Taco Lasagna

Good Morning!

I could have sworn that I scheduled this to post early Tuesday morning, but I guess I never hit the publish button so it didn’t happen. 🙁 I’ve had a hectic past two days so I didn’t catch it until I told my cousin to check out my latest recipe on my blog and she told me that it wasn’t there! #fail

So I have now hit publish and below is what I wrote over the weekend and intended to post!

I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing long weekend! I’m back today with a food post and I’m sharing an easy, crowd-pleasing dinner recipe!

A little backstory:

I had a roommate for most of college that was one of my best friends, her name is Jess but we called her Trem, a shortened version of her last name. She had a handwritten cookbook that she had brought to college and one day our friend Joe was over and was bored and he started looking through her recipes. One of the first one’s in her book was for meat sauce, but not like some whole day’s long process of making sauce from scratch – no, no, this was cook hamburger in a frying pan and then add a jar of tomato sauce. lol Joe goes “WOW Trem, what a tough recipe. What’s next? Milk?!” lolol I laughed soo hard and it became a running joke for years to come about Trem making “difficult recipes”.

One recipe that she did have in there that I grew to love was Taco Lasagna. I had (of course) grown up eating tacos and making them at home all the time, but I’d never had a lasagna version of tacos. So when Trem made it one night – I was totally hooked. It was amazing and from then on it was something we made fairly regularly and I’ve continued to make it ever since!

This recipe is easy to make and I like that it calls for some nutritious foods like black beans and tomatoes to get in some additional protein and flavor. This is also a great meal to freeze and I sometimes make two small size casserole dishes of it and eat one and freeze the other. I would say that you can freeze it for up to six months. Then be sure to thaw it out in your fridge for a full day before baking at 350° for 30 minutes!

Taco Lasagna

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground beef

1/2 c. chopped green pepper

1/2 c. chopped onion

2/3 c. water

1 envelope taco seasoning

1 16. oz. can black beans (drained and rinsed)

1 14 oz. can petite diced tomatoes (undrained)

6 large flour tortillas (8 inch is the easiest to use)

1 16 oz. can refried beans

3-4 c. Mexican or taco shredded cheese

Directions:

Part 1: Making the Filling

1. In a large skillet cook the green pepper and onion in oil or butter for a few minutes to soften. Then add the ground beef and cook until it is no longer pink.

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2. Add the water and taco seasoning and bring to a boil.

3. Reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes.

4. Stir in the tomatoes and black beans.

5. Simmer for 10 minutes.

Part 2: Putting Together the Lasagna

1. Grease a 9×13 casserole dish.

2. Put 2 tortillas on the bottom overlapping as necessary.

3. Spread half of the refried beans on top, then half of the meat mixture, and top with 1 c. of shredded cheese.

4. Repeat laters starting with the tortilla shells.

5. Top with remaining tortilla shells and cheese.

6. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes at 350° or until cheese is melted.

7. Cut into pieces and serve with sour cream and enjoy!!

This is an easy meal to prepare over the weekend and then just pop in the oven after work for a quick dinner. It’s also easy to switch up the ingredients to customize it to your palette! I always enjoy this meal and I hope you do too!

Have a great day!

xo

Holly