Jeff and I love carne asada, and love chicken quesadillas. He prefers flour, whereas I prefer corn, tortillas. But, inevitably, we always end up with extra shells and they die a slow death in the fridge until we remember them and they’re green.
So this week I decided enough was enough, and set out to make use of the shells. Enter homemade taco bowls. I love taco salads at restaurants, but the shells are delicious because they’re deep fried…and that’s not exactly calorie-friendly, making that salad worse for you than say, a cheeseburger. But making your OWN taco bowls for taco salad? It’s just the calories of the shell, plus a smidge of oil – and that’s something I can get behind.
You start with some tortillas. And some glass jars. Put your oven on 400, and you’re already on your way.
Microwave your tortillas for 15 seconds so that they’re a bit warm and pliable. Pliable, what a great word…let’s bring that one back, ok?
Right, so, now that you’ve got some pliable tortillas, spray them on both sides with sprayable oil – I use olive oil – and then put them on the jar bottoms, molding them into the general shape of a taco bowl, as shown above. Put them in the oven for ten minutes, and this is what you’ll have.
These have hardened right up! Let them cool for about five minutes and then you should be able to lift them (or slightly twist them) right off.
Now comes the good stuff, chickadees.
Gather all your goodies to put on your salad – I used pinto beans, avocado, olives, mozzarella cheese, and some salsa. You can use whatever you’ve got lying around that sounds good on a salad. Oh, and don’t forget the lettuce, obviously. I used red leaf because it’s what was in my salad spinner that I had forgotten was in the fridge. Luckily, it was still good – whew!
This, by the way, is a super-fast, vegetarian friendly lunch. Wahoo! If you want to spice it up, add chicken or ground beef for dinner, or use smaller tortillas and then bring them to lunch in a container separate from your veggies and you’ve got portable taco salad.
What are your favorite salad toppings?
[addtoany] Yum