Meat and Potato Taco Bake – Switching Up From a Classic Mexican Dish!

I was craving mexican pretty good last night! I didn’t really feel like going out to eat so I thought I would try out a new recipe- Meat and Potato Taco Bake! I found a recipe over off Pinterest and tweaked it to fit what I was wanting. I of course adding ground beef to it, and I think topping it with sour cream was a must!!! My husband added salsa and sour cream to his!

I was really impressed with how this turned out, and I think this could be good to eat in soft shell tacos, it reminds me of Taco John’s if you have ever had their meat and potato burrito!  Now I cooked my ground beef before hand and didn’t add it into the potatoes till it was over half way done baking. I didn’t want it to brown up the hamburger so much and since it is pretty high heat I thought it would work better to get the potatoes browned.

Ingredients

• 5-6 peeled and diced potatoes
• 1 lb ground beef (cook in skillet or use leftover meat)
• 1 package taco seasoning
• 1 tsp season salt
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 cup shredded cheese (I used sharp)
• 1/3 cup oil (you can use olive, canola, or vegetable)
• Toppings – Sour cream, salsa, green onions, etc (all optional)

Instructions

1. First off you want to dice up and peel your potatoes. Once that is done put them in a ziploc bag with 3/4 of the taco seasoning (leave rest to put on meat), oil, season salt and black pepper. Shake the bag until everything is well coated.
2. Then pour the potato mix into a greased pan, and put in a preheated 400 degree oven. Bake for 20 minutes stirring once in between.
3. After the first 20 minutes,You will want to be cooking or reheating your ground beef. Once cooked thru -Stir in the leftover taco seasoning you had leftover. I then added 1/3 cup of water and stirred it around till the meat soaked up the water.
4. Toss in the ground beef with the potato mixture and bake for another 10-15 minutes. Take out and stir then top the mixture with the shredded cheese.
5. Then bake till the cheese is melted and serve. We topped ours off like we would a regular taco, but that is optional!

I did add a little extra shredded cheese to the top of mine ;-)! In our home we are major cheese lovers and I feel like life can only get better when you have more cheese!!!

This is a pretty easy meal to make, and you could even try it with tater tots if you wanted to! You might have to adjust cooking time, but it would make it pretty quick! I like this recipe because it is something different then the normal mexican dishes I make! It is always nice to switch things up and try new things!

Enjoy!