How to Cook Beef Tongue (Easy and Delicious!)
There are two responses when I post about making beef tongue on my Instagram stories: “This is utterly disgusting” or “I love beef tongue!” There’s no in between.
That’s because if you have eaten beef tongue before, you know it is so surprisingly delicious!! And if eating the tongue is foreign to you…of course it’s going to be a little off putting.
Let me show you how to cook the beef tongue easily and your family will never know it’s not shredded beef roast!
Nose to Tail Cooking: Beef Tongue
I love the idea of nose to tail cooking. This means you try to use as much of the animal as possible. You can eat the brains, the tongue, the liver, sweetbreads, kidney, heart…
I’ve done a few things with our pork based on some old Appalachian recipes. (See those here for Liver Pudding and Kidney and Heart stew meat.)
The beef is new to me, and I look forward to cooking a lot more of the “throw away” cuts of meat. (See my instructions for beef liver capsules here.)
Not only does nose to tail cooking save more of your meat from being thrown away, but the health benefits are incredible.
Liver, heart, and other organ meats have vitamins and minerals that we think we should pay big bucks for. Who knew that they were cheap cuts of meat…and better absorbed by our bodies than fancy supplements?
Beef Tongue Can Be Super Simple!
There are a few different ways you can prepare the tongue.
- Crockpot. This is super easy, and you can leave the house while your slow cooker does the work for you.
- Pressure cooker. This will be really quick! I’m not sure of exact times on this, but I would imagine something similar to cooking roast would be good for the tongue.
- Boil on the stove top. This method is how I first cooked tongue. It was an all day thing (maybe it didn’t have to be) but I boiled it first, peeled the skin off, then boiled more in my veggies and stew fixin’s.
For this instructional post, I’m going to show you how to do it in the slow cooker. My crockpot is one of my best friends.
Beef Tongue in the Slow Cooker
Obviously, the only equipment you’ll need here is the good ol trusty slow cooker.
The tongue will be in one whole piece…and I gotta say…it’s not the prettiest cut of meat I’ve ever seen. If you have a weak stomach, just be prepared. It looks like a dang cow tongue…because it is. And it’s nasty. Not gonna lie.
So just throw it in the slow cooker.
Grind black pepper and mineral salt over the top of the tongue.
Slice up an onion and place around it.
Then, fill with water until the tongue’s about halfway covered, no exact measurements here.
Turn it on high, and let it cook for at least three or four hours.
After the First Few Hours…
Now, take the tongue out of the slow cooker. Hopefully you will notice right away that the outer layer of skin pulls off very easily. If it doesn’t peel right off, I suggest you let it cook for another hour.
The skin (that looks all tongue-y and nasty) will peel directly off, leaving shredded looking meat that resembles beef roast.
Once you get that thick outer layer off, the meat will shred off, and you will have a nice plate of what looks just like shredded beef.
No more scary looking stuff.
I usually will trim off the tougher ligaments and stringy stuff around the base of the tongue. It should pull right off as well.
Now at this point, you can put the meat back into the crockpot to finish cooking.
Cook Some More
You can turn the slow cooker to low, and let the meat finish tenderizing for a few more hours.
This is where you can get creative in how you’d like to use the meat.
I have used it just as a basic stew meat, just like a regular old beef stew. That is super tender and yummy.
Last time I fixed beef tongue, I lifted the cooked meat out of the slow cooker, and put it in my iron skillet.
I quickly sauteed it with taco seasoning, and let it cook together for just a few minutes. This also dried it out a little bit from cooking in the slow cooker liquid.
We baked some sweet potatoes, and topped them with the taco flavored meat.
It was so good!
I’ve heard from several people that say tongue tacos are a delicacy. I can believe that!
My kids even loved it.
Be Brave…Cook Tongue
I’m telling you, this is one thing that you should definitely try!
You can get creative with this “cut” of meat, and literally put it in anything and treat it as shredded beef. Go for it! Let me know if you do.
