Tacos with homemade seasoning mix



Once upon a time, two sleep-deprived parents of a newborn were deeply craving tacos, so they made an extremely slow-moving excursion to the grocery store for all the fixings: lettuce, ground beef, tortilla shells, sour cream, tomatoes, the works.

Then they got home and lost their shit: They’d forgotten the taco seasoning mix.

As the infant screamed preternaturally from her bouncy seat, as the naked ground beef mocked them from its package, as the walls threatened to close in around them, the two realized they had a choice: Go back to the grocery store or improvise.

Then, through the fog of baby-brain, the mother had an epiphany: Perhaps the World Wide Web held the answer.

One Google search later, and they had their salvation: A recipe for homemade taco seasoning mix, calling for ingredients they already had in their kitchen cabinets. They whipped it up and beheld a little miracle: Their child took a merciful 30-minute nap and they ate the best homemade tacos they’d ever had. And they and their baby and their homemade taco seasoning mix lived happily ever after.

The End

Taco seasoning mix
Adapted from several online recipes and tweaked into this one over the years

1 tablespoon chili powder
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
¼ teaspoon onion powder
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
¼ teaspoon oregano
½ teaspoon paprika
½ teaspoon kosher salt
1 ½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon pepper

Instructions:

Brown a pound of ground meat in a skillet, drain the fat, and return skillet to the stovetop

Mix 2/3 cup of water with 1 teaspoon of cornstarch in a small bowl

Add the cornstarch-water mixture and 2 heaping tablespoons of seasoning mix to the meat and simmer over medium-high heat until thickened and the water is mostly gone, about 5 minutes

Serve on taco shells with all the fixings.

TIPS:

• Tweak the spice mix until your get the heat level you like
• Double or triple the mix recipe each time you make it and store in an airtight container so you always have some on hand
• Any ground meat will do, but we like bison