Not Beef, Not Fish: These Texas-Style Tacos Make An Underrated Meat Shine

When you're sitting down at a Tex-Mex restaurant, browsing the selection of tacos on the menu, you'll commonly see meat options such as steak, ground beef, pork, chicken, or even seafood like shrimp and filets of fish. The one type of meat that's less frequently offered in tacos is turkey. But in Texas, and on the border of Mexico, turkey is one of the most popular taco fillings. More specifically, the locals are obsessed with what's known colloquially as El Paso turkey tail tacos.

El Paso, which sits on the border beside Mexico's city of Juárez, popularized the turkey tail taco. Known in Spanish as "colita de pavo," turkey tail is savory and decadent, rendering it the unconventional turkey cut to stop ignoring by chefs. This style of taco looks fairly similar to any other kind, as it's filled with chopped chunks of fried turkey tail, along with onion, cilantro, lime, and queso that are all layered onto a corn tortilla. Some variations of the recipe see it topped with smoked bacon, pickled onions, and serrano peppers, as well. Regionally, the turkey tail taco is so popular that restaurants in Texas specializing in the dish, such as Flores Meat Market and Restaurant, are named by the official Visit El Paso website as top places for travelers to check out.

In American culture, a turkey's tail hasn't historically been a popular part of meat to use for cooking. It wasn't until turkey tail tacos began to gain traction in the street markets of Chihuahua and Juárez during the 1960s that the delicacy even jumped the border. Chefs living in Texas with Mexican roots often brought their turkey tail taco recipes from home. In Mexico, specifically Juárez, turkey tails are a delicacy, often fried in lard until charred and roughly shredded for soft corn tortilla tacos, since hard-shell tacos are uncommon in Mexico. Many describe the flavor as similar to carnitas, though still retaining the classic turkey taste.

While turkey tail tacos are known as an El Paso specialty, it's also possible to make a similar recipe with shredded or ground turkey meat, so long as you follow these 15 tips for cooking with ground turkey. Tacos featuring the ground meat often contain similar toppings such as salsa, pickled onions, lettuce, avocados, cilantro, lime, and more. Though they're not as common outside of Texas, turkey tails can be found at certain local meat markets among other turkey products or even through online butcher shops, meaning that even aspiring chefs in New Hampshire or Alabama can make turkey tail tacos that are reminiscent of those along the El Paso border.