The soup menudo is a traditional Mexican dish; a frequently spicy soup made with tripe. It is often thought of as a cure for a hangover, and is traditionally served on special occasions or with family. Menudo is many times not only for special occasions but is eaten on Saturday and Sunday mornings as the breakfast of champions.

Usually, lemon, chopped onions and chopped cilantro is added and some also add crushed oregano and extra crushed red chili peppers for a spicier taste. Menudo is eaten with corn tortillas. The tortillas are placed on the hand flat and rolled with the other from the tip of the fingers to the back of the palm (or vice versa) and held with the hand not using the spoon.

The rolled tortilla can be dipped in the menudo and a bite taken or bites taken as the menudo is consumed. Menudo is time intensive, taking some 7 hours to make. The meat should be rinsed clean first.

Menudo usually has tripe, honeycomb and "librillo" stomach beef meat along with the beef feet and tendons. The feet and tendons are boiled first at low to medium heat for about 3 hours. Skimming off the top layer of floating foam about every 15 minutes for the first hour helps the flavor.

After the first 3 hours, the stomach meat should be added along with salt, an onions cut in half and one or two heads of garlic. A very important part of the menudo is the chili paste that is added at this time as well. This paste is different from region to region so it will not be discussed here and some do not even add that.

The menudo is allowed to continue boiling for an additional three hours all the while being covered to avoid evaporation. Once it is almost done, add the hominy. It is a well known fact that menudo will taste even better after re-heating since the flavor will have concentrated even more.

There are a number of regional variations on menudo. In northern Mexico, typically hominy (creation of hominy is one step in the production of tortilla dough) is added, and in northwest states such as Sinaloa and Sonora usually only the blanco, or white, variation is seen. Adding patas (beef or pigs feet) to the stew is popular but not universal.

In some areas of central Mexico, "menudo" refers to stew of sheep stomach, "pancitas" stew of beef stomach. The red variation is usually seen in Chihuahua, the northern state adjoining Texas. A similar stew made with more easily cooked meat is pozole.

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