My partner and I are always experimenting in the kitchen and looking for new dishes to cook. I am a fussy person who enjoys eating a wide variety of food, and can get bored quite easily, so the other day when we popped to tesco to do a bit of food shopping he suggested we try make Tacos for dinner. Now I am always a slightly bit suspicious of mexican food as the last time I ate it in a restauran the food was horrifyingly bad. But he persisted so none the less, we chose the lazy option and bought the box kit which contains 10 Tacos, a sachet of salsa sauce and the Taco Spice mix for adding to the mince. This costs £3.22 so was quite a good deal. The box has recommendations for what you can add inside, but we stuck to the traditional recipe of buying 500g lean mince (the recommended amount for all 10 tacos, but can buy half only 250g and do half the tacos), some baby lettuce and some grated mozzarella cheese. You can of course add vegetables like peppers or sweetcorn but we weren't too fussed so stuck to this.

The easiest way for us to make them, pretty much as instructed on the box was as follows:

1. Wash the mince and cook it in a pan in a little bit of oil: I wanted to add my own little bit of seasoning so I put in garlic, basil and paprika and cooked the mince. Once brown, then add 100ml of water and the sachet of Taco spice mix to the mince and stir until fully cooked.

2. Put the tacos in the oven face down for a few minutes. The box recommended 6, but to be fair the oven is really just to heat them up and make them slightly firm so we only left them in for about 2-3 minutes.

3. Wash and cut the lettuce into shreds. Place in a bowl.

4. The salsa sauce included in the kit, pour into a bowl for everyone to help themselves.

5. Pour the already grated (we find it tricky grating a mozzarella ball so always buy already grated mozzarella cheese.) into a bowl.

This entire process literally took about 15 minutes! I always like to let my little one help out in the kitchen so she found it fun to help wash the lettuce, and mix the mince but always on a low heat so it wouldnt spatter on her. So making it is fun for everyone!

Making the Tacos was tricky. We literally, put in the mince, then added salsa, cheese and lettuce last but everyone else would no doubt add the ingredients according to their own personal taste.

- End result -

The tacos are quite tricky to eat. They are a hard shell, almost like a large dorito crisp and the second you bit into it, it literally all falls apart! So disappointing, so if you were hoping to eat it with your hands, think again and make sure you have a plate to hand. I literally ended up eating it with a spoon, which I didn't mind, but think my partner was more annoyed as he bit into it his first, using his hands (being the greedy pig he is) and a lot of it ended up on his lap! Haha! I was disappointed as they are literally all one size so was quite difficult for my 2 year old daughter to eat. I just cut the taco into small pieces and mixed the mince, salsa and lettuce together and put the cheese on top so she could easily manage to eat it with her little knife and fork. The Taco spice mix is literally what makes this dish. It does actually give the mince a nice subtle mexican flavour but it is very succullent and my partner could smell it cooking which I think is what is most enticing about this dish. The mixture of the flavours; mince, cheese and salsa sauce is what is most delicious and I always thought of mexican food as overly spicy but this isn't at all and we all loved it!


The ingredients in the box alone are suitable for vegetarians, as an alternative it can be good to add refried beans and extra mexican toppings like guacamole or sour cream yum yum! I would most definitely make it again, and I am looking forward to adding it to my shopping basket next time we hit the supermarket! This time we bought the set, but now I feel like a pro at making this dish I will just buy the Taco shells on their own, the jar of old el paso salsa and the separate packet of Taco spice mix. I'm totally looking forward to going and experimenting! Definitely would recommend, for all to try!