I can't eat tacos but I can do the next best thing

I love Mexican food or more specifically, Tex Mex which I think is superior and I will not apologize to people who thing that is wrong.

Well I want to have tacos but I already know that they are terrible for me from a calorie standpoint so instead I have come up with a way to get all of that wonderful taco flavor but none of the guilt. It is basically just a gigantic taco salad and I find it amazing.

This is something that is so easy to do that there really isn't any reason for people to not do it. You have to have literally zero cooking skills to make this happen.

Get these taco seasoning packets. they cost something like 40-50 cents and they will season a half kilo of ground beef. For me, I like to get about half beef and half pork, the extra fat content in the pork is something I enjoy but do whatever you want.

You cook up that ground whatever for however long it takes using any sort of fire that you have. gas, electric, whatever that crazy new tech is called that only the pan ever gets hot, hell, a campfire will do.

I like to cook some of my vegetables or beans in there as well when this is going on but really, you don't even need to do that, or even have the cooked vegetables at all.

For me I like to put this in the pot. The beef, the onions, the kidney beans. That's it. You cook the meat until it is brown and then they tell you to drain the grease or whatever off of the meat. This has resulted in it kitchen disasters for me in the past so I just leave the little bit of grease in the pan, then turn the heat way down to nearly the lowest setting and put a bunch of water in there.

They tell you that it needs to be a very specific amount of water but I am calling bullcrap on that because the entire idea behind adding the water in the first place is that you know you are finished when all the water has evaporated. I believe it is something akin to a "reduction" but for me, I eyeball the water so that I can get all the seasoning around the pan and then just stir it every now and then until most of the water is gone.

While this is happening I will chop up a bunch of tomato and lettuce and shred some cheese as well.

I love cheese but i'm telling you that the strong flavors of the meat seasoning will overpower almost anything you put in there so the cheese might just end up being senseless calories that you can't even taste, so it is ok to skip it completely.

When I mix everything together it kind of looks like a mess but i'm not trying to sell this in my Michelin rated restaurant, I am going to eat it. I put a bunch of Tobasco on it and then some sour cream.

A lot of sauces out there are absolutely terrible for you because of added sugars and oils but sour cream is exactly what the name suggests. It is milk prepared in a way that involves intentionally introduced and mostly healthy bacteria. It is calorie heavy compared to say, an apple, but compared to other sauces you can go kind of nuts with the stuff and not have to worry.

Two rounded tablespoons is more than enough for what I am having and that is only 60 calories.

What you end up with in the end is something that kind of looks like this but man oh man, is it glorious. When I cook the beef it is normally far more than I should have in one sitting but I also noticed that because of the very strong flavors of the mexican spices the vegetables just taste a lot better as well. I must have eaten an entire head of romaine lettuce chopped up in this and two whole tomatoes. I enjoyed every bite of both as well.

it transitions to a snack the following day very well as long as you keep the mince separate from the vegetables.. you just microwave it and kind of repeat the process you did the day before.

All in a heaping portion of this has around 400-500 calories of gut busting and nutrient rich food. Plus, a full 20-25 grams of protein are accompanying your wonderful vegetables and if you are like me, you would struggle to eat all of if they weren't covered in something else that tastes good.

I struggle to get all the vegetables that I would like to have in my life because I simply don't crave the taste of them. But when you put beef and mexican spices all over them combined with sour cream and tobasco, I can't really get enough of it.

This is a go-to meal for me when I am hungry in the afternoon and want to have leftovers for at least one other meal. If you have access to these seasoning packets it is so easy to do as well. you don't even really need to pay full attention.

The main bad thing that is included with most tacos is the same bad thing that comes along with most sandwiches, the carb-heavy delivery mechanism and the fatty and calorie-rich sauces. This shell-less taco salad skips both of those things and manages to taste incredible as well. It is pretty high in fat but I am not overly concerned about that because I exercise daily but if you are worried about that sort of thing then use chicken or some other lean meat.