Salads for dinner are our favorite on hot nights. Last night happened to be one of those so it was surely salad time! Sprouts also had Organic, Grass Fed Ground Beef on sale for $3.99 a pound so I had some in my freezer. That is quite a deal! Using ground beef in a taco salad also gives you yet another vehicle for added veggies while it is browning. This taco meat contained 1 cup of chopped green chard and 1 cup of shredded zucchini. Both go completely undetected by flavor and add nice green flecks to your final product. I also lightened this recipe up by making the dressing low-fat and only including home fried tortilla strips instead of the greasy tortilla bowl. The taste is still the same, but way less greasy. Beans would also be a nice addition, though I didn’t feel we needed them here.
Ingredients
1 1b Ground Beef
1 cup Onions, chopped
2 cups zucchini, shredded
1 cup Green Chard, chopped
3 tablespoons Penzey’s Taco Seasoning Blend
1 head of red butter lettuce (1 packed mason jar)
4 radishes, sliced
1 stalk celery, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 cup chopped tomato
1 avocado sliced (you might want more, but only two of us like it)
2 The corn from 2 ears (of corn)…This is hard to write properly and still put the “2” up front 🙂
1 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
Ranch Dressing (made with Penzey’s Ranch Dressing Blend)
Taco Sauce
Instructions
Begin by adding your ground beef to a heavy bottomed pot or deep pan
Next, add your onions,
And, your other veggies. Look at all those veggies!
In the meantime, while they are cooking down, assemble your salad ingredients into a large bowl
Next, slice and lightly fry four small tortillas in about a 1/2 inch of oil. Fry in small batches so the oil stays hot and the tortillas don’t soak too much of it up….sorry, no photos from the frying process, but here they are on the salad.
Ok, back to the meat. It is time to add the spices. Although I could mix up my own (maybe you have a recipe. :)), I currently use Penzey’s Taco Seasoning Blend and it is GREAT! Fresh, and all natural. It calls for you to add some water with the spices to help them mix in. Well, since we used so many veggies, there is no need for water. I added in the spices and let the mixture simmer for another 5-8 minutes.
You can see the little flecks of green from the veggies in this shot. While the meat is finishing up I placed the cheese, avocados, taco sauce and dressing in containers on the table and then put the meat in a bowl. We added our own meat and cheese to our salads at the table. The meat mixture was so yummy and nutritious, that our baby enjoyed eating some from his tray.
This may seem like a lot of prep work, but if you remember, most of it was done in the morning for Produce Prep Tuesday…the evening work was very minimal and well worth the effort! When we were done eating, my husband reminded me that this is his favorite meal for a hot day. Salad for dinner can be hearty and satisfying for all. While 1/2 of the meat mixture and cheese remained, we ate almost all of the veggies. There was just enough for my husband to enjoy for lunch today!
