I have to admit that for the longest time I could never understand why tacos were a weeknight dinner go-to for so many people. In my mind tacos seemed like a very involved dinner option with lots of steps and clean-up associated. How could tacos possibly be a weeknight friendly dinner idea?
After mulling this idea over for quite some time, I finally decided to put homemade taco making to the test and see if it was really as weeknight friendly as people had made it out to be. The result? Absolutely a weeknight friendly dinner option!
Tacos can be made a zillion different ways using an endless array of toppings. For this post I wanted to show you how I have gone about creating a healthy taco night that can be made vegetarian friendly and uses a bunch of seasonal produce. The most labor intensive aspect of taco prep would have to be the veggie chopping and "Mise en Place." However, the majority of the prep work can be done ahead of time (i.e. over the weekend) leaving you with simply preparing the proteins during the weeknight.
Ingredients
- Light Tortillas or Crunchy Taco Shells
- Ground Beef or Extra Firm Cubed Tofu (drained and squeezed dry with paper towels)
- Yellow Onion (diced fine)
- Reduced Sodium Taco Seasoning
- Coconut Oil or Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- Mexican Cheese (Shredded)
- Light Sour Cream
- Salsa
- Watermelon Radish (diced fine)
- Vine Ripened Tomatoes (de-seeded and diced)
- Italian Radicchio (cut in half and sliced thin)
- Jalepeno Pepper (de-seeded and diced fine)
- Fresh Cilantro (leaves roughly chopped)
- Boston Bibb Lettuce
- Fresh Limes (cut into wedges)
- Roasted Poblano Peppers (skin removed and diced)
Instructions for Roasting Poblano Peppers
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees fahrenheit and move your oven rack up to the top half position
- Slice the top off of the poblano pepper and remove the seeds
- Once the bulk of the seeds are removed, slice the pepper lengthwise and place each half on a lined baking sheet with the skin side up
- Give each poblano pepper half a light mist of olive oil and a dusting of kosher salt
- Roast in the oven for approximately 20minutes until the skin is sufficiently blistered
- Remove the peppers from the oven and allow them to cool
- Using the back end of a knife, scrape the blistered skin off of the pepper and then dice the pepper into 1/2in pieces
Instructions for Cooking the Protein
- Heat 2 TBS Olive Oil or Coconut Oil in a large skillet over medium high heat
- When the skillet is hot, add 1/4 finely diced yellow onion to the skillet
- Cook the onion until it starts to turn translucent
- Add the protein to the skillet
- For beef - cook according to the taco seasoning packet instructions
- For tofu - cook until evenly browned on each side, then add 2 tsps of the taco seasoning to the mixture and cook for an additional 3 minutes
