Taco Salad

By Cara, on February 12th, 2010

Taco Salad
AKA
What to do with the stale crumbs at the bottom of the chip bag?

Mexican food is good because it uses whole real foods and everyone likes it. Based on your budget at the time you can up the beans and go light on the meat (or forget it altogether) or add more expensive favorites like avocados.

This quick lunch or dinner is a family favorite.

Ingredients:

Stale chips at the bottom of two (!) bags that have been lingering on the top of my fridge
Ground beef
Lettuce
Beans (way healthier and cheaper if you make your own: Bean Recipe, just skip the mashing part, though refried beans work in this recipe too)
Sour cream or ranch dressing
Cheese
cumin, ground pepper
Not included, but good: Olives, peppers, avocado, onions, in-season tomatoes (we hardly ever bother with them out of season)

I slice my lettuce. Shredded cheese is good. I was lazy and cubed it because I didn’t feel like cleaning the grater.

Brown meat, add beans at the end to warm. Drain. Mix everything together. If you know you’ll eat it all that meal, mix the chips in as well.

I heated up the stale chips in the oven in a pyrex baking dish @ 300 degrees just while I did everything else to un-stale them. Mine were really overly stale, though.

The only bummer about this salad is that it’s not very pretty all mixed together, so it’s something I’m cautious to serve to guests. It doesn’t look bad here, but if there is a lot of meat and beans and less lettuce, the lettuce all wilts and it just doesn’t look that great. It still tastes great though, so for family it’s a favorite.

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