Taco Salad
In this taco salad recipe, the tortilla is fried, using an air-fryer to shape a bowl to hold all the delicious contents of your salad. I have filled the edible bowl with rice, homemade pinto beans, rajas de poblano, vegan cheese, chipotle salsa and topped with fresh diced tomatoes and lettuce.
This is a perfect Mexican dinner recipe or a summer salad fit for a meal. I made this recently for a picnic dinner outside by the fire and it was a really fun “campy” meal and well suited for the setting.
Any time you can turn food into something fun, such as making an edible bowl, it makes the whole experience of cooking and eating feel elevated and special. I love this taco salad because you’re breaking up the crispy tortilla bowl as you go and eating it with each bite of salad, making this a hands on and tactile meal experience.
The versatility of this taco salad is endless with whatever components and creations you want to fill the bowl with. I have listed below a simple outline with descriptions of this particular dinner I made recently. Use this as a template and make whatever you love!
I chose this combination of fillings below because I feel the flavor profiles of each component are similar and complement each other really well. Some common characteristics are earthiness, peppery, savory, and several respective components are cooked with garlic and onions which carries through the theme and flavors across the board.
Fillings:
- White rice
- Pinto beans
- Rajas de poblano
- Cheese
- Salsa
- Tomatoes
- Lettuce
- Lime
For the edible bowl:
- Tortilla 8-10 inch
Equipment:
- Air Fryer
Ingredient Notes:
Rice: cook white rice to your usual liking. The tips I have learned to make amazing rice are: sauté onion in oil until translucent, then add rice and “toast” the rice until it emits a certain fragrance. Then add water, salt and a bay leaf and cook as typically directed with the proportions you have chosen.
Pinto beans: I chose pinto beans for this recipe because I think it pairs the best with the other chosen elements of the Rajas filling and chipotle salsa. First, I sautéed onions in a little bit of olive oil until translucent and then added minced garlic. After cooking the garlic for a couple minutes (don’t let it get fully brown or it will become bitter) I added bay leaves, oregano, salt and water. I cooked my pinto beans in the instant pot for 1 hour and let the steam diffuse by itself without releasing. Remove the bay leaves. The last step is to remove 1/3 of the beans and blend them with a hand-held immersion blender or in a regular high-speed blender such as a vitamix. Then marry the pureed beans with the whole beans, mix and adjust consistency with water if needed. Salt to taste.
Rajas De Poblano is strips of Poblano Peppers and onions, grilled, sautéed or oven roasted. This is the chosen “filling” or main component (typically meat or veggies). You may use any filling you would like. If you decide to go with Rajas: deseed the poblano peppers (use gloves so that your hands don’t burn for hours afterward!) Then cut into long strips. Cut onions into long strips. Combine the peppers and onions, salt and cook until al dente.
Cheese: I chose vegan cheese that had the capacity to be crumbled over the top. My favorite kind for this type of recipe is Miyokos feta. It doesn’t actually taste like feta cheese, it is creamy and salty and kind of reminds me of what a vegan version of Mexican cotija cheese would taste like. Of course use any cheese that you like. Some non-vegan options I would recommend would be cotija or munster.
Tomatoes- A handful of fresh, diced tomatoes on top help to maintain a fresh and refreshing element and also helps to add texture differentiation.
Lettuce- I buy a Head of lettuce, wash and dry it in a salad spinner or gently using a kitchen towel and then slice it up into skinny strips. Try to use organic as lettuce doesn’t have a protective barrier that can be removed before consuming.
Lime- Optional squeeze of lime over the top always offers a variation to the flavors, bringing out acidity and a burst of citrus.
Tortilla- I used a regular flour tortilla, try to find the largest size you can so that you can form an adequate bowl to fit your whole salad meal! My favorite brand is Marias Large Tortillas found here.
Order of construction: Bottom to top.
- Rice goes on the bottom as it soaks up the beans that are placed over top.
- Beans
- Filling or alternative filling
- Cheese
- Salsa
- Tomatoes
- Lettuce
My frying method to make the edible bowl from the tortilla shell:
When I learned how to make this taco salad with the edible bowl, I observed the process happening through deep frying the tortilla in a standard frialator and shaping it with a spider (a large flat scooping utensil used for scooping stuff out of a frialator). Since I do not have a frialator and am not keen on deep frying my food due to the health disadvantages, I decided to try to use my small air fryer and an oven safe bowl for shaping. I found success with this. If you don’t have a small stand alone air fryer this can be done in the oven the same way!
*I had a little trouble getting the tortilla to stay in the optimal shape and not droop down or fold in on itself, so I used a bobby pin (yes, a hair pin!) to hold it in the desired shape.
*I heated up the tortilla to a point where it became soft and flexible so I could easily bend and fold it into the desired shape inside the bowl. Make sure to not heat it up too much or it will turn crispy and be liable tear when working with it!
When the tortilla bowl was lightly browned and holding shape, I removed it and started to build my taco salad, seen below!
Healthy Taco Salad
Equipment
- Air Fryer
Ingredients
- Rice
- Pinto Beans
- Rajas De Poblano
- Cheese
- Tomato
- Lettuce
- Tortilla
Instructions
- Use an air-fryer and an oven safe bowl to make the edible tortilla bowl.
- Assemble ingredients into the edible tortilla bowl form bottom to top: rice, beans, filling, salsa, cheese, tomato, lettuce.
Notes
Health Benefits:
I can say this is truly a healthy taco salad recipe. From the veggies, to the rice and beans, a simple homemade TWO ingredient salsa found HERE, and topped with more fresh veggies. This meal is free from unfavorable oils, is dairy free and offers plenty of benefits in the abundance of vegetables. This Mexican dinner recipe can also be made gluten free if you have found a gf tortilla wrap that you like or want to scratch the wrap all together!
-Good source of protein
-Critical Carbohydrates
-Abundance of garlic and onion
-Fresh raw tomato and lettuce
-Free from trouble maker foods
*Air fried rather than deep fried
Recipe Notes:
-Try to use organic produce in this recipe as it call for ingredients that do not have a thick protective skin barrier that can be removed before consuming.
-Although I chose vegan cheese for this recipe (predominately dairy-free household over here), please choose whatever cheese you would enjoy most, cotija or munster are good options.
Optional Additional Components:
-Sliced avocado or fresh guacamole would be so good on top of this!
-I love to add baked sweet potato to these types of recipes as a second “filling”, especially if it is a vegetarian/vegan meal to bulk it up and make it more filling or substantial.
-A drizzle of sour cream. I make a plant-based cashew sour cream that is great on here.
-Garnish of chopped white onion and cilantro.
This is a fantastic family meal and is fun for kids to eat and to help put together. Try eating this outside this summer around the campfire and you can even blacken your tomatoes for the chipotle salsa right over the flames.
I hope that you do make this healthy, fun, tasty, family-style Mexican dinner and if you do let me know below how you enjoyed it.
Hopefully you will have leftovers and can have burritos and other various meals for the better part of the week! I know that we enjoyed burritos, different salads and chips and salsa from the leftover contents of this recipe.
One of the perks of making a meal like this that has many different side components that come together for the meal: there are typically a lot of leftovers and they can be used in various ways throughout different types of meals from breakfast to dinner. Think – Mexican inspired classic breakfast, eggs smothered in salsa with rajas incorporated within home fries or hash browns. Another option could be to buy bread to make tortas (Mexican sandwich) for lunch.
If you do make this incredibly easy and healthy taco salad please comment, rate this recipe or share to your Pinterest or socials if you so desire!
Don’t forget to check out the links I have to the delicious, simple, quick and easy TWO-INGREDIENT chipotle salsa that was featured on this taco salad. Again, you can find that recipe for homemade chipotle salsa here. I will share a teaser video below 🙂
