Tacos are one of the most popular meals out there. This One Pot Taco Pasta Dinner takes all those flavors and turns them into a whole new and delicious dish that everyone will love.
One Pot Taco Pasta Dinner is packed with Mexican flavors and topped with crushed tortilla chips (for some crunch), sour cream, and tomatoes. It’s safe to say this isn’t your traditional pasta dish.
What Meat Should You Use?
The recipe calls for ground beef. But you can use ground chicken or ground turkey instead. You can also use any kind of leftover cooked meat or rotisserie chicken. Then you get to skip steps 1-3 of the recipe, making it even quicker!
Can you use your own beef stock?
Yes. While we suggest using beef stock, you can use store-bought or homemade stock in any flavor: vegetable, chicken, or beef.
Make sure to use low-sodium stock or cut down on the additional salt in this recipe. You can always add more salt but you can’t take it away.
What should you serve with One-Pot Taco Pasta?
You can serve one pot taco pasta with any green salad. Our tossed salad would pair perfectly with the meal. Alternatively, you could skip having a side dish and add some extra veggies to the top of the pasta when you serve it. The recipe already calls for chopped tomatoes and green onions. You could add chopped avocado, chopped bell pepper, cilantro, black olives, even a little shredded ice berg lettuce on there would work well – we are dealing with taco flavors, after all!
Can you make it vegetarian?
Yes. You can make this dish fully vegetarian quite easily. First, omit the meat and skip steps 1-3. Then use vegetable stock or low-sodium tomato juice instead of beef stock. Cook the vegetables and sauce according to the recipe instructions, add pasta, and simmer.
Then, where it says to add back in the ground beef, instead add 2 (15 ounce) cans of either black beans or kidney beans , or one of each. Just drain the beans and rinse them before stirring them in.
Enjoy!
Podcast Episode On Making Taco Pasta
Listen to our editor, Christine Pittman, explain briefly about how to make this recipe, with some great tips along the way, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
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One Pot Taco Pasta Recipe
This recipe calls for 12 ounces of dry pasta. If you have a one pound box of pasta instead and want to use it, you can. Increase the amount of beef stock to 4 cups and it will be lovely. You can add up to 1/2 cup of extra heavy cream too if you’d like, but it’s not necessary.
- Prep Time: 8 Minutes
- Cook Time: 22 Minutes
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 6 Servings 1x
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil, divided
- 1 lb. lean ground beef
- 2 tsp salt, divided
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1 small onion, chopped
- 1 green bell pepper, chopped
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 tsp. chili powder
- 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
- 3 cups low-sodium beef stock
- 1 (14.5 oz.) can diced tomatoes
- 1 cup heavy whipping cream
- 12 oz. dried rigatoni pasta
- 1 and 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 12 tortilla chips
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 1/4 cup chopped tomatoes
- 2 Tbsp. chopped green onion
Instructions
- Warm 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat.
- Add ground beef, 1 teaspoon of the salt, and the black pepper. Stir and break up the meat.
- Increase heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring frequently, until meat is no longer pink, about 4-5 minutes.
- Remove the meat from the pan. Drain off the fat and set it aside.
- Add the remaining 1 tablespoon of oil to the pot along with the onion and green bell pepper. Cook, stirring often, until vegetables start to soften, about 2-3 minutes.
- Stir in the garlic, 1 teaspoon of the salt, chili powder, and crushed red pepper flakes (if using).
- Add beef stock, diced tomatoes, and heavy whipping cream. Heat to a simmer, stirring frequently.
- Stir in the pasta. Allow to reach a simmer again and then reduce heat to a low simmer. Cook, stirring often, until pasta is cooked to the desired doneness, about 13-15 minutes.
- Stir the cooked ground beef into the pasta mixture. Allow it to warm through for a minute while continuing to stir.
- Remove from heat and stir in cheddar cheese until it has melted and incorporated into the sauce fully.
- Spoon into serving bowls. Crush two tortilla chips over each bowl of pasta and then garnish with sour cream, tomatoes, and green onions.
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