is the technique.
- •Do not rinse the beef after curing unless you oversalted it badly. Pat it dry. Rinsing washes away flavor and puts moisture back on the surface, which is exactly what you spent the night removing.
- •Chile morita is right here because its smoke stands up to the salt without turning the plate into a chile contest. Not all Mexican food is about heat. This breakfast is about salt, beef, corn, beans, and smoke.
- •Use corn tortillas for the totopos. Flour tortillas are a northern tradition. Veracruz breakfast with Naolinco cecina wants corn on the table.
Advance Preparation
- •The beef needs 12 hours to cure and 8 to 12 hours to dry uncovered in the refrigerator. Start the day before you want to serve it.
- •Cured and dried cecina can be kept refrigerated, tightly covered, for 2 days before cooking.
- •Cooked cecina is best eaten immediately, but leftovers can be chopped into eggs or beans the next morning.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 340g)
Calories
535 calories
Total Fat
17 g
Saturated Fat
7 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
10 g
Cholesterol
285 mg
Sodium
2300 mg
Total Carbohydrates
41 g
Dietary Fiber
9 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
50 g
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