Another taco post. You’re correct. But this one is dirty. Growing up, I remember Burger King had a $1 taco for a limited time. I ate a lot of these deep fried, not great tacos. People were talking about how they reminded them of Jack-in-the-Box tacos, and inevitably the conversation went to kangaroo meat and away from the taco.
Then I started traveling a bunch for work, and I remembered the conversation of old and saw my first Jack-in-the-Box. And of course they had those tacos. It was exactly what I thought it’d be. Decent at best, deep fried.. way more shell than meat, and was eh. It was so ‘eh’, I needed to make my own. Cult classic side?
Recipe
The Prep Table
First, we gotta whip up a cheap ass taco sauce. Every taco I’ve ever made has some heat. Whether it’s adding jalapenos, a ghost pepper/reaper sauce – it needed heat. But we’re going to stay traditional for this fast food taco. We’re going to whip up a boring – but familiar – mild tomatoey sauce.
Put it all in a pan, reduce it a bit, then jar it up until ready for use. Since these tacos are going to be deep fried from frozen, I’m doing a lot of my prep work on Saturday for a meal on Sunday.
We’re going to do things a little bit differently than my EDT – Every Day Tacos. These fast food tacos have a very unsavory meat blend that is almost a paste that sits in a pocket and is barely warm after a fry. I’m thinking it’s a beef/bean blend, but you know we do our own thing here. We’re going to make ours a bit saucy, but I wanted to stay away from the paste. I thought about mixing it with some beans to develop that pasty consistency, but let’s go with just a saucy beef and see how that works. (It works.)
The Process
Mix in a bit of flour and the seasonings pre cook. Ball it all up and cook it with a 1/2 cup of water and keep it moist.
We’re going to keep this cooked and on low. Then we’re going to make our tacos. This was a pound of beef, so we’re going to see how many tacos we can make (it’ll be 20). Microwave the corn shells for 30 seconds so we can fold it without breaking it. I used about a tablespoon of meat in each. Wanted to keep it tightly packed so it didn’t blow up during the fry.
Once they’re all made, I threw parchment paper on a baking sheet and threw 5 tacos on it and into the freezer. After 30 min, put it in a ziploc bag and then the next batch. Twenty tacos later – our Saturday work was complete. We made the tacos, they’re in the freezer. Sauce was jarred and now we wait.
Spring football season was getting underway this particular weekend – and I’m one of the few fans that enjoy watching it. With about an hour before kick-off, we rolled the RecTeq out with our cast-iron pan and fired it up. Get that oil to 350 and ready to cook.
The Result
From frozen, dip these in. My oil jug ran low, so we’re going to have to flip these halfway through. Ain’t no big deal. You can see some of the meat slipped outta there, but overall it wasn’t terrible. Held together fine, we got that crispy taco. But now the magic of the famed Jack-in-the-Box taco begins.
Diagonal cut your Kraft Single slice and use this processed cheese product as our taco cheese. As soon as we removed these from the fry pan, drain off the oil and onto a paper towel. While it’s still hot, slip that triangle cheese in there and some thin sliced iceberg lettuce. Plate it. Who am I kidding – we’re not plating anything this dirty. Paper tray.
Drizzle that tomato red taco sauce into that taco and eat it up. Now, I don’t remember the Burger King tacos flavor I spoke of earlier. That was years ago. I vaguely remember the Jack-in-the-Box – and this was it. Had every bit of the unhealthy familiar I wanted. It was so devilishly good, I’m glad I have 15 more in the freezer for later. We’ll see if ‘later’ is later tonight or not 🙂
Update: I’ve consumed the remainder of the frozen tacos, and the longer they stay frozen, the worse they got. The day after? Was magic. A week later, they were still unhealthily (?) delicious. But a month later, they lost the shine. Keep that in mind when you got 20 tacos for a pound of beef!
The Recipe
Fast Food Fried Beef Tacos
Ingredients
Tacos
- 1 lb Lean ground beef
- 1/4 Cup flour
- 1 Tbsp Chili powder
- 1 Tsp Salt
- 1/2 Tsp Minced Onion
- 1/2 Tsp Paprika
- 1/4 Tsp Onion Powder
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 20 corn tortillas
- 1/2 Slice Kraft Singles Diagonal cut, per taco
- Fine chopped lettuce topper
Taco Sauce
- 8oz Can Tomato Sauce
- 1/3 Cup Water
- 1 Tbsp White Vinegar
- 1 Tbsp Cumin
- 1 Tsp Garlic Powder
- 1 Tsp Onion Powder
- 1/4 Tsp Cayenne Powder
- 1/4 Tsp Chili Powder
- 1/4 Tsp Paprika
- Pinch Sugar
Instructions
Freezer Tacos
- Mix Beef, Flour, Chili Powder, Salt, Mined Onion, Paprika, Onion Powder, Garlic powder in a bowl. Mix well.
- In a skillet over medium heat, add meat and water. Mix and break up meat thoroughly until browned. Try to keep the meat as broken up as possible, no large bits.
- Microwave corn tortillas for 30 seconds. Scoop about 1Tbsp of meat into the center of tortilla and fold. Distribute meat evenly and place onto cutting board. Recommend throwing a second cutting board on top to prevent tortilla from folding back up (I didn't this time, but I will next).
- Place onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and into the freezer for 30 min. I transferred all frozen tacos into a ziploc bag.
Taco Sauce
- Stirl all ingredients in sauce pan, simmer over low heat for about 10-15 minutes. When it's your desired thickness – remove from heat, jar.
Deep Fried Fast Food Tacos
- Heat RecTeq to 425F. Put vegetable oil into cast iron pan and heat oil to 350F.
- Fry tacos (I did two at a time) for about 5 minutes – until shell is crispy and golden.
- Remove from oil, drain oil – and place onto paper towel lined sheet. While still hot, throw triangle of kraft single cheese into the taco and put shredded lettuce into the shell.
- Top with sauce and eat!