Bonus Recipe: Quick Broiled Tacos
A quick and addictively good recipe that will change taco night forever
I’m writing this newsletter just before lunchtime at a coffee shop that only has one sad muffin in the food case, and I would kill for one of these tacos right now. I’m really hungry but still have about an hour before I can pick up my daughter from her school down the street. So, here I sit, drooling over my own recipe, and imploring you to please make these tacos for dinner. You’re going to love them!
This brilliant method for making corn tortilla tacos is adapted from Dawn Perry’s sheet-pan tacos in the cookbook Ready, Set, Cook. I have to admit, I was surprised by how much I liked this recipe. It seemed a little too basic. I thought maybe the kids would like these tacos, but surely someone with a refined palate like myself (ha!) would find them to be a bit simple.
I was wrong! These mini tacos are addictively good. The tortilla is warm and chewy and a little crispy around the edges. Warm, bubbling cheese is melting over the tortilla, beans and seasoned ground meat. Before you fold up the warm taco and take a bite, you can add crunchy cabbage, cilantro, green onion, maybe a spoonful of sour cream or salsa.
Are you hungry now, too?
Here’s what’s really great about this recipe: Using three sheet-pans, you can make 18 small tacos at once, sliding each sheet-pan under the the broiler for just over a minute to warm the tortillas and melt the cheese over ground meat and beans. Or, you can skip the meat and make dinner even faster with just beans and cheese.
Quick Broiled Tacos
Servings: 6 (3 tacos each)
Cooking Method: Broil
Approximate Cooking Time: 20 minutes to brown the ground meat, plus another 10 minutes or so to assemble and broil the tacos
Adapted from Dawn Perry’s sheet-pan tacos in the cookbook Ready, Set, Cook
A printable pdf of the recipe can be found at the bottom of the page.
Questions? If you have any questions about this recipe, don’t hesitate to ask in the comments!
Ingredients
1 pound ground meat (beef, turkey, chicken or plant-based)
½ an onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1-2 teaspoons chili powder (depending on how spicy your chili powder is)
½ teaspoon smoked paprika
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup water
18 small corn tortillas (5-inch)
12 ounces (about 4 cups) grated cheddar or Monterey jack or shredded Mexican cheese
1 can black beans or pinto beans, drained and rinsed, or refried beans
Optional toppings to add after the tacos are broiled: shredded cabbage, chopped green or red onion, cilantro, salsa, avocado, sour cream
Instructions
Step 1: Cook the taco meat
Heat a drizzle of oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion and cook until lightly browned, 5 minutes.
Add the tomato paste and mix it into the onion.
Add the ground meat and cook until browned and no longer pink, about 8 minutes. Break the meat up into small pieces as it cooks and season it with chili powder, smoked paprika, oregano, garlic powder and salt.
Add the water. Simmer gently over low for about 2 minutes until the meat has absorbed the water. Turn off the heat.
Step 2: Fill and broil the tacos
Turn on the oven broiler to high, with an oven rack about 5 inches from the broiler.
Spread the tortillas out on 3 sheet-pans. Brush the top of the tortillas lightly with oil (vegetable oil or olive oil) or spray with cooking spray.
Scoop 2 tablespoons of taco meat and 1 to 2 tablespoons of beans onto the middle of each tortilla (If you’re making fewer than 18 tacos you can add a little more meat and beans to each tortilla)
Sprinkle a generous layer of cheese over each tortilla, covering the whole tortilla.
Put one pan under the broiler at a time. Broil the tacos for about 1 minute (I find that 1 minute and 20 seconds is perfect) until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
Take the tacos out of the oven and add extra toppings to each one (like shredded cabbage, green onion, cilantro, etc…)
You can stop at this point and eat your tacos. BUT if you want the texture of the tortilla to be crispier and chewier, then fold one side of each taco over the top of the filling and gently press it down. Lightly brush the top of each tortilla with oil. Put the tacos back in the oven under the broiler for about 1 minute more, until the oiled side of the tortilla is lightly browned and crispy.
Recipe Notes
You can make these vegetarian by using plant-based meat or tofu crumbles. Or, skip the taco meat altogether and just use beans and cheese.
I add only 1 teaspoon of chili powder because otherwise the meat is too spicy for my kids. This depends entirely on your kids and the brand of chili powder you’re using.
You don’t absolutely have to brush oil on the tortillas, but they will turn out drier without the oil.
The easiest way to brush oil onto the tortillas is by using a pastry brush if you have one. In a pinch, I’ve also just used my fingers to lightly spread oil over the tortilla. Cooking spray also works.
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