Tacos are a delicious and simple to prepare, it’s a playful meal that your family can partake in making. Bring the flavors of Mexico into your home with these simple and easy tips for National Taco Day.
Shopping Essentials
Toppings
Purchase toppings used to decorate your tacos including lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, guacamole, shredded cheese, limes and jalapeños.
Taco Shells
Choose any type of taco shell, including flour tortillas, corn tortillas, and pre-made or hard taco shells.
Taco Filling
Select the filling for the tacos. There is a variety of meat to choose from: chicken, ground beef, fish, shrimp, pork, or regular shredded beef. If you are vegetarian, use pinto or black beans instead of meat.
Seasonings
Purchase seasonings that you need to flavor your tacos including salt and pepper and a tradition Mexican seasoning that includes cumin, chili powder, coriander, paprika and oregano. Selecting the right spices is important in order to build rich flavors for your tacos.
Making Tacos
Season Meat/Beans
Season Meat/Beans
Place your meat in a bowl big, coat the meat with corn oil and season the meat. Mix the meat around and make sure you meat is evenly coated with seasonings in order to achieve balance and flavor all around. Now that your meat is seasoned, let it sit in the fridge for about 10 minutes in order to let the meat soak up all the flavors. As you wait for the meat to finish marinating, you can start preparing your toppings.
Prep Your Toppings
Take your lettuce, wash it and start chop it into nice little ribbons. Next, take your tomatoes and chop it up into bite size squares. Once you do this, take your lime and slice it up into wedges. Cut the jalapenos into small circular pieces. After all the ingredients are cut up, place all the toppings into appropriate sized bowls. Grab your cheese, chopped lettuce, diced tomatoes, lime wedges, sliced jalapenos, sour cream, salsa and guacamole and put them all into separate bowls. Once all the bowls are set, take out your meat and start cooking.
Cooking the Meat or Beans
Let the meat simmer over a medium heat until it’s juicy and tender. Use a meat thermometer to make sure your meat is perfectly cooked before slicing into it so the meat does not dry out. If you are making beans, simmer for about 5-6 minutes. You can slightly mash the beans or leave them whole depending on your preference. As the meat or beans cook, get your tortillas or taco shells ready.
Warm Tortillas
Place the hard corn taco shells onto a cookie sheet and place into a 350°F oven for 10-15 minutes. For the flour tortillas, heat up a pan on the stove without any oil. Place one tortilla at a time into the pan and flip after 30 seconds until it is nice and hot. Once all the tortillas are nicely heated, your meat should be ready.
Setting the Table and Mood
Set the table for the ultimate taco night. Place all the toppings, meat/beans on the table. You can arrange the meat in the center and circle the toppings around the meat. Make sure that you have serving utensils for the meat/beans and toppings. Eating utensils are usually not necessary when eating tacos but napkins are; don’t be afraid to get a bit messy. If you are looking to add an authentic Mexican ambiance, play some music, it will make dinner time feel like a fiesta. You can even play games after dinner like dominos, cards or board games.
Make National Taco Night memorable and dive into some delicious Mexican cuisine with your family.
