Beef and Bean Tacos

A slightly spicy taco filling made with ground beef and black beans.

As you all probably know by now I love taco salad.  I make taco salad at least once a month (if not more) but I thought y'all might be tired of seeing taco salad.  So this time, I made tacos instead.  Tacos are convenient handheld fun meals and the variations are endless.  This is one of many possible fillings and it was delicious.  Crunchy tacos are my preference but  this would be fine in soft shells too.

Beef&Bean #Tacos are are convenient handheld food  [Tweet this]

Taco filling is great because it's so versatile.  I always make a big batch so there are plenty of leftovers.  I've used leftovers in breakfast tacos, burritos, cheese dip, taco salad, and I think of new uses all the time.  Even when I'm not feeling creative I can eat the same meal every night if it's tacos.

#Leftover BeefandBean #Taco meat has many uses  [Tweet this]

Beef and Bean Tacos

Cook time:  30 minutes

Servings:  6

Ingredients:

1 pound ground beef
5 cloves garlic, minced
1 large onion, chopped
1/2 cup chopped tomatoes
1 very large red bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, diced
1 Tbsp oil
2 cups black beans (or one can, rinsed and drained)
2 tbsp paprika
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper (optional)
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large skillet, over medium heat, cook the ground beef (seasoned with salt and pepper) until browned and cooked through.  Remove the meat, drain the grease, and set aside.

You can chop, dice, and mince the following 5 ingredients, or (like I did) blitz it all in a food processor until finely chopped (like salsa).

In the same skillet, heat the oil and then add the garlic, onion, tomatoes, and peppers (season with a little salt and pepper).  Cook, over medium heat, until softened and fragrant.  Add the beef back to the mixture, and the beans, paprika, and cayenne.  Stir well and allow mixture to boil (if there isn't enough liquid from the vegetables add about 1/4 cup of water).  Then lower the heat.

Simmer (uncovered) for at least 15 minutes or until much of the excess moisture cooks off and flavors meld.  Taste and adjust seasoning.

Makes about 6 servings.  Serve in taco shells or as taco salad with lettuce, cheese, and tomatoes.

Enjoy.

For more taco ideas check out:

Bean & Rice Taco Salad

Fish Sticks Tacos     -

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Meat

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Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Meat

A simple slow cooker recipe of chicken cooked in salsa and spices.  Great for tacos, taco salad, burritos, or even over rice.

This is a great multi-purpose recipe.  It's a simple chicken recipe that can be cooked all day, in a slow cooker, while you are out of the house.  Best of all it can be used for so many meals.  Don't feel like tacos?  Try taco salad, burritos, taquitos, or just serve over rice.  You could even make a soup just add some frozen veggies, maybe beans, and chicken broth.  I only made enough for about 4 servings, but I'd suggest doubling or tripling the recipe so you can cook once and eat all week.  You can use the chicken as the base for a different meal every night.  I love multi-use recipes.

#SlowCooker ChickenTacoMeat is a great #multipurposerecipe  [Tweet this]

Get ready for #TacoTuesday w/ Slow Cooker #ChickenTaco Meat  [Tweet this]

Slow Cooker Chicken Taco Meat

Servings:  4
Cook time:  5-8 hours in slow cooker

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken thighs
Salt & pepper
1/2 cup salsa
1 Tbsp garlic powder
1/2 Tbsp onion powder
1 Tbsp paprika
1/2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp cinnamon (optional)
*or 2 Tbsp taco seasoning
Juice of 1 lime
Habanero flakes or hot peppers to taste (optional)

Place thawed chicken thighs in the bowl of a slow cooker (you can use frozen it just takes a little longer to cook).

Season with salt and pepper then add the salsa, spices(*use individual spices or your favorite taco seasoning blend), and lime juice.  Stir until well combined and chicken is thoroughly covered.

Cook on low for 5-8 hours (or high for around 3) until chicken is tender and shreds easily.

Stir the shredded chicken and any leftover cooking liquid well.  Then remove chicken with a slotted spoon.

Add the chicken to whatever meal you like.  I made taco salad because, as you all (I really want to use my native NC colloquialism "all y'all"...usually accompanied by an all-encompassing hand motion) should know by now, it's my favorite.

Enjoy.

For more slow cooker recipes check out:

Slow Cooker Moroccan Chicken

Slow Cooker Roast Beef Sandwiches

Slow Cooker Shredded Barbecue Chicken

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Birthday Taco Salad Round-up

Crunchy tortilla chips, spicy meat or non-meat filling, cool lettuce, and toppings galore all combine to make my favorite meal.  5 different versions of a classic.

For as long as I can remember taco salad has been my favorite meal.  In my family, the birthday girl always got her favorite dinner on her birthday.  Yep, you guessed it I always asked for taco salad.

The birthday girl always gets her favorite meal for dinner.  [Tweet this]

As I've gotten older one thing remains the same.  Taco salad is still my favorite dinner.  A few things about it have changed, though.  Now I add more lettuce and veggies to my salad and I try different kinds of taco salad not just the traditional (for me) made with ground beef.  In celebration of my birthday (which is, Friday) I've compiled a round-up of my taco salad recipes.  I hope this inspires you to try taco salad and not be afraid to experiment with new flavors.

Celebrate my Birthday with taco salad.  [Tweet this]

Taco Salad

Spicy ground beef atop a bed of lettuce and tortilla chips.  My favorite meal.

Traditional taco salad is always great.  [Tweet this]

Beans and Rice Taco Salad

A vegetarian meal of tortilla chips and lettuce, topped with spicy rice and beans, and finished with avocado sour cream and cilantro.

Beans and rice make a vegetarian taco salad.  [Tweet this]

Chorizo and Black Bean Taco Salad

Taco salad made with black beans, ground pork chorizo, and spices.

Pork chorizo makes a tender and flavorful taco salad.  [Tweet this]

Pulled Pork Taco Salad

A taco salad topped with spicy black beans, pulled pork, and avocado.

Tender, slow cooked, pulled pork makes delicious taco salad.  [Tweet this]

Tequila Lime Chicken Taco Salad

Leftover rotisserie chicken, shredded, marinated in tequila and lime juice topping green lettuce and tortilla chips.

Tequila Lime Chicken Taco Salad uses  #rotisseriechicken [Tweet This]

Enjoy your taco salad.  I know I will.

For more recipes to make your tacos or taco salads extraordinary check out:

Black Bean and Corn Salsa

How to Make Mexican Chorizo

Quick & Easy Guacamole

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Tequila Lime Chicken Taco Salad

Left over rotisserie chicken,  shredded,  marinated in tequila and lime juice topping green lettuce and tortilla chips.

Rotisserie chickens are wonderful.  They taste great and are usually cheaper than whole chickens (at least here) that still need to be cooked. We try to pick up a rotisserie chicken once a month, or more, and this is one meal from the chicken.   Two meals (for 2) were just chicken and  sides. Then we had 2 meals (also for 2) of salads topped with chicken. Finally we were left with mostly carcass which I was able to pick off about 1 cup of meat.  This is what I used for our final meal (for 2) of tequila lime chicken taco salad.  I love that we can get 6 meals from a 6 dollar chicken.

If you follow this blog you know that I love taco salad. I think I could turn just about anything into taco salad. I also had avocados (from my 3 for $1 purchase that I mashed with lime and froze) that I planned to turn into guacamole so that sealed my decision.  Then I saw a bottle of tequila and some limes and my plain chicken taco salad morphed into tequila lime chicken taco salad.

Tequila Lime Chicken Taco Salad

Ingredients:

1/4 cup lime juice
1/8 cup tequila
Grated zest of 1 lime (optional)
1 Tbsp minced gatlic
1 Tbsp minced shallot(s)
Habanero flakes to taste (or cayenne, or hot sauce)
1 cup cooked, shredded chicken

Mix together all ingredients and place in a zipper bag and marinate for at least 1 hour.

Heat the chicken and marinade, in a frying pan over medium heat, until excess liquid evaporates (just a few minutes) and the garlic and shallots are cooked and fragrant

Serve chicken atop lettuce and tortilla chips with your favorite toppings. I used cilantro, green onions, tomatoes, jalapeños (for my husband), and guacamole.

Serves 2.  Finish with a shot of tequila or a Margarita :)

Enjoy.

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Beans and Rice Taco Salad

A vegetarian meal of tortilla chips and lettuce, topped with spicy rice and beans, and finished with avocado sour cream and cilantro.

Oh no, not another taco salad recipe.  Yes another taco salad recipe.  As I'm sure you all know by now I love taco salad.  Not only is it my favorite meal but it's also a great way to reuse leftovers.

I had leftover cilantro, avocado lime dressing, and a jalapeno from my Tequila Lime Shrimp Tacos.  I also had some leftover rice...from something...and plenty of tortilla chips from the huge Costco bag that we frequently buy.  So in my mind the only way to use all of these leftovers is taco salad.  I could probably make taco salad with just abut anything. I could have also just made rice and beans but I always eat my rice and beans with tortilla chips on the side (to satisfy my crunchy fetish) so I just put it all together for one simple and delicious, meatless meal.  This can easily be made vegan by omitting the sour cream.

Bean and Rice Taco Salad

Ingredients:

1 jalapeno, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
2 cups beans (I used red beans but black beans or pinto would be great too)
2 cups cooked rice
1 cup salsa, hot
2 Tbsp paprika
1 Tbsp garlic powder
lettuce
tortilla chips
cilantro
*Avocado Sour Cream

*Avocado Sour Cream:  Blend together about 1/4-1/2 cup Avocado lime dressing (optional), 1 small avocado, and 8 oz sour cream.  Add milk 1 Tbsp at a time to thin it to what ever consistency you prefer.  

In a large skillet or stock pot (over medium heat) cook jalapenos, in a bit of oil, until soft.  Add garlic and cook until fragrant.

Then add the rice, beans, salsa, spices, and salt & pepper to taste.  Mix thoroughly.  Cover and cook until heated through and salsa cooks down.

Serve atop lettuce and tortilla chips with cilantro and Avocado sour cream.

Makes 4-6 servings.

Enjoy.

Linked to:  Merry Monday, Two Cup, LouLou Girls, Tasty Tuesday, Teach me Tuesday, Brag About It, Whimsy Wednesday, Wednesday Roundup, Full Plate, Eat Create Party, Freedom Friday, Pretty Pintastic, Best of the Weekend

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Pulled Pork Taco Salad

A taco salad topped with spicy black beans, pulled pork and avocado.

We always get these big bags of tortilla chips from Costco.  It's a 2.5 pound bag so that is a lot of tortilla chips for two people.  I love it.  They are organic and taste great...and are inexpensive.  So, whenever my husband goes to Costco, (yes my husband does the heavy bulk buying/shopping) we have over 2 pounds of chips to eat on for weeks.  I love this because I like chips with my sandwiches, there is always and excuse to make salsa, guacamole, or hummus. And my favorite, plenty of chips to make taco salad.

Taco salad is my favorite meal.  I could eat it all the time and my blog would be non existent or very boring.  One good thing about blogging is that it has made me more creative with taco salad.  Instead of just having plain ground beef taco salad all the time I've started trying new things.  I've found that you can make just about anything into taco salad.  This pulled pork taco salad is one of my first creative ventures and it turned out great.

Whenever we see pork butt on sale my husband or I will always pick it up.  We love pulled pork.  For this pork it was cooked in the slow cooker with just basic seasoning and I made a separate vinegar based sauce to pour on it individually (it was very hot (spicy) so I used less and my husband used more).  We had plenty of pork witch we froze some, ate barbecue pulled pork for a few days and still had some left over for this delicious taco salad.

I did not add taco seasoning to the pork for this salad.  I wanted the slow cooked pork flavor to stand out but I did want some spiciness so I made spiced beans.  It was very simple I just tossed about 1 cup of hot salsa into 2 cups of black beans and let them simmer.  For something a little different, instead of topping this taco salad with cheese, I decided to use mashed avocado.  It was delicious and I think I will use it more often.

Pulled Pork Taco Salad

Ingredients:

Pulled pork
2 cups black beans, precooked
1 cup hot salsa
1 avocado, mashed
juice of 1 lime
lettuce, torn
tortilla chips
green onions, sliced
jalapenos, diced

In a medium-large sauce pan heat the black beans and salsa and some salt until simmering.  Allow to simmer for about 30 minutes until the flavors meld.

Meanwhile, mash the avocado with a little salt and the lime juice, set aside.

Prepare all of the other ingredients and set out so each person can make their own salad.  I made my salad with lettuce, chips, black beans, pulled pork, avocado, and green onions.  Other toppings could include jalapenos, cilantro, carrots, or whatever you like.

Enjoy.

Linked to:  Eat Create Party, Freedom Friday. Best of The Weekend, Show Stopper, Shine a Spotlight, Saturday Night Fever, Random Recipe Roundup, Much Ado About Monday, Two Cup Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday, Brag About It, Whimsy Wednesday, Saturday Dishes Tex Mex




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