Brandon Hurtado's New Cookbook Reimagines Tex-Mex Barbecue with Family Roots

"I grew up in a Tex-Mex household," says pitmaster Brandon Hurtado. "In a house where we were eating flour tortillas with almost every meal and eating charro beans in the morning, and for lunch and dinner."

The menu at his namesake barbecue restaurants reflect this upbringing, from his birria tacos to the Mexican rice. While his barbecue methodology stays true to Central Texas style, Hurtado blends the flavors of his heritage into the meat, including not just sticking to salt and pepper for seasoning. "Our rubs have chili powder, cumin, granulated garlic, onion powder, and a lot of the things that I grew up eating in our food," he says.

Sampling his cooking no longer requires a trip to Texas thanks to his new book, Barbacoa: The Heart of Tex-Mex Barbecue. The love letter to Tejano flavors includes recipes for spice blends for pork, beef, and beyond, plus his takes on barbecue sauces (yes, Texas barbecue served with sauce), and vibrant salsas**.

His smoky salsa roja, for example, is a take on his mother's. He writes in the book that: "My mom made her own salsa roja until it became a side hustle. To this day, Teresa Hurtado's "Salsa Queen" salsa has fed friends and family, and even made its way to the likes of George Strait."

The book also includes the recipe for his most popular side dish, the Hatch Chile Mac and Cheese (below). Although the chile isn't native to Texas, and is actually a New Mexico crop first grown by Pueblo and Hispano communities, its smoky heat feels right at home in Tex-Mex cuisine. Roasted and chopped into beautiful green flecks that pepper the side dish, it's easy to see how it became so popular. The key to ensuring the mac and cheese turns out just right? The pasta shape.

"The curvature of cavatappi captures more sauce and more flavor in every bite. They're also a more dense pasta shape than elbow noodles, so they're a little bit more durable," Hurtado says.

The pitmaster spent months adapting the recipes from his professional kitchen, ensuring they were truly home cook friendly. "I had to remove myself from being in a restaurant and being a restaurateur and take myself back to being a home cook because that's how I started out doing barbecue, in my backyard," he says.

With four locations, Hurtado has expanded well beyond his backyard, and with this new book will reach even further. But when he started out, success wasn't so certain. He opened his first restaurant in February 2020, just before the pandemic. The name of the book is a nod to the dish that got him through those rocky first months.

"We couldn't order brisket through any of our food purveyors, and I was sending our employees to grocery stores, giving them cash to go buy brisket because they would limit one per person. And so we had to pivot and find different proteins that we could more easily purchase and beef cheek was one of those proteins. So we started doing different things with beef cheeks and making tostadas and different recipes," he says.

"It's not just a double entendre, with Barbacoa being a cooking method, but it's also one of the proteins that was near and dear to my heart because it's what kind of saved us during COVID."

Hatch Chile Mac and Cheese

My most popular side, and one that has never left the menu since my food trailer days, this Hatch chile mac and cheese has transformed over the years to its glorious, gooey final form that I call "home" today.

Cavatappi noodles are best here because of their structural integrity, but you can use macaroni noodles or even penne pasta. If you don't have access to fresh Hatch chiles, use canned green chilies as a substitute, or even roasted poblanos for added flavor. -Brandon Hurtado

Ingredients

• 8 oz. dried cavatappi pasta
• 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter
• 1/3 cup diced roasted Hatch chiles, plus more for garnish
• 3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
• 3 cups whole milk
• 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
• 1 cup shredded American cheese
• 1 tsp. kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp. granulated garlic
• 1/2 tsp. onion powder
• 1/2 tsp. smoked paprika
• Toasted breadcrumbs, for garnish (optional)

Directions

1. Cook the cavatappi noodles according to the package directions until al dente. Drain and set aside.
2. In a large saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. Add the Hatch chiles and sauté for 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, or until the flour begins to thicken and form a paste.
3. Gradually whisk in the milk, making sure lumps do not form. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes until the sauce begins to thicken.
4. Turn the heat to low and gradually add the shredded cheeses. Cook, stirring, until melted.
5. Add the seasonings and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add the cooked noodles to the cheese sauce, folding them in to combine well.
7. Serve garnished with roasted hatch chiles or toasted bread crumbs (if using).

Credit

Text and images excerpted with permission from Barbacoa by Brandon Hurtado, published by Harvard Common Press, (c) 2025. Image by Mason Griffin.