Chef Lupita
Cemita Árabe Poblana
Puebla's domed sesame cemita stacked with thin-sliced árabe pork, quesillo, avocado, pápalo, and chipotle en adobo. The Lebanese-Mexican handshake, all on one roll.
Culinary Explorer
A cooking platform built around craft, culture, and the stories behind what we eat.
Tacos de Cecina de Yecapixtla
Created by
Morelos's cecina from the town of Yecapixtla, beef salted and sun-dried into long mahogany sheets, seared hot on the comal and folded into corn tortillas with crema, queso fresco, and avocado.
Sandwiches & Wraps
Mexican
Weeknight
Quick Meal
Comfort Food
20 min
Active Time
10 min cook•30 min total
Yield4 servings (12 tacos)
This is from Morelos. More specifically, from Yecapixtla, a small town in the eastern part of the state where every Sunday the streets fill with people who drove in from Cuernavaca and Ciudad de México just to eat cecina. The cooks there have been salting and sun-drying beef in long, thin sheets for generations, and the town's name is now inseparable from the product. When a Mexican says cecina de Yecapixtla, they are not naming a style. They are naming a place.
The cecina that defines this taco is not jerky and it is not bresaola. It is beef leg or round, butterflied into sheets thin enough to see through, salted by hand, and hung to dry under the sun for a few hours, not days. The result is meat that keeps the structure of beef but concentrates the flavor, and that gives up everything the moment it hits a hot comal. The whole technique is in the comal: hot, fast, with a smear of manteca. Slow heat kills cecina. So does crowding the pan. One piece at a time, or two, and you flip when the edges curl.
The tacos themselves are simple, and that is the point. Crema, queso fresco, avocado, raw onion, cilantro, lime. Nothing competes with the cecina because the cecina is the dish. No me vengas con atajos. Do not substitute carne asada and call it cecina. Do not buy thick, heavily smoked supermarket beef and pretend it is the same product. The cooks of Yecapixtla guard this tradition because it is theirs and because it works. Cada estado, su propia cocina, and Morelos has this one.
My mother did not make cecina. She was from Jalisco and the cecina tradition does not travel west the way it travels into the valley around the capital. But I have spent enough Sundays in Yecapixtla, watching the women in white aprons slice meat into curtains and hang it on poles in the courtyard behind the carniceria, to know exactly what this taco is supposed to taste like. Salt. Beef. Sun. The cool brightness of crema and lime against the dark sear of the meat. Saber cocinar es saber vivir.
Cecina as a method of salt-curing and air-drying meat arrived in Mexico with the Spanish, who brought a centuries-old Iberian tradition of cecina de vaca from regions like León. In Morelos, the technique took root in Yecapixtla in the 19th century, where local cattle ranching and the dry, sunny climate of the eastern slopes of the Popocatepetl volcano produced conditions ideal for short, hot-sun curing, distinct from the longer, cooler cures of Spain or northern Mexico. The town was formally recognized within Mexico in 2012 when Yecapixtla joined the Pueblos Magicos program, with cecina cited as the central element of its cultural and economic identity; on any given Sunday, the central plaza hosts dozens of carnicerias whose families have been salting beef in the same way for four or five generations.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
cecina de Yecapixtla
Quantity
1 1/2 pounds
thin, salt-cured beef sheets from a Mexican carniceria
manteca de cerdo (pork lard)
Quantity
2 tablespoons
hand-pressed corn tortillas
Quantity
12
crema mexicana
Quantity
1 cup
queso fresco
Quantity
1 cup
crumbled
ripe Hass avocados
Quantity
2
sliced
white onion
Quantity
1 small
finely diced
fresh cilantro
Quantity
1/2 cup
chopped
limes
Quantity
4
cut into wedges
salsa verde cruda
Quantity
for serving
frijoles de la olla (optional)
Quantity
for serving
nopales asados (optional)
Quantity
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| cecina de Yecapixtlathin, salt-cured beef sheets from a Mexican carniceria | 1 1/2 pounds |
| manteca de cerdo (pork lard) | 2 tablespoons |
| hand-pressed corn tortillas | 12 |
| crema mexicana | 1 cup |
| queso frescocrumbled | 1 cup |
| ripe Hass avocadossliced | 2 |
| white onionfinely diced | 1 small |
| fresh cilantrochopped | 1/2 cup |
| limescut into wedges | 4 |
| salsa verde cruda | for serving |
| frijoles de la olla (optional) | for serving |
| nopales asados (optional) | for serving |
Equipment Needed
- •Cast iron comal or heavy 12-inch skillet
- •Long metal tongs
- •Sharp chef's knife for slicing the cecina across the grain
- •Cotton servilleta or clean kitchen towel for keeping the tortillas warm
- •Wooden cutting board
Instructions
- 1
Inspect and portion the cecina
Lay the cecina sheets flat on a clean cutting board. Good cecina from Yecapixtla is the color of dried mahogany, thin enough to read a newspaper through, and smells of beef and salt and nothing else. If it smells sour or shows wet patches, you have the wrong cecina. Cut the sheets into pieces about the size of your hand. They will shrink the moment they hit the comal.
If your cecina feels heavily salted, give it a quick rinse under cold water and pat completely dry. Different carnicerias salt to different levels. The cooks of Yecapixtla cure it for hours under the sun, not days, so the salt is present but never punishing. - 2
Heat the comal hot
Set a cast iron comal or heavy skillet over medium-high heat. Let it get hot, properly hot, the kind of hot where a drop of water dances and disappears. Cecina cooks fast and needs a hot surface. A lukewarm comal will steam the meat and you will end up with chewy gray strips instead of the seared edges you want.
- 3
Sear the cecina
Smear about half a teaspoon of manteca onto the comal. Lay a piece of cecina flat. It will sizzle immediately and start to curl at the edges. Cook for 40 seconds on the first side. Flip with tongs. The meat should be a deep brown, almost black at the edges, with a glossy crust where the salt has caramelized. Cook the second side for another 30 seconds. Move it to a warm plate and repeat with the rest. Do not crowd the comal. One piece at a time, or two if your comal is generous. La manteca es el sabor and the comal does the rest.
Cecina is already cured. You are not cooking it through, you are searing it. Total time per piece is about 70 seconds. Longer than that and it turns to jerky. - 4
Warm the tortillas on the same comal
Once the cecina is done, lower the heat slightly and warm the corn tortillas directly on the comal, about 20 seconds per side. They should puff lightly and pick up the flavor left behind by the meat. That transfer of flavor from comal to tortilla is the reason you do it in this order. Stack the warm tortillas inside a clean cotton servilleta to keep them soft.
- 5
Slice the cecina
Stack the seared cecina pieces on the cutting board and slice them across the grain into strips about half an inch wide. Slicing across the grain is what makes the meat tender to bite. Cecina cut along the grain is a stringy chore.
- 6
Build the tacos at the table
Set the warm tortillas, the cecina, the crema, the queso fresco, the avocado, the diced onion, the cilantro, the lime, and the salsa verde out on the table. Each person builds their own. A warm tortilla, a few strips of cecina, a drizzle of crema, a pinch of queso fresco, two slices of avocado, a sprinkle of onion and cilantro, a squeeze of lime. Eat immediately, before the tortilla cools. Así se hace y punto.
Chef Tips
- •The cecina is the entire dish. If you cannot find true cecina de Yecapixtla, a Mexican carniceria in your city will often carry cecina de res that is close enough. Cecina enchilada, the version coated in chile paste, is from Oaxaca and is a different product. Do not substitute one for the other and expect the same result.
- •Avoid pre-sliced supermarket carne asada or skirt steak as a substitute. The texture is wrong and the salt cure is missing. A substitution is a compromise, not an upgrade.
- •If your only option is cecina that came vacuum-packed and overly wet, lay it on paper towels for 15 minutes before searing. Surface moisture is the enemy of a good sear.
- •Frijoles de la olla on the side, with a little of their broth, is the traditional accompaniment in Morelos. Cecina, beans, tortilla, lime. That is the plate.
Advance Preparation
- •Cecina keeps tightly wrapped in the refrigerator for up to one week, and freezes well for up to two months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before searing.
- •All the garnishes (diced onion, chopped cilantro, sliced avocado, crumbled queso fresco) can be prepared up to two hours ahead and held covered in the refrigerator. The avocado should be cut at the last minute to keep it from darkening.
- •The salsa verde cruda can be made earlier in the day. The cecina itself must be seared at the moment of eating. It does not reheat well.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 480g)
Calories
1000 calories
Total Fat
58 g
Saturated Fat
24 g
Trans Fat
1 g
Unsaturated Fat
32 g
Cholesterol
190 mg
Sodium
1910 mg
Total Carbohydrates
60 g
Dietary Fiber
13 g
Sugars
4 g
Protein
65 g
Where cooking meets culture.
Culinary guides, cultural storytelling, and the editorial depth that makes cooking meaningful.
Discover Culinary ExplorerMore from Central Mexican Tacos, Cemitas & Handhelds
Browse the full collection
Chef Lupita
Cemita Poblana de Milanesa
Puebla's round sesame cemita, stacked with crisp milanesa, strings of Oaxacan quesillo, ripe avocado, smoky chipotle adobado, and the herb that makes it real, pápalo. Anybody who calls this a torta has not been to Puebla.
Chef Lupita
Chanclas Poblanas
Puebla's chanclas: oval rolls toasted in lard, filled with braised pork and avocado, drowned in a warm guajillo and pasilla salsa, finished with vinegared onions and crumbled queso fresco. Eaten with a fork.
Chef Lupita
Gringas de Pastor
Mexico City's al pastor pork and stringy Oaxaca quesillo pressed between two flour tortillas and griddled on the comal until the cheese pulls in long strings. The taqueria's richer cousin, born on a Roma sidewalk after midnight.