Chef Lupita
Alambres de Carne Asada Sonorenses
Sonora's mesquite-grilled alambre of ribeye and arrachera with bacon, bell pepper, and onion, blanketed in melted asadero and rolled into thin flour tortillas at the rancho table.
Culinary Explorer
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Machaca Dip Sonorense
Created by
Sonora's ranch dip, built on sun-dried shredded beef rehydrated and folded into cream cheese and media crema, smoky and salty and built for big flour tortillas torn straight off the comal.
Appetizers & Snacks
Mexican
BBQ
Game Day
Potluck
20 min
Active Time
15 min cook•35 min total
Yield8 to 10 servings
This dip belongs to Sonora. The desert north, where the cattle ranches stretch from Hermosillo up toward the border, where the beef is butchered, salted, and dried in the sun on lines outside the house. That dried beef is machaca, and it is the foundation of half the regional cooking up there. Without machaca, there is no Sonoran breakfast. Without machaca, there is no this dip.
The rest of Mexico does not always understand the north. They think it is just carne asada and flour tortillas and not much else. They are wrong. Sonora has its own kitchen, built on beef instead of pork, on wheat instead of corn, on chile chiltepin instead of guajillo. The flour tortilla is not a Tex-Mex invention. It is sonorense, born in the wheat country the Spanish established in the 17th century, hand-stretched into giant thin sobaqueras the size of a serving platter. If you have only ever eaten flour tortillas from the supermarket, you have not eaten flour tortillas. Cada estado, su propia cocina.
This dip is what comes out at a Sonoran carne asada while the meat is still on the mesquite. It is a party dish, a potluck dish, the kind of thing the tia brings in a clay cazuelita and sets on the table next to the cervezas. The machaca gives it body and a deep, dried-beef savor. The cream cheese and the media crema give it the texture that lets a folded tortilla scoop through it. The chiltepin gives it the small wild bite that says this came from the Sonoran desert and nowhere else.
My mother was from Jalisco and she did not cook this. I learned it in Hermosillo, from a woman named Dona Lucha who ran a kitchen out of her front room and sold breakfast to the men coming off the night shift. She made the machaca herself, on lines stretched across her back patio, the strips of beef turning dark in the sun while the dogs slept underneath. She put this dip out for me before she taught me anything else. She said you eat first, then you learn. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Machaca, from the Spanish verb machacar (to pound or crush), originated as a preservation technique on the cattle ranches of Sonora, Chihuahua, and Coahuila during the colonial period, when ranchers needed to keep beef edible through the long dry months without refrigeration. The meat was salted, sun-dried into stiff sheets, then pounded on stone metates with mallets until it broke into the characteristic fibrous strands. The dip preparation, machaca folded into cream cheese and media crema for entertaining, is a more recent 20th-century innovation tied to the rise of the carne asada as Sonora's defining social meal and to the popularization of canned media crema in northern Mexican households after the 1950s. UNESCO's recognition of traditional Mexican cuisine in 2010 specifically named the cattle and wheat traditions of the north as distinct regional contributions, distinct from the corn-based cuisines of central and southern Mexico.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
machaca (sun-dried shredded beef)
Quantity
6 ounces
preferably from Sonora or northern Mexico
hot water
Quantity
1 cup
for rehydrating
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
white onion
Quantity
1 small
finely diced
garlic cloves
Quantity
3
finely minced
fresh chile chiltepin
Quantity
2
crushed (or 1 fresh chile serrano, finely minced)
Roma tomatoes
Quantity
2
finely diced
fresh chile Anaheim or chile guero
Quantity
1
roasted, peeled, and finely diced
cream cheese
Quantity
8 ounces
at room temperature, cut into chunks
media crema (Mexican table cream)
Quantity
1 can (7.6 ounces)
kosher salt
Quantity
1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste
freshly ground black pepper
Quantity
1/4 teaspoon
fresh cilantro
Quantity
1/4 cup
chopped
fresh flour tortillas (tortillas de harina sobaqueras) (optional)
Quantity
for serving
warmed
lime wedges (optional)
Quantity
for serving
sliced fresh chile chiltepin or salsa de chiltepin (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| machaca (sun-dried shredded beef)preferably from Sonora or northern Mexico | 6 ounces |
| hot waterfor rehydrating | 1 cup |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 2 tablespoons |
| white onionfinely diced | 1 small |
| garlic clovesfinely minced | 3 |
| fresh chile chiltepincrushed (or 1 fresh chile serrano, finely minced) | 2 |
| Roma tomatoesfinely diced | 2 |
| fresh chile Anaheim or chile gueroroasted, peeled, and finely diced | 1 |
| cream cheeseat room temperature, cut into chunks | 8 ounces |
| media crema (Mexican table cream) | 1 can (7.6 ounces) |
| kosher salt | 1/2 teaspoon, plus more to taste |
| freshly ground black pepper | 1/4 teaspoon |
| fresh cilantrochopped | 1/4 cup |
| fresh flour tortillas (tortillas de harina sobaqueras) (optional)warmed | for serving |
| lime wedges (optional) | for serving |
| sliced fresh chile chiltepin or salsa de chiltepin (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Heavy 10-inch skillet, cast iron or heavy-bottomed stainless
- •Wooden spoon or spatula
- •Shallow clay cazuelita or earthenware bowl for serving
- •Comal for warming the flour tortillas
Instructions
- 1
Rehydrate the machaca
Place the machaca in a heatproof bowl and pour the hot water over it. Hot water, not boiling. Let it sit for 10 to 15 minutes, until the strands soften and pull apart easily between your fingers. Drain, but do not squeeze it dry. You want the meat tender, not waterlogged. Real Sonoran machaca is dried under the desert sun and salted heavily, so it will rehydrate into long, fibrous strands that hold the dip together. If your machaca is the supermarket kind that looks like dust, you have the wrong product.
Good machaca comes from northern Sonora, from ranches where they still air-dry the beef on lines outside. If you can get it shipped from a Sonoran carniceria, do it. Asi se hace y punto. - 2
Build the sofrito
Melt the manteca de cerdo in a heavy 10-inch skillet over medium heat. Lard, not oil. La manteca es el sabor and this dip needs it. Add the diced white onion and cook for three to four minutes until translucent. Add the garlic and the crushed chiltepin and cook for thirty seconds, just until fragrant. The chiltepin is the chile of Sonora, small and round and wild. It hits hard and clean.
- 3
Add the tomato and roasted chile
Stir in the diced Roma tomato and the roasted Anaheim. Cook for five to seven minutes, stirring often, until the tomato breaks down and most of the liquid cooks off. The mixture should look almost dry and a little jammy. If you leave the tomato wet, the dip will be loose and sad.
- 4
Cook in the machaca
Add the rehydrated machaca to the skillet and stir to coat every strand in the sofrito. Cook for three to four minutes, breaking up any clumps with a wooden spoon, until the meat takes on the color of the tomato and the chile. The kitchen will start to smell like a ranch breakfast in Hermosillo. That smell is the dip telling you it is ready for the next step.
- 5
Melt in the cream cheese and media crema
Lower the heat to medium-low. Drop the chunks of cream cheese into the skillet and pour in the media crema. Stir slowly and steadily until the cheese melts completely and the dip comes together into a thick, smooth, pale-orange mass shot through with strands of beef. This takes about four minutes. Do not rush it with high heat. Cream cheese on high heat splits and turns grainy.
Media crema is not heavy cream and it is not sour cream. It is the canned Mexican table cream you find in the Latin section, Nestle or La Lechera brand. The fat content is right for this dip. Do not substitute. - 6
Season and finish
Taste the dip. The machaca is heavily salted on its own, so you may need only a pinch more salt. Add the black pepper. Stir in most of the chopped cilantro, saving a small handful for the top. The dip should be thick enough to hold the shape of a spoon but loose enough to scoop with a folded tortilla.
- 7
Serve at the table
Transfer the dip to a warm clay cazuelita or a shallow earthenware bowl. Scatter the reserved cilantro and a few crushed chiltepines across the top. Serve with a stack of warm flour tortillas, the big thin sobaqueras if you can get them, torn into strips for scooping. Lime wedges on the side for the guests who want them. Eat it while it is warm and the cream cheese is still soft. This is carne asada food, a dip you put out before the meat hits the grill, while the cervezas are getting opened. Recetas probadas y garantizadas.
Chef Tips
- •The machaca is the recipe. If you use bad machaca, you make a bad dip. Look for true Sonoran or Chihuahuan machaca from a Mexican carniceria, not the dusty bagged stuff at the supermarket. It should look like long, ragged, salted strands of beef, not powder. Some carnicerias in the southwestern United States ship it.
- •Chile chiltepin is the wild chile of Sonora, harvested by hand from desert bushes and sold dried in small jars. If you cannot find it, fresh chile serrano gets you closer than jalapeno. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •Sobaqueras are the giant thin flour tortillas of Sonora, named because they are stretched draped over the cook's forearm, almost into the armpit (sobaco). If you can find them or make them, this dip eats the way it is meant to. A regular flour tortilla works, but you are missing the full experience.
- •Make this dip warm, serve it warm, eat it warm. It firms up as it cools and the cream cheese loses its silk. If it sits too long, warm it gently in a low oven before serving.
Advance Preparation
- •The dip can be made up to one day ahead. Cool, refrigerate, and rewarm gently over low heat with a splash of media crema to loosen it back to scooping consistency.
- •The machaca itself can be rehydrated and the sofrito built up to one day ahead. Combine with the cream cheese and media crema just before serving for the best texture.
- •Leftovers, if there are any, are excellent the next morning folded into scrambled eggs with a flour tortilla on the side.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 125g)
Calories
225 calories
Total Fat
17 g
Saturated Fat
9 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
7 g
Cholesterol
55 mg
Sodium
480 mg
Total Carbohydrates
5 g
Dietary Fiber
1 g
Sugars
3 g
Protein
12 g
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