Taco Night Menu
A Mexican Fiesta! This Taco Night Menu is Aa simple & delicious feast for any night!
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It’s been a fiesta all up in here! We love love love love Mexican food! When the kids ask what’s for dinner on a taco night, they are always excited! I love that, because I know everyone will eat a good dinner, and no one will ask me what else there is, or why I made this particular dinner, or say that I made the worst dinner ever (true story).
Taco nights are our most fun dinners! They are easy to put together which makes them perfect for any day of the week: Taco Tuesday, Fajita Friday or as we like to call them, Fiesta Fridays! With help from Old El Paso, some simple ingredient prep and delicious ingredients, dinner is served!
On this past weekend we had Fiesta Friday! I usually like to keep things really simple, but this day I wanted to add a few more dishes to our meal. It had been a long week being back to school, so I wanted to make dinner just a little extra special for everyone!
So I pulled out my cookbooks and got planning. I knew I wanted to make a fresh salsa, some refried beans, a savoury rice to go with all of the other toppings.
Here is what I put out for our Fiesta Friday:
- Salsa Verde Cruda
- Taco Seasoned Ground Beef
- Green Chili & Cilantro Rice
- Easy Refried Beans
- Fresh taco toppings: chopped tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuce and cilantro
- Grated cheese
- Sour cream
- Extra tomato salsa
- Old El Paso Hard and Soft Taco kit
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PrintSalsa Verde
Ingredients
- 5 – 6 pieces tomatillos (husked and chopped into)
- 1/2 cup cilantro
- jalapenos for ours.) (the addition of these are up to you. Add as much or as little as you can handle! I just used 2 small chunks (including the seeds)
- 1 clove garlic (chopped)
- 2 tbsp white onion
- 1 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
- Put the tomatillos into a food processor first, then add all the remaining ingredients on top.
- Pulse a couple of times just to get things mixing, then blend until the salsa is smooth.
- Season to taste, if necessary.
- Serve!
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Green Chili & Cilantro Rice
Ingredients
- 1 – 125 mL can of green chilis
- 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 clove garlic (chopped)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 2 cups cooked white or brown rice
Instructions
- Using a food processor, blend together the chilis, cilantro, garlic and olive oil until smooth.
- Add the chili mixture to the cooked rice and blend well. You may need to heat the spiced rice up, so you can either do this in the microwave for a few minutes, or on the stove top until it is heated thoroughly.
Recipe adapted from 200 Easy Mexican Recipes
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Now, let’s get everything else ready to go!
- Prepare your ground beef according to the directions on your Old El Paso Taco kit.
- Chop the tomatoes, lettuce and cilantro, and put them into self-serve dishes.
- Grate some cheese and put it into a serving bowl.
- Set out sour cream, and more salsa if you like.
- Set out the refried beans, rice and salsa verde.
- Warm up your taco shells.
- Now fill those tacos up with as many delicious toppings as you can get in them! I’m a hard taco kind of gal, and I load mine up until they are bursting!
- Enjoy!
We really enjoyed our Fiesta Friday! The food was delicious, the company was great…it was just all around a fantastic dinner! We’re making this a more regular tradition!
For even more delicious Mexican dishes, I’ve rounded up some great recipes here, or visit the Old El Paso Facebook page!
Have a delicious day!
This looks delicious! Taco night is one of our favorite dinners!
Thank you Stephanie! We love love taco night! SO good!
Wow, Jo-Anna! This looks stunning!!!!
Thank you Sarah!
I love Mexican food, yum! Your pictures are great too.
Hey. on your Duck Tape win, the company is asking for your email, and after I forwarded your address, I cleaned out my email box. Would you mind emailing me at jencraftomaniac@gmail.com so I can get your email to send to them for your win.
Thanks a bunch, jen
Just came across your blog and it is adorable!! Easy to follow and very pretty recipes 🙂 thanks for sharing your great ideas with us!
Thank you so much Kaitlyn! I’m so happy that you found me too! 🙂
I picked up the rice recipe for our use. Taco night is what we have when we need comfort foods! One extra tip: load a zippy bag with your sour cream, cut a small triangle off one corner, and squeeze the white stuff into the tacos! So much easier than trying to spoon it in.
Great tip!! And I hope you love the rice as much as we did! 🙂
Wow you did an such a beautiful Salsa Verde Cruda, I have never tried to make it before.
Thank you Helene!
Oh my!! This would be great for our Mexican family dinner tomorrow! Thanks for sharing!
Kristy @ Cup Of Jo
You are so welcome! Enjoy!
Perfection Jo…looks so great…thanks for putting all this together…so much time and effort…xo
Thank you Lucy!
Hi! I really like this recipe. The combination of flavors sound excellent. I am vegetarian so I used this vegan friendly re-fried bean recipe. — http://allrecipes.com/recipe/refried-beans-without-the-refry/ — I like the simplicity of your refried beans so I’ll probably do a hybrid of your recipe and the one I mentioned above. Can’t wait to try this. I might just make it right now. : )
Holy Mole (see what I did there?) you go all out on taco night! I usually just use a taco kit and a can of refried beans! Taco night is one of our fav easy dinner nights and I love how the kids are interested in trying new flavors if they can assemble their own tacos!