A couple weeks ago, we, as a family, went out to celebrate my birthday at my FAVORITE restaurant ever which serves the best Mexican food EVER. Sierra wanted to try something new and opted for a taco salad.
Now, generally I object to anyone ordering anything at a restaurant that we can make at home...especially something that is generally made better at home. We make a MEAN taco salad. But, it was my birthday and I decided to let it go.
When the salad appeared, Sierra began eating it and instantly exclaimed at how good this taco salad was. My feelings were, admittedly, hurt. How could she like it more than mine????? I tasted it and agreed that it was, indeed, quite tasty and looked at the elements to see what was in it.
Tonight we duplicated what they did as much as we could. Sierra said it was not quite as good as the restaurants, but she said it was incredibly good. Of course it would not be the same, but I will say this was a great rendition of a salad.
So, here is what we did:
We browned hamburger meat. I am, typically, not a fan of taco seasoning (I do not use it when I make tacos), but for this experiment I had a package of chicken taco seasoning that I thought would do just fine. We only used half the package, though.
This was the only cooking needed, so next was assembly. We took a head of iceberg lettuce (I am typically not a fan of iceberg, but this is what was used on the restaurant salad) and tore it up putting in individual bowls. We topped that with the hamburger meat and than sharp cheddar cheese.
The restaurant salad had a dollop of sour cream, dollop of guacamole and a dollop of pico de gallo. We LOVE our local HEB's versions of guacamole and pico de gallo, so we bought that and put said dollops (including the sour cream) on top next.
The restaurant used tortilla chips instead of a tortilla bowl, so we used that. The restaurant also used a lime jalapeno vinaigrette, but we opted to use the olive oil vinaigrette instead (because we had it on hand).
That's it. Simple and yummy. It had the right amount of spice/kick and tasted fresh. I am typically not a huge fan of sour cream, but on this salad it worked.
I still like our old version of taco salad (featured on this blog), but this one was a good alternative.
Tip for copying a restaurant's meal: go to the restaurant's website and look at their menu. You can get a general idea on the ingredients used and can fill in the gaps if you think really hard. I have done this several times and did just that in this case. The difference in taste was simply a difference in the way things were prepared (i.e. guacamole and pico).
Now, generally I object to anyone ordering anything at a restaurant that we can make at home...especially something that is generally made better at home. We make a MEAN taco salad. But, it was my birthday and I decided to let it go.
When the salad appeared, Sierra began eating it and instantly exclaimed at how good this taco salad was. My feelings were, admittedly, hurt. How could she like it more than mine????? I tasted it and agreed that it was, indeed, quite tasty and looked at the elements to see what was in it.
Tonight we duplicated what they did as much as we could. Sierra said it was not quite as good as the restaurants, but she said it was incredibly good. Of course it would not be the same, but I will say this was a great rendition of a salad.
So, here is what we did:
We browned hamburger meat. I am, typically, not a fan of taco seasoning (I do not use it when I make tacos), but for this experiment I had a package of chicken taco seasoning that I thought would do just fine. We only used half the package, though.
This was the only cooking needed, so next was assembly. We took a head of iceberg lettuce (I am typically not a fan of iceberg, but this is what was used on the restaurant salad) and tore it up putting in individual bowls. We topped that with the hamburger meat and than sharp cheddar cheese.
The restaurant salad had a dollop of sour cream, dollop of guacamole and a dollop of pico de gallo. We LOVE our local HEB's versions of guacamole and pico de gallo, so we bought that and put said dollops (including the sour cream) on top next.
The restaurant used tortilla chips instead of a tortilla bowl, so we used that. The restaurant also used a lime jalapeno vinaigrette, but we opted to use the olive oil vinaigrette instead (because we had it on hand).
That's it. Simple and yummy. It had the right amount of spice/kick and tasted fresh. I am typically not a huge fan of sour cream, but on this salad it worked.
I still like our old version of taco salad (featured on this blog), but this one was a good alternative.
Tip for copying a restaurant's meal: go to the restaurant's website and look at their menu. You can get a general idea on the ingredients used and can fill in the gaps if you think really hard. I have done this several times and did just that in this case. The difference in taste was simply a difference in the way things were prepared (i.e. guacamole and pico).
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