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This Whole30 Taco Salad is easy, quick & delicious. It can be made ahead of time and goes great with homemade pico de gallo! If you’re not in the mood for a salad, feel free to use the ground beef recipe and your favourite tortillas for some easy and delicious tacos!
I have two go-to methods for making so-called ‘taco meat’ using ground beef. The first is fairly involved and very similar to my recipes for Mexican Chili Braised Short Ribs and Crockpot Barbacoa. It involves rehydrating dried Mexican chilies, making a purée, braising, etc. In terms of flavour, this process can’t be beat. But sometimes a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush and if you’re hangry, tired from a long day at work and desperately craving tacos on a Tuesday, it doesn’t matter how delicious a recipe promises to be. Am I right?
The other recipe is a quick and easy approach. It’s a one pot, minimal ingredients and lots of spices situation. The spices are really, really important here. With the correct combination you can achieve one of the most flavourful mouthfuls of juicy, succulent, taco meat.
Tips for a Delicious Whole30 Taco Salad
I realize that it is fairly rare (if not entirely impossible) to encounter ground beef tacos in the streets of Mexico. As always, this recipe is an inspired one and not meant to serve as an authentic version.
Nevertheless, I do have some golden rules if you are going to make this recipe at home. In fact, this applies to almost every single recipe that involves ground beef:
- Quality is Key: Try to source the highest quality ground beef you can afford. Ideally, you will be able to find grass-fed beef. If not, try to get organic. Still out of the question? Get the best tasting lean ground beef you’ve tasted. High-quality beef will emit a sweet, delicate perfume when being browned. If the kitchen smells funky when you’re cooking the beef, that’s a bad sign.
- Extra Lean Is For the Birds: Use lean or medium ground beef. You need some fat content here and if you’re using high-quality, grass-fed or organic beef the extra bit of fat is not necessarily a cause for concern.
- Surface Moisture is the Devil’s Playground: Thoroughly dry your meat with paper towel before browning. All pre-packaged beef, ground or otherwise, is covered in moisture and a wet piece of meat will not properly brown – it will steam! Take the time to pat the beef dry with some paper towel. I cannot stress this point enough!
- Cold Meat in a Hot Pan is No Bueno: Try to let the ground beef come to room temperature before cooking. A cold piece of meat will toughen when thrown into a hot pan. If you’re short on time, don’t worry about it too much. As mentioned, bird in the hand…
- Substitute If You Like: Personally, I’m not crazy about substituting ground turkey or chicken. It tends to a be a bit dry. However, if you are adamant on using “white meat”, then go for it. Nothing changes in terms of ingredients or technique. The only thing to note is it will probably cook a little bit quicker, so you may not need the entire 30 minutes for the meat to get tender. You can also try substituting game meat, ground pork or ground lamb.
Whole30 Taco Salad
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon avocado oil
- 2 lbs lean ground beef – preferably grass-fed, organic
- 1 large onion – diced
- 1 serrano pepper – diced, seeds removed for mild spice
- 5 cloves garlic – finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon regular paprika
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon coriander powder
- 1 tablespoon ancho chili powder
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 2 teaspoon cumin powder
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, or more depending on preference
- Kosher salt and freshly-cracked black pepper
- 1 cup chicken stock
- 1 head romaine lettuce – shredded
- compliant salsa or homemade pico de gallo works
- 1 avocado , thinly sliced
- finely sliced radish
- lime wedges – for garnish
Instructions
- Heat 1 tablespoon avocado oil in a large stock pot or dutch oven over high heat. Add the ground beef and brown in batches. If required, add more avocado oil to brown the second batch of beef. Transfer browned meat to a bowl. Drop the heat to medium-low, add the diced onion and serrano peppers. Sauté until onions are soft and translucent – approximately 8 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook an additional 60 seconds. Add the paprika, onion powder, coriander, ancho chili powder, oregano, cumin, and cayenne. Stir and cook 45-60 seconds. Return browned beef to pot and stir everything to coat.
- Add chicken stock, bring everything to a boil, lower the heat to low, cover with a lid and cook 30 min, stirring occasionally to avoid burning. Note: the longer you cook this, the better it will taste! An hour is ideal.
- Serve taco meat over a bed of shredded romaine. Top with pico de gallo, sliced avocado, thinly-sliced radish and lime wedges.
About the Author
Hi, i’m Ronny! In 2013, after a lifetime of struggling with my weight and body issues, I rehabilitated my relationship with food, lost over 40 pounds and completely changed my life.
Ronny… how do I print your recipes? The print icon doesn’t seem to be working and it’s tough to cook using my phone!
I’d like both the taco & Mexican short rib recipes
Trying to figure out a recipe plugin for the blog that will allow you to print more easily. In the meantime, I would suggest copy-pasting into a word document and printing from there. Thanks for your patience!
Hey Ronny!
I haven’t even finished cooking this but I know it’s going to be AMAZING! I love a good taco salad and it was so easy to make.
I have to make one comment, I get the impression that you’ve gotten a lot of comments about the “authenticity” of your meals. I think that’s annoying. This will probably be one of the best Taco meat that I’ve ever had and I feel like you should excuse your food for not being “authentic”. It’s delicious and healthy. What more can anyone ask for?
Thanks Nadia! At this point, I’ve come to accept that everyone has their opinion of certain recipe ‘origins’. I’m always interested to know the history and culture behind the dishes I cook but, like you mention, if it’s delicious and healthy that’s more important to me!
I made the eggs benedict recipe which was fantastic after successfully making ghee. It took me a while. My husband prepared the eggs for the two of us and ended up using six eggs because he couldn’t separate them properly to get the egg yolk for the sauce, quite funny….Love your recipes, my daughter from Ottawa told me all about you. Thanks for such tasty and healthy recipes
I’m very glad that everything came together in the end! Thanks so much for sharing your experience!
I have made this a few times and love it! I just got an instant pot and I’m thinking about testing out a version in that…any ideas? I’ve only used it once so far, but it seems it would be easy to just sauté, then seal and pressure cook 20 minutes or so
Hey Sarah, Very happy to hear! I would say about 10min in the Instant Pot at high pressure would suffice for the meat. But you can take it to 20 if you prefer. Generally, the IP will cut conventional cooking times down to a fraction. Let me know how it goes either way!
This salad was amazing! I fixed it for dinner this week and then couldn’t stop thinking about it the next day! Just now I reheated the meat and then threw in some eggs to make a mixture for breakfast tacos that were the best I’ve ever had! Thank you!
So glad yo enjoyed!!!
If I’m going to freeze this to eat later (postnatal) should I precook the meat or just prepare it and freeze it raw and cook it when I’m ready to eat it later?
It will be much easier if you precook the meat and then simply reheat. You’ll probably have less time to cook once baby arrives!