TikTok-Famous Bombitas Birria Bombs Are Made by Local Mom With a Moving Story

Finding the time and energy to make a home-cooked meal is challenging when you work a full-time job. Antonette Camacho knew this all too well, and her routine became even busier with frequent therapy appointments when her five-year-old son began exhibiting signs of autism.

“One of the major signs he showed was his eating habits,” she explains. Her son only has around ten “safe foods,” and one of them, which Camacho says he wants to eat every day, is birria tacos. However, visiting local taco spots multiple times each week gets expensive, and the process of cooking traditional birria at home requires several hours.

“I needed a convenient way to make a meal that I knew he was going to eat, so I came up with Bombitas,” she says, adding that she was inspired by stock cubes and similar products. To make her brand’s birria bombs, Camacho dries and grinds guajillo, ancho and arbol chiles, then infuses garlic, bay leaves and all of the herbs found in traditional birria. The fourteen-ingredient spice blend is pressed into a sphere shape, has a twelve-month shelf life and seasons up to four pounds of meat.

“We live by these bombs,” she affirms. Using an Instant Pot, Camacho has home-cooked birria ready and on the dinner table in just ninety minutes. Slow-cookers work just as well on a high setting for four to six hours or a low setting for eight hours — perfect for those who are away at work all day.
Bombitas launched in January as a small side hustle while Camacho continued her full-time job. However, with her son’s diagnosis in March and him nearing the start of kindergarten, she decided to put her career on pause to focus on him and her four-year-old daughter’s well-being.

“The first day of my FMLA leave, I blew up on TikTok with 200 orders,” she says. Daily orders have continued to roll through via TikTok and the Bombitas website, which motivated Camacho to pursue entrepreneurship full-time. She recently signed a contract to share a commissary kitchen with the Chile con Quesadilla food truck, which Westword readers recognized as having the city’s best tacos in 2021 and 2023.

“I live in Brighton, [and] we have a taco truck on every single corner here. Mexican restaurants are literally all over my town, so I knew that this was a product that my community would love,” says Camacho. Along with appealing to a local audience, Bombitas aims to serve families, which is why its birria bombs are mild enough for children to enjoy. However, they come with individually wrapped spicy packets, allowing home cooks to adjust the heat to their preferences.
“One of the reviews I loved was, ‘My husband loved it — and so did my kids. You don't understand how hard it is to make a meal that my whole family likes,’” recalls Camacho.

She has already started developing spice bombs for other Mexican favorites. Soon, Bombitas customers will be able to craft flavorful menudo and pozole with the same convenience as its birria recipe. Along with growing the brand’s selection and e-commerce channels, Camacho hopes to begin wholesaling to various retailers.

“I feel like now is the opportunity to make this full-time, get into stores and really work on my main goal, which is to help other autistic families, and families in general, who might need help with their child's therapy or medical [needs],” she notes.
Camacho hasn’t yet worked out all of the logistics, but she intends to donate a portion of the proceeds from Bombitas to a Colorado foundation that supports families who have children with autism spectrum disorder, as insurance oftentimes does not cover therapy services for those with developmental delays.

Bombitas has served Camacho on a personal level, too. “I had a lot of postpartum depression after both of my kids, and it took me a long time to even show my face out in public,” she admits. “Bombitas gave me a lot of confidence. People started giving me five-star reviews on my recipe, and it just really built up my self-esteem and my confidence.”

She concludes, “I want to help other families spend more time at the table and less time in the kitchen. And I also want to encourage women: If you have a dream, go for it.”