Baked Turkey Tacos

I love tacos. Chicken tacos, steak tacos, but those ground meat tacos are some of my absolute favorites. Pretty much ANY Mexican recipe makes my heart sing… especially when it has a little salsa, a little chip, and a little guacamole.

When I found a recipe on Pinterest for a baked taco with melty cheese, I knew I wanted to make it… and that I wanted to make it healthier than the original recipe poster ever thought it could be without sacrificing an ounce of flavor.

Mission Accomplished!

I also had 1/2 an avocado left over from Sunday night’s Creamy Avocado Basil Alfredo, that I thought I could use it in this dish as a garnish.

My thoughts on this dish: These tacos tasted more like restaurant tacos than any others that I’ve made before!! But what it liked was that orange grease that always oozes out of the shells when you order them at restaurants, there wasn’t any! I didn’t miss that for a single moment! Gross!

Baking the tacos gave the shells a majorly crispy flavor, while making them sort of chewy on the bottom where the meat was. Fresh toppings, melty cheese, and tasty guacamole topped this dish off perfectly! I’ll definitely be eating these again… and I’m thinking the little Guys in Virginia need to try these too (Hint, hint Beth!

Note: The original recipe (link below) included beans and a homemade taco seasoning… if you’re interested in seeing that version, click on the link! 🙂

Baked Turkey Tacos

Inspired by Mommy I’m Hungry via Pinterest

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

4 oz. ground turkey, extra lean

1/4 cup onion, diced

1/4 cup taco sauce

1/4 tsp. taco or fajita seasoning

1/4 cup Kraft fat free mozzarella, shredded

4 taco shells

1/2 avocado

1 roma tomato

lettuce

garlic salt

lime juice

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Brown ground turkey and grind it up in a food processor.

3. Add diced onion to the pan and saute for 1 minute. Re-add the ground turkey to the pan.

4. Add 1/4 cup of taco sauce to the pan, and add additional taco/fajita seasoning (optional.) Saute for about 1-2 minutes, until meat/sauce mixture is combined well and heated.

5. Place taco shells in a small baking dish so that they are standing up. Add about 1/4 of the meat mixture to each of the taco shells. Note: I didn’t realize until I got further into this recipe that I was going to have so much meat! As a result, I just made 1/2 of the meat into tacos and saved the rest for a later dish.

6. Add a tablespoon of cheese to each shell.

7. Bake tacos for 10 minutes. In the meantime, prepare your toppings. Dice tomatoes and shred your lettuce.

8. To prepare an easy guacamole, take 1/2 of a tomato diced and 1/2 an avocado and mash it together in a small bowl. Add a splash of lime juice and garlic salt to taste.