My gramma and my cousin were in town to visit a couple of weeks ago. I admit that I didn’t do much cooking and didn’t really do the best job of feeding them anything other than restaurant food, but we did make this one recipe together one night and it was delicious!
My gramma saw a similar recipe to this one somewhere and we all thought it sounded pretty fun, so we gave it a try. We all pitched in: My gramma watched baby Jack so my cousin Matt and I could run to the store and get the ingredients, and then Matt watched Jack while he slept on the couch and my gramma and I put these together and threw them in the oven. Chris and Kennedy pitched in by being out of the country for soccer and letting us eat everything ourselves. 🙂
We started out with some basic taco ingredients.
You’ll need:
-Flat bottom taco shells (you can probably fill 12 or more easily with this recipe)
-1 can of refried beans
-About a cup of salsa
-Grated cheese
-Taco seasoning (Try my homemade taco seasoning recipe!)
-Whatever other taco toppings you like to add (sour cream, more salsa, fresh tomatoes, avocado, lettuce, etc. all optional and totally not necessary for this recipe)
Start out by browning your ground beef.
Once your ground beef is all nice and brown, add in your taco seasoning according to package directions, or just sprinkle a little bit (like a tablespoon) in if you want the seasonings to be a little more subtle.
Next, mix your can of refried beans along with the 1 cup of salsa in with the meat. Mix it all together! It sounds kind of unusual, but it’s going to be soooo good. I promise!
Place all your taco shells into a baking dish (or two) and fill each shell about 1/3 to 1/2 full of the taco/bean/salsa mixture.
Top with shredded cheese!
Bake your tacos in a 375 degree oven until the cheese is melted and the edges of the taco shells are just starting to get a little brown. I think it was about 10 minutes?
When you take them out, they’ll look like this!
You can serve them just as-is for a really no-fuss meal or you can add all your favorite toppings right on top of the cheese!
These are even really good re-heated the next day for a quick lunch… or breakfast. 🙂
When Chris saw these pictures as I was putting together this post, he immediately demanded that I make some of these for him, so we’ll be having baked tacos again this week! If your family loves texmex food as much as mine does, then you’ve got to try this one!
Hope you like it!
If you’re looking for more easy, crowd-pleasing recipes like crock pot cabbage rolls, or 3 ingredient banana bread, I’ve got a whole bunch waiting for you in my food archives!
Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.