Friday, April 16, 2010

Taco Pasta Salad


I love taco salad, but I generally use catalina dressing on it and well that has high fructose corn syrup, which is something we are trying to stay away from. I found this recipe at the Taste of Home and wanted to try it! It did not disappoint!

Taco Pasta Salad
3-4 cups rotini pasta, uncooked*
1 lb ground beef
taco seasoning
1 1/4 cup mayo
2-3 tbsp milk(which I completely forgot about)
1 tbsp+3/4 tsp cider vinegar
1 tbsp+3/4 tsp sugar
1 tbsp ground mustard
1-2 tomatoes, diced
7 cups(or 1 bag) romaine lettuce, chopped
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1-2 cups crushed nacho tortilla chips(I used cheddar sun chips)

Cook pasta according to the pkg and drain. Brown beef and drain. Sprinkle taco seasoning on top, stir, and heat through. Mix together mayo, vinegar, sugar, milk, and mustard. Set aside. Mix together pasta, beef, tomatoes and mayo mixture. If you are going to eat it all in one sitting go ahead and stir in the lettuce. I knew we were going to finish it, so we topped each serving of lettuce with the pasta mixture. Then top with cheese and crushed chips.

*I used 3 cups of pasta, so I then added 1 cup of plain yogurt to add more "sauce". I don't like dry pasta. If I was smart and thinking I would have used half mayo half yogurt to begin with.

**This was very very good. I may never make taco salad any other way! I even forgot to add the milk. The boys didn't eat it, b/c it was too spicy for them. I keep meaning to alter the seasoning, so if you don't like spicy cut back on the chili powder, red pepper, and black pepper. This would taste good with sour cream too. This would also work great for a potluck, just leave the lettuce separate or put pasta on top.


This recipe has been linked Mommy's Kitchen

4 comments:

  1. Know what would be delish on top of this? Andrea the Kitchen Witches's cheese crackers! http://andrea-thekitchenwitch.blogspot.com/2010/04/cheese-crackers.html
    Sounds delicious :) I am just getting into using Greek style yogurt, so I'd like to try it with that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Pasta meets tacos, its a holy union as far as I'm concerned :) I love Michelles idea of using greek yogurt. I usually use a mix of greek yogurt and salsa for my 'dressing' on taco salad, full of flavor and LOW cal :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just made yogurt this week so I'm looking at ways of using it up. Then I remembered that I could use it instead of mayo or half. It ended up being about half and half anyway b/c I used more pasta.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow I make a taco salad but not a pasta taco salad. Ty for linking up to potluck sunday.

    ReplyDelete