If you’re in Mexico City and need to get your dose of beef liver, then you’re in the right place.
In this post, I’ll go over an easy tip for you to get some liver for cheap, already cooked and usually with good flavor.
Why beef liver?
In general, liver is considered one of the most nutritionally dense foods there is. More specifically, beef liver is what most people seek.
Why?
Well, while the levels of vitamins and minerals in the different kinds of liver differ (chicken liver, pork liver, etc.) it’s the beef liver that is considered the most nutrient-dense of the common animal livers available for sale around the world.
According to the USDA, 100g of raw beef liver provides well over 100% of the daily recommended vitamin B12, copper, vitamin A, and riboflavin for adults. It is also a great source of iron, phosphorus, zinc, selenium, and more.
Not to mention it’s one of the most protein-dense foods on earth (about 1/5 of its weight is protein).
It’s often recommended that you eat a serving a week if you’re not deficient in anything liver provides, but as long as you’re a more ‘normal’ liver, then exceeding this amount every now and again isn’t going to kill you.
*Just make sure not to eat polar bear or bearded seal liver, which are extremely high in vitamin A (too much vitamin A is toxic).
Where can you find beef liver in Mexico City?
You can find beef liver easily all throughout Mexico. Just go to any of the big supermarkets or butcher shops and you should be able to find it.
However, if you don’t feel like preparing the liver on your own, there’s another very simple solution for you.
Just find a taco stand that sells beef liver tacos.
Liver in Spanish is “hígado” – pronounced ee-gah-doh with the accent on the ‘i’ there. So look out for this.
At these taco stands you have the option of eating the liver in taco form, that is with a tortilla, or you can just ask for a plate of liver and nothing more.
*The small street food taco stands are often very flexible in how they serve you. It's not like they are limited to what they can give you because of the way their foods are listed in some computer system.
If you are in or around the Condesa area of Mexico City, I’d recommend stopping by Super Tacos de Guisado *El Unicornio*.
That’s the liver front and center in the picture above.
I’ve stopped here for plates of beef liver a dozen or so times over the past year and a half, always getting a plate.
Of course, the liver is cooked with peppers, onions, and some other spices, so it would not be a good option if you are eating a strict carnivore diet, but I don’t believe there are any seeds or green leafy vegetables cooked with it here and you can tell they really cook it for quite some time, so any antinutrient effects would be very minimal.
The liver here is some of the best I’ve tried. If you’re like me and don’t like too strong of a liver flavor, then you might like this choice. With the other ingredients cooked in the mix and the fact that they have some great sauce options to go with it, I enjoy this liver selection quite a bit.
As of December 2024, one beef liver taco costs 12 pesos (~$0.58 USD) and the picture above is a plate with 3 portions of taco liver… just without the tortillas – so 36 pesos (~$1.74 USD) total.
Not bad.
Searching for other liver spots in the area
You might have some success searching on Google maps, but it’s really not the best.
If you type in ‘liver’ the results aren’t going to be very good, so I’d recommend typing in the Spanish ‘hígado’, which I’ve had slightly better results with.
However, there still won’t be all that many places that show up on the map. This is because many street taco stands simply aren’t listed on Google Maps, and furthermore, the ones that are often don’t have ‘hígado’ listed on their profiles at all for Google to be able to bring them to the results.
The same goes for restaurants that sell beef liver. They often just don’t show up in the results.
So, if you’re in the Condesa area give El Unicornio taco stand a try and if not, let me know what else you find so that I can update this post to help other liver searchers find their way during there stay in Mexico City.
