Tacos De Ojos: The Unique Mexican Food That Features Cow Eyes
Tacos are the best. How many other dishes can you name that have a day of the week (Taco Tuesday) dedicated to them? They come in a delightful array of forms, such as fried and folded, rolled and broth-dipped, and steamed and brimming with all kinds of vegetarian and meaty fillings. In fact, there are so many taco fillings that it would take even the hungriest, most dedicated foodie to eat their way through them. Inside the warm embrace of a flour or corn tortilla, the possibilities are endless.
You can find tacos with everything from comforting beans and cheese to crunchy crickets (per Texas Monthly) and cooked blood (per Mexicanist) — which some would say are all resourceful, delicious, and crushable. One type of taco you might not have heard of or tried is the taco de Ojo. It features something that's not widely consumed in the United States, but it's totally worth a close look. And there's a very good reason why: Tacos de Ojos translates as "eye tacos."
A case where your eyes maybe too big for your stomach
Tacos de Ojos are a specialized subset of tacos de Cabeza, or "head tacos," which are traditionally made by slowly cooking an entire cow's head (or a pig's head) and utilizing the tender cheek and tongue meat and yes, even the eyes. According to MasterClass, Cabeza has a high-fat content, which means succulent, come-back-for-more tacos. But what about those eyes? Atlas Obscura explains that after a cow's head has been stewed for tacos de Ojos, the optic nerve is removed, and the eyes are cut into pieces that are added to corn tortillas with the traditional lime, pico de gallo, salsa, and fresh avocado.
While NPR reports that eyeballs have a long way to go until they're incorporated into mainstream American cuisine, they're catching on among certain high-protein/high-fat diets, and are popular in Asia and some European dishes. Spanish angulas have quite a few eyes. In Iceland and the Middle East, you can order whole or partial sheep heads, eyes included. Eaters of eyes have described them as gelatinous and chewy, with a mild flavor. This makes sense since eyes are mostly made of collagen (per SciShow), which softens and breaks down during cooking, like the connective tissues that make bone broth gel.
DIY tacos de Ojos
While it's not necessarily difficult to make tacos de cabeza at home, the hardest part is waiting for the meat to be fork-tender, MasterClass explains that you might have a tough time finding a whole cow's head (let alone, cow's eyes). You can certainly ask your local butcher or farm, but if you can't find one, MasterClass suggests using marbly beef cheeks, which have recently become more popular and widely available. It's worth cooking with the offal cuts because they're densely nutritious (says Healthline), and often cheaper than prime cuts. Plus, nose-to-tail eating reduces food waste.
The basic recipe for tacos de Cabeza (eyes and all) involves cooking the meat low and slow with a rich chile sauce, often calling for deep red guajillos or cascabels. If you've never cooked with dried chiles, this recipe is a good entry point, and the pepper flavors really come through and brighten the rich, fatty meat. It also yields a lot of food to feed a crowd or provide leftovers for easy meal prep during your busy workweek. If you're dead set on trying genuine eyeball tacos, your best bet would be to visit an authentic Mexican taqueria, local restaurant, or taco truck that features Cabeza and its associates. We bet you didn't ever expect to be Googling "cow eyeball tacos near me," but now you know, perhaps you've been missing out.