Crock Pot Carne Asada is simple, flavorful and can be used to make tacos, burritos, nachos or serve it a on its own as a main dish. Flank steak rubbed with chili spice and seasonings simmers for hours with tomatoes, green chile and onions until it’s tender and delicious. It’s easy enough for weeknights and great for entertaining, too!
I’m all about the easy dinners and cooking carne asada in the crockpot is one of my favorite ways to use my slow cooker. It’s so easy and the beef comes out so flavorful. If you love low-stress dinners you are going to love this recipe!
Carne asada is just a simple Mexican-style beef dish and my slow cooker version is as easy as seasoning the beef and dropping it in the slow cooker with the rest of the ingredients. A few hours later you have tender beef that you can shred and use in so many ways!
I love to use the shredded beef for tacos, nachos, burritos and nachos – it’s so versatile. It also keeps well in the refrigerator so it’s great for meal prep, too. Make a batch on the weekend and you’ll have easy lunches and dinner for the week. I love that!
Table of Contents
The Best Cut of Beef for Slow Cooker Carne Asada
For this crock pot recipe, you have a few choices:
- Flank steak is a lean cut of beef that does really well cooked low and slow in the crock pot. It’s a great choice for this recipe because it has lots of flavor.
- Skirt steak is similar to flank steak and is a tougher cut of beef. When it cooks in the crock pot the tough fibers break down and it turns very tender so it’s perfect for this recipe, too!
I prefer either flank steak or skirt steak and usually buy whichever is less expensive at the store. I have tested this recipe with chuck roast, too, so if you can’t find flank or skirt steak, it will work well.
Start with the Chili Spice Rub
This recipe is so easy to prep and most of the work is in preparing the spice rub for the beef. It’s a combination of chipotle seasoning and other spices that gives the meat a big kick of flavor:
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Chipotle chili powder
- Salt and pepper
- Cayenne pepper
Chipotle chili powder is made with smoked jalapenos that have been dried and crushed into a powder. It’s the not the same as regular chili powder and gives this dish it’s smoky spicy flavor.
Just combine all of the seasonings together in a bowl and then rub the mixture all over the beef.
How to Make Crock Pot Carne Asada
All of the ingredients are layered in the slow cooker and then you just place the beef on top.
- Put canned diced tomatoes in the bottom of the slow cooker. Top them with canned diced green chiles, diced onions and lime juice.
- Place the seasoned beef on top, cover with the lid and cook on low for seven hours.
Once it’s done you can shred the beef and then stir it all together. I like to keep it in the slow cooker on warm – makes it easy for everyone to serve themselves.
How to Serve Carne Asada
Like I mentioned, I love this recipe because you can serve the beef in so many ways. Sometimes I just serve the shredded beef as it is and add a side of rice or I’ll serve it with a simple salad on the side.
You can also use carne asada to make tacos – just warm up some flour tortillas and lay out all the taco toppings like lettuce, tomatoes, cheese and sour cream and let everyone build their own.
It also makes amazing nachos or use it to make beef burritos – there are so many possibilities with this recipe!
Leftover carne asada will keep in the refrigerator for three to four days, so if you’re not feeding a crowd it’s a recipe that you can get a few meals out of – gotta love that, right?!
Taco night won’t be the same once you try this easy crock pot carne asada! We’ve made it countless times and never get tired of it – I think you’ll love it, too!
Other Dinners You’ll Enjoy
Crockpot Carne Asada Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 pound Flank Steak
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 14 ounce can diced tomatoes fire roasted
- 1 can diced green chilies
- 1/2 yellow onion diced
- Juice of 1 lime
Instructions
- Combine dry spices in a medium bowl and mix together and then rub them on the flank steak.
- Put diced tomatoes in the bottom of the crop pot followed by the green chiles, diced onion and the lime juice. Place the steak on top
- Cook on low heat for 7 hours. Once done use two forks to shred the meat and mix the in-gredients. Leave crockpot on warm until serving
Recipe Notes
- Serve with heated tortillas
- Add additional hot sauce to your spice preference
- Serve over rice or with salad
Recipe Nutrition
Crock Pot Carne Asada is a simple Mexican-style beef dish made even easier in your slow cooker! You can use the shredded beef for tacos, nachos, burritos or even a salad! This is perfect for meal-prepping, too!
It’s also a great add to use for quesadillas with some cheese. Recipe worked great. Thanks
This was amazing, will definitely be making again! Only thing I would do different next time, is drain the tomato’s as it was a little runny, other wise perfect!
Tried the recipe tonight! It was very good! It was quite watery but I just added cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce. I find the recipe to be very spicy to my liking. Any tips on how I can make this less spicy without changing affecting the overall flavor? Thanks for sharing the recipe!
I don’t often leave reviews, but this was great and even my picky 8YO couldn’t stop raving. Served with Spanish rice & black beans, sautéed onions & peppers, and fajita wraps. Like another reviewer mentioned I drained the tomatoes because I wanted it on the drier side. I could see this scaled up for a larger crowd &/or made in advance, left in the slow cooker insert and reheated. The recipe seems very forgiving. Will make the meat for burritos next time.
It doesn’t say how much of the diced green chilies or the diced tomatoes or how much of the lime juice… so my question is why isn’t it in there?
How large of a can of Diced Green Chilies do you use – 4oz, 8oz or 16oz?
Very flavorful! I agree with the comments that it was a little too juicy so draining tomatoes is one of the things I’ll do next time. I also recommend cutting up the meat some before shredding so it’s not in such long strands.