We love making tacos in our household because, other than the obvious delicious factor, they’re so versatile. With a pack of tortillas you can let your creativity flow, filling them with a variety of ingredients to your liking, and the more times you make tacos the closer you’ll get to finding the right balance of ingredients, because, after all, hitting that balance is what makes a memorable taco.
When we make tacos at home we prep all the ingredients and then stop there. We set up a taco bar with the prepared food and each person then fills their own tacos, preferably using some of each ingredient in order to get a good balance of flavors, but taking the amount of each they’re comfortable with. We like to have a mix of spice, acidity, sweet, smoky, soft and crunch. Below is a rough recipe of what we’ve come up with for our ideal breakfast taco.
Breakfast is served
RECIPE: Breakfast Tacos
Serves: 2 (2-3 tacos each)
Ingredients*:
- 6 corn tortillas
- ¼ cup of good mayonnaise (we prefer Sir Kensington's or The Ojai Cook)
- 2-3 chipotles in adobo sauce, plus adobo sauce to your liking
- 2 pieces of bacon
- 1 lime, quartered into wedges
- 1 ear of corn
- 1 bell pepper, seeded and diced
- 1 tomato, cored and diced
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 4 eggs, beaten just until blended
- Freshly grated cheese (cheddar, monterey jack, cojita or queso fresco)
- ½ - 1 avocado, diced
- Handful of cilantro, washed and roughly chopped
- Optional: hot sauce (we like Melinda's)
To Prepare:
- Cook the bacon: follow directions on the package, using a medium sized skillet on the stovetop. Set aside to cool and crisp before crumbling. Save the fat in the pan.
- Make the spicy mayo: in a food processor blend the mayonnaise, chipotles and the juice of one lime wedge, scraping down the sides as necessary. Taste and add more adobo sauce or lime juice to your liking. Set aside.
- Make the salsa: Bring a wide saucepan of water to a boil and add the ear of corn for 1 minute. Remove the corn, run it under cool water and slice the kernels off the cob. Add to a bowl with the diced bell pepper, tomato and onion. Mix together with sea salt, freshly cracked black pepper and some fresh lime juice to your liking.
- Slow scramble the eggs: reheat the bacon fat, which should still be in the skillet that you cooked the bacon in, over medium-low heat. Once hot, add the eggs and slowly cook, stirring very frequently until cooked through but creamy.
- Heat the tortillas: while the eggs are cooking, enlist an extra set of hands to help with this or be very careful. Light another burner on medium and place one tortilla on top of the flame for about 30 - 45 seconds or until charred in several spots, keeping a very close eye on it. Using tongs, turn tortilla over and repeat for the other side. Keep the finished tortilla warm by wrapping it in a clean dish towel. Repeat with the remaining tortillas, adding them to the dish towel.
- Serve the warm tortillas alongside all the prepared ingredients. We usually spread some spicy mayo on each tortilla, top with eggs, followed by cheese so it starts to melt from the heat of the eggs, then salsa, bacon and avocado before garnishing with cilantro and a squeeze of lime juice. Top with hot sauce if you’d like.
*The ingredients for the spicy mayo and salsa are enough to last you for at least another day or two of breakfast tacos. If you don’t want that much, feel free to cut those ingredients down or save the extra mayo to spread on sandwiches or eat as a dip and the salsa to top off salads or to eat with tortilla chips.
