Recipe: Tacos Dorados

While I’m in Mexico living with a host family, I’m determined to learn as many dishes as possible! Tacos dorados don’t seem too difficult to make, and might not be the healthiest (because it’s deep fried in oil), but I felt like sharing it with you in case you wanted something different from the typical tacos and burritos that you know Mexican cuisines for :3

pozoles y taco dorado
Tacos dorados on the left, pozoles on the right!

Ingredients:

  • lots of tortilla skins, corn (maiz) or flour (harina), your choice!
  • 3 medium-sized potatoes (papas)
  • 1 onion (cebolla)
  • 2-3 tomatoes (tomates)
  • (optional) meat (carne) such as chicken, pork, or beef
  • (optional) a few cloves of garlic (ajo)
  • cooking oil (aceite)

Steps:

  1. Scrub down your potatoes and boil them for 15-20 minutes and let cool.
  2. If you’re going to cook with meat, steam the meat until it’s tender and then shred it into fine pieces.
  3. Dice the tomatoes, onion, and garlic into fine pieces.
  4. Heat up a pan and add a touch of oil and sauté the tomatoes, onion, and garlic until they’re a paste-like consistency.Preparing tacos dorados2
  5. Peel the skin from the potatoes and mash them.
  6. Add the potatoes (and meat) to the paste mix until they’re thoroughly mixed together.
  7. Pour cooking oil into a pot until it’s about 5-8 inches filled and heat the pot at medium heat.
  8. Take a tortilla skin, lay it flat, and spoon one spoonful of the tacos dorado mix into the center and fold it flat. Repeat until you used up all of your mix!
    • You want to use a lasa (string) to stagger stack six tacos on top of each other at a time and tie them up firmly. Preparing tacos dorados
  9. Take each stack of tacos and place it gently into the oil, making sure it’s fully submerged. Depending on the size of your pot, you can put more than one stack at a time.
  10. Keep an eye on each stack and flip them maybe after 5-10 minutes, depending on the heat of your oil, until you see a nice golden brown tortilla skin. When you get the color you want, take it out of the pot and lay it on paper towels to drain some of the oil.

After it cools a bit, you’re ready to eat tacos dorados! This makes for a great party dish since it can make so many tacos to feed a large group of people 🙂 Hope you enjoyed! Buen provecho!