I asked my wife to start buying the odd or lesser priced cuts of beef, and I would learn to make them taste great. One of the cuts I hoped for was beef tongue, and I got it.
I’m thinking beef tongue tacos, but I have not even looked into anything on preparing it, I have some general ideas just in some basics, but would love to hear how you cook and enjoy it.
Never made beef tongue but, yes, lengua tacos are amazing. In the last year or so I’ve been making a good amount of beef cheeks. They are amazing, in fact, I like bbq beef cheeks better than brisket. My go to preparation for beef cheeks, which might also be good for tongue is as follows.
smoke for 4hrs
confit in tallow for 4hrs
then put them in the oven over night at the lowest temp, still in the confit (my lowest temp is 150F)
And then serve for lunch. I generally slice over kimchi (amazing for cutting the richness) w a more savory bbq sauce on a bun.
Here’s the result w a beet bbq sauce. I stole the whole thing from Leroy and Lewis in Austin. This is, hands down, THE best bbq I’ve ever made.
My wife said she saw cheeks and thought I would want them, but did not get them, I told her to absolutely get them, assume I want everything that is an off cut at this point,
This all sounds amazing! The lowest I can get is 170, is that low enough? What if SV in tallow at 150, or is 170 ok, thoughts? I currently have a bunch of tallow.
I went and helped our beef rancher with slaughtering today and came home with a tongue, heart, and tail (front, middle and behind of the steer). I got plans for the heart and tail, but nothing solid for the tongue. I'm leaning towards a tacos de lengua recipe I saw on SeriousEats, but I'm open for any of your favorite recipes
Oh I forgot! I had tongue recently in Copenhagen. Served w chanterelles. This was amazing. And quite delicate if compared to the cheeks above. Just goes to show it doesn’t have to be super heavy.
I know it's supposedly good, but going to a German middle school and getting a cold tongue sandwich one day at school... I've never mentally been able to revisit the cut. I hope you find success. As JCBBQ noted, Cheek is a great usually cheap cut... check your Hispanic grocery stores for more selection and USUALLY a lower price. Same with Asian markets, often some great cheap cuts you won't see at the typical stores.
When I was 10 I went on a ski trip w my dad in Zermatt, Switzerland. Every night our hotel posted the menu in the elevator. In French. One night the menu was “langue de boeuf” literally tongue of beef. When I asked what it was dad said, “Uhh, it’s steak” he knew I understood boeuf meant beef. That night I was chewing FOREVER on that “steak”. I hear you. That scarred me for a long time. But, see above, I kept at it. Give tongue another chance.
I used to like cold, pickled tongue when I was little. Then, when I was about 9, one of my evil cousins told me it was really a cow’s tongue in the manner only an evil cousin can muster. Haven’t been able to look at it since.
I grew up not liking most food made in our house, Later realizing I love a lot of the food I did not like, I’ve kind of leaned into how do we embrace what really drove bbq, it wasn’t the cuts, it was the cuts they had.
I never in my life thought I would be excited about beef tongue, but I sit here knowing it’s going to be a fun learning experience for sure..
Last edited by Richard Chrz; October 24, 2025, 06:56 PM.
Following along and wish I could help but I have zero idea. I don’t know where it came from but I’ve always had in my head I want to make tongue pastrami. Haven’t done it yet because I wouldn’t even know where or how to start. But hope you get good tips and share your learnings as I am very interested.
So I've been playing around with smoked lengua lately, ever since Ahumadora said something about it. So far I've done a couple different Sous-Vide and then smoked. This time I thought
The only thing I do differently is throw some cleaned guajillo chilis in and blend everything up for a salsa/consommé type thing,
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I had beef tongue once while on a business trip to Amsterdam. It was an appetizer that was just seasoned and seared like a tenderloin. It might have been braised first because it was very tender. Cut as round medallions about 1/4”-1/2” thick as I recall. (This was 15 years ago) I clearly remember it was delicious. Super beefy flavor.
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Mom and grandma used to make it when I was a kid. I think we had tortillas with it, corn and/or flour. I seem to remember green chilies but I didn’t know what they were.
Richard, inspired by your journey, I poked around on the interwebs. Leroy and Lewis have a confit bbq tongue recipe on YouTube. They are who I stole my cheeks recipe from. It’s essentially the same process but in reverse. So confit then smoke. Probably the main reason is so that you can peel the membrane off the tongue which isn’t possible raw. I would guess that you’d probably need to finish w a bit of salt after slicing as there wouldn’t be much time for the salt to penetrate as they only smoke/grill it for 30 mins.
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