Middle-School Tacos Recipe (2024)

Make your own hard shells by draping corn tortillas upside down over two wires in your oven rack at 275 degrees for 10-15 minutes depending on how crunchy you want them. Healthier than frying but more flavorful than the pre-shaped ones.

I just got back from Mexico and I must say I admire your defense of the "middle school" taco. The title reminds us it not only ok but is necessary to occasionally put aside our pretensions of seeking only "authentic" this or that. Would we really know any way? It's a good recipe.

These are not "middle school tacos." They're tacos. I live in Guanajuato, Mexico. (The dead center of Mexico.) My mother-in-law, about as Mexican as you can get, makes these all the time. (To make the shells, she fills a tortilla with meat, folds the tortilla over, and then fries it. Probably not super healthy, but delicious). We like to marinate tomatoes and onions in lime juice, and top the tacos with those, lettuce, and sour cream.

I am Mexican American born in Central Texas. I grew up eating these. I still eat them. It's something my nonethnic husband can make for dinner without help. We eat them as flat tostadas too, so you can pile on the lettuce and avocado. Yum.

I make these, using 1lb of beef and a can of refried beans added to the meat mixture. We like the flavor and ups the healthy factor. Also, corn is a popular topping at my house.

Skip the vegetables and seasonings and just pour in about a half bottle of Pace Picante sauce into the browned ground meat - just enough to make the mixture a tad soupy. Perfectly seasoned, great texture and a significant time-saver.

I concur with the sentiment in this article. I was an '80s latchkey kid and my working mom would fix a variety 'cultural' foods that now in retrospect were inauthentic but they were 'gateway drugs' to growing up and in to eating culturally diverse foods and being culinary-adventurous, desiring the heated-pulse of asian street-food or branching out towards the house-hold pet turned national dish in ecuador (cuy aka sparkles the guinea pig). short story long, mom primed me

seems like the term "picadillo" contradicts the article "in defense of middle school tacos." you can just call it seasoned ground beef - in this recipe at least it's just homemade taco mix and beef anyway. no one will be upset. you don't have to "elevate" every recipe, esp by calling it something it isn't. i understood picadillo to involve stewed tomatoes, olives, raisins, and maybe potatoes, but perhaps i misunderstood the definition or the writeup?

I consider canned black olives, sliced, an essential topping.

Are we eating children?"Here is a taste of a time when Mexican food was not as widely available in the United States as it is today, when parents and sports bars looked for food to serve children and those who eat like them,"

Trader Joe's has great ones!

The boxed shells from T-Joes are great, and the key to this kind of taco night (for us, at least) is ease of preparation.

Next up: pizza muffins! Brush split English muffins with olive oil, toast on a cookie sheet in a 350 oven. Top with jarred tomato sauce (Rao’s Is great and comes in small jars), dried oregano and basil, and pre-shredded mozzarella. Bake until cheese melts. In all honestly, i’m a great cook (and we have excellent pizza a few blocks away) but I still make a batch of these every few years just for the nostalgia, plus my kids loved them.

I only use "Pedro Lopez Chilli Powder"-it comes from my hometown of Topeka, KS. We buy it to KY in 16oz bags from the original place now owned by Pedro's family. Working in a super market in Topeka I remember Pedro making store deliveries from his old panel wagon truck. He grew the business then it sold out to a larger group but his secret is in the hands of relatives now.It's not all about nostalgia, as hands down the best chilli powder blend I've ever tried. Web purchases-use his name. Try it

Great recipe! My chilli powder was fancy gourmet and is crazy spicy so I added a can of black beans to try to calm the heat. But a great recipe for comfort cooking!

Favorite hard taco shells?

I've been making "Tacos del Norteno" like these for years. Reliable weeknight no-fuss recipe. For the heat-averse, use ancho chile powder, lots of rich flavor and very little heat compared with the generic Chile powder blends you'll find in supermarkets. Also, this is the first time I've seen a recipe calling for broth to create a sauce, not sure it's necessary. If you want to sauce up your tacos, use a good home-made or jarred salsa. I'm partial to Mrs. Renfro's salsas.

My father used to make these on Saturday nights, but used fresh corn tortillas and fried them folded over with the filling already inside. Then we'd gingerly open them up to put in the lettuce and cheese. Good memories.

Next up: pizza muffins! Brush split English muffins with olive oil, toast on a cookie sheet in a 350 oven. Top with jarred tomato sauce (Rao’s Is great and comes in small jars), dried oregano and basil, and pre-shredded mozzarella. Bake until cheese melts. In all honestly, i’m a great cook (and we have excellent pizza a few blocks away) but I still make a batch of these every few years just for the nostalgia, plus my kids loved them.

In North Texas we still just call these "tacos" and are much more widely available than standard Mexican fare, and they are super tasty.

Are we eating children?"Here is a taste of a time when Mexican food was not as widely available in the United States as it is today, when parents and sports bars looked for food to serve children and those who eat like them,"

I am going to try Jen’s method of baking taco shells, but in the meantime, I just had this recipe, using Ortega blue taco shells. They were great.

Tastes like childhood! I’m gonna be making these 90’s soccer mom tacos once a week now.

This was the perfect Friday night meal after a hectic week.

i made this a few weeks ago and we loved it. i used vegetarian crumbles from morningstar and then proceeded with the recipe as written. for the broth, i used a nice vegetarian one. as the crumbles did not release oil like hamburger would, i just added some sun flower oil as i went along to keep it moist. "eating them was almost as much fun as making them." i used chopped tomatoes, avocado, cheese, and chopped jalapeños.

I grew up in Orange County, CA in the 1950s-1960s. The taquerias in the barrio offered fabulous tacos in fried tortillas that were a blend of crispy and chewy. It was definitely not just a gringo thing. Living in San Diego from 1994-2010, soft tacos (also fabulous) dominated, but there was a taqueria in La Mesa that offered the crispy-chewy version.

I always wing it when it comes to ground beef like this and can never seem to get the proportion of seasoning quite right. Well let me tell you...I never have to think about it again. The seasoning on this and amount of onions and garlic is PERFECT. I left out the cornstarch and did veggie broth instead of chicken/beef because that's all I had and it was sooooo flavorful and juicy. YUM.

This is fun to make, more fun to look at, and most fun to eat!