Cuban Ropa Vieja

This week’s meal prep – Cuban Ropa Vieja.

Ropa Vieja is one of my all-time favorite meals from childhood! It’s a well-known Cuban dish, served over rice. In English it means “Old Clothes”… it tastes much better than it sounds!

I rarely use actual measurements for my recipe. You can adjust everything based off of personal taste preference. I usually add more spice so that the sauce is flavorful. If you add too little, it tends to just taste like tomato sauce. You want a rich brownish/red sauce after you’ve added all of your ingredients. You can also use as much tomato sauce as you prefer. I add more to the crock pot so that there is excess. After the meal is done, I pour the meat and excess sauce over rice.

Ingredients:

Directions:

1. Mix the tomato sauce, olive oil, spices, garlic & bay leaves together in the crock pot.
2. Add diced bell peppers to the mix.
3. Add the chopped spinach.
4. Add flank steak to the pot. Make sure all of the meat is covered in the sauce.

Cook on low for seven hours in the crock pot.

• After seven hours, the flank steak will be really soft. Take the meat out and cut it into really tiny & stringy pieces. You can usually just take a fork and separate the meat into pieces.
• Put the meat back into the crock pot and make sure everything is still covered in sauce.

 Let it simmer on warm or low setting for another hour. Enjoy over rice!