I’ve mentioned before that my mom used to cook for us all the time. Eating out at a fast-food place back then was a treat reserved for payday, and it might have happened every other week at the most. My mom cooked all the time for us. We never ate Hamburger Helper and she made her own taco meat and seasoning. I’m lucky to still have several of her recipes that I cook for my family today.
Her taco recipe is one of my go-to meals. I’ve cooked it for company and it is always well-received. I usually make a double batch because they make great leftovers and can be used for taco salads or taco bowls. My daughter likes to take this in a thermos for her lunch at school and I love to pack it for my lunch at work as well. It’s also a great vehicle to sneak some extra veggies in. My addition to my mom’s recipe is the shredded zucchini. It cooks down and blends in with the tomato sauce and beef until you can barely see it.
What I love about this recipe is that you have several options for your protein. I’ve cooked this using 95% lean ground beef, I’ve used ground bison meat, I’ve tried it with half lean ground turkey and half lean ground beef. I love ground bison meat but it is expensive. I also love using grass-fed beef, but it costs about the same per pound as ground bison. What I often do is mix ground bison or grass-fed beef with lean ground beef. If I can’t swing the expense of using all bison or grass-fed beef, I will up the nutrition value of the beef by mixing it with a less expensive, but lean protein.
Ingredients:
1.5 lbs lean ground beef (optional: mix 50/50 with ground bison or grass-fed beef, or lean ground turkey)
1 – 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 small onion – diced
1 small zucchini – shredded
2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cumin
Brown diced onion in a heated skillet. Add ground beef and brown until cooked through. Remove cooked beef and onions with a slotted spoon to drain excess fat, place in a medium sauce pan. Add tomato sauce, chili powder, cumin and shredded zucchini. Simmer for about 20 minutes until zucchini has softened and some of the liquid has cooked down. The meat mixture will have a little extra liquid the first night, but it thickens up when re-heating the leftovers.
There are a variety of ways to serve this. My girls like using regular corn tortilla taco shells. I like to make a soft taco using a whole grain flour tortilla. Top the hard shell or soft tacos with shredded cheese, shredded lettuce or spinach, chopped tomato and salsa or hot sauce. Joe B likes to make deluxe nachos.
I also love to make a taco salad out of this. I’ll take one serving of tortilla chips (about 8 chips) and break them up in the bottom of a bowl. Then I’ll layer on about 1 1/2 to 2 cups of some type of leafy green (I like to use spinach but will serve romaine lettuce to company), approximately half a cup of the taco meat mixture, then top with shredded cheese, salsa or picante sauce, and chopped tomato.
I’ve experimented cooking different vegetables with the taco meat such as red bell pepper, and one time I mixed a can of rinsed and drained black beans into the meat mixture while it was still in the skillet. That particular experiment didn’t go over so well because my girls could see and taste the beans. I’ll try that one again a later date. 🙂
By the way, this is my first attempt at photographing a meal I cooked for the blog. I’ll continue to be brave and experiment some more with this.
Wozani Was'te 