National Taco Day - Recipes & Reviews

Today is National Taco Day, the most hallowed of culinary days in my cocina (kitchen.) I can have tacos morning, noon and night. So read on and you'll know what I mean - just click on any taco name, or highlighted text, to see all the tasty details from my blogpost recipe or review.

In the morning it's spicy Mexican chorizo with scrambled eggs and refried beans nestled into a warm corn tortilla.

Breakfast Tacos

And my Chorizo & Egg Taco is about as cheap as you can get. I get Mexican chorizo from the 99c only Store natch, and all kinds too, like beef, pork and even soy (which is a recent favorite.) Eggs still show up at my local Dollar Tree.

The simplest breakfast taco to make is one made of Scrambled Eggs & Refried Beans. You can used canned refried beans or make my Homemade Mexican-style Pinto Beans.

And for Breakfast Tacos, it all about the salsa toppings. I like salsa from a jar, but sometime I just gotta go for it and make my own Homemade Salsa, and it's easy to do.

I'm ready to party on this auspicious day, and when this cheap$kate does it you can bet pennies will be pinched without a sacrifice in flavor. For my backyard soirée it's my favorite taco: a slow-cooked pork Carnitas. Just check out my video below to see what I'm writing about.



I buy a 5 to 6 pound budget pork shoulder, and I can get a couple dozen tacos out of it, too.

 And boy it's the perfect budget recipe that your friends and neighbors will line up for. You let them do most of the work -- they get to build each taco to suit their taste. I like to set out some chopped onion and cilantro. You can make your taco bar any way you like, go ahead and add a bowl of shredded cheese, chopped lettuce and tomato, and a cheap jar of salsa, too.

Chicken is one cheap protein. My Chicken Tinga recipe will have your guest coming back for seconds...and thirds! Chicken Tinga is a stew simmered in tomato sauce with a can of spicy chipotle peppers, but you can make a mild version with a can of enchilada sauce.

 Chicken Tinga

One of my most unique tacos came about one summer while on vacation at our spectacular national parks in Utah. I stopped to eat and had an Indian Frybread Taco. Frybread is flour dough that's rolled out and deep fried. You top the frybread with chili beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese.

Frybread Taco

Carne Asada, or grilled steak, is a favorite taco of mine. Just make my marinade for thin sliced steak, let it set for an hour, then slap it on the grill. After the Carne Asada is done you chop it up and serve on a corn tortilla

Carne Asada Taco

The marinade is a simple mix of lime juice, oil, cilantro, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper.

Drive anywhere in Los Angeles and you will see taco trucks, sidewalk taco vendors, and taquerias on almost every street. And I've stopped at most of them. What follows are a few of my faves - with a few recipes I cribbed from them, too.

When I moved to Los Angeles over 40 years ago, I discovered the taco truck. Boy, have they evolved over the years. In the beginning it was just hamburgers and tacos made with ground beef. Well, that all changed about 9 years ago when a hotel chef named Roy Choi, who was down but not out, rebounded from couch surfing to start Kogi Taco Truck.

A fellow co-conspirator came up with the idea of a Korean taco, and Roy Choi assembled the taco ingredients of Korean barbecue short ribs with an kimchi-style coleslaw, served on corn tortillas. His truck was an instant hit, and Kogi jump-started the ongoing nouveau taco truck renaissance.

Kogi is still around and I still love them. Check out my video below, where I hang out night and day, for L.A.'s most uniquely mouthwatering taco.



Inspired by Kogi's mashup of Korean BBQ and Mexican Tacos, I came up with the Loxaco, that combines Jewish and Mexican cuisines.

A Loxaco is comprised of homemade lox (cured salmon) in a fast food crunchy taco shell topped with cream cheese and thin sliced red onion. I introduced this preposterous concoction at a book signing in Libros Schmibros, a lending library in East Los Angeles. How did it go over with book lovers? The following video is a twofer, you get a recipe plus a literary happening scene.



After a double feature at my fave art house cinematheque like the Egyptian or New Beverly Theater, on the way home I swing by Leo's Taco for a few al pastor pork tacos. They just cost a $1.25, and the line can be long, now that the word is out.

This is porcine perfection on a paper plate. It's tender and flavorful grilled marinated pork, that's cooked in front of a gas grill called a trompo. A cook manning the grill slices off thin slivers, finishing the taco with flare: a flying slice of pineapple. Check out the yummy action below.



I've followed the Two Hot Tamales from the beginning, when the Border Grill was in a storefront with half a dozen tables on Melrose Avenue. Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken are fixtures on the L.A. dining scene who jumped on the taco truck train, bringing their neuvo take on Mexican cuisine to four wheels. They primarily park their taco truck in the environs of Silicon Valley West Coast, Santa Monica.



My Tacos El Primo video review has gone viral. That means this YouTube video gets thousands of views per month - right now it is pushing half a million. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see... in this video I review Buche and Tripas tacos, or tacos made from slow-cooked stomach and intestine. Gross right? One thing I noticed is half my visitors are from Mexico, so maybe half my audience is curious how gringos react to offal.

That doesn't seem interesting enough really, but hey, what do I know, I'll take it. I did the taco review because Tacos El Primo was a midnight munchies stop on my return home from various Hollywood treks.

When you have a neighborhood food stop, you eventually dive deeper and try eats you would not normally taste.

Tripas (intestine) Taco

Well, join the multitudes and check out my Cheap$kate video review of Tacos El Primo.



Deep fried Fish Tacos are one of L.A.'s great culinary contributions. These battered depth charges of crunchy perfection are based on the street food of Baja Mexico and other coastal communities. If you like British Fish & Chips, you will love Fried Fish Tacos.

Fish Taco

The battered fillets of fish are typically served on corn tortillas and topped with a white crema and chopped cabbage. I have my own recipe for Fish Tacos you can see by clicking on the recipe name.

And this is the best taco deal in town: Today (Wednesdays) is $1 Fish Taco day at Tacos Baja! Yeah, that's what you heard - don't believe me? Just watch the video below and see it for yourself.



Celebrate National Taco Day with me today. Hey, celebrate it any day now that I've shown you a slew of taco recipes you can make easily and cheaply.

And I'll end with a queasy taco review, from of all places, Jack In The Box's 2 for 99 cent tacos...ugh, watch it with a barf bag.

National Taco Day - Recipes & Reviews

Today is National Taco Day, the most hallowed of culinary days in my cocina (kitchen.) I can have tacos morning, noon and night. So read on and you'll know what I mean - just click on any taco name, or highlighted text, to see all the tasty details from my blogpost recipe or review.

In the morning it's spicy Mexican chorizo with scrambled eggs and refried beans nestled into a warm corn tortilla.

Breakfast Tacos

And my Chorizo & Egg Taco is about as cheap as you can get. I get Mexican chorizo from the 99c only Store natch, and all kinds too, like beef, pork and even soy (which is a recent favorite.) Eggs still show up at my local Dollar Tree.

The simplest breakfast taco to make is one made of Scrambled Eggs & Refried Beans. You can used canned refried beans or make my Homemade Mexican-style Pinto Beans.

And for Breakfast Tacos, it all about the salsa toppings. I like salsa from a jar, but sometime I just gotta go for it and make my own Homemade Salsa, and it's easy to do.

I'm ready to party on this auspicious day, and when this cheap$kate does it you can bet pennies will be pinched without a sacrifice in flavor. For my backyard soirée it's my favorite taco: a slow-cooked pork Carnitas. Just check out my video below to see what I'm writing about.



I buy a 5 to 6 pound budget pork shoulder, and I can get a couple dozen tacos out of it, too.

 And boy it's the perfect budget recipe that your friends and neighbors will line up for. You let them do most of the work -- they get to build each taco to suit their taste. I like to set out some chopped onion and cilantro. You can make your taco bar any way you like, go ahead and add a bowl of shredded cheese, chopped lettuce and tomato, and a cheap jar of salsa, too.

Chicken is one cheap protein. My Chicken Tinga recipe will have your guest coming back for seconds...and thirds! Chicken Tinga is a stew simmered in tomato sauce with a can of spicy chipotle peppers, but you can make a mild version with a can of enchilada sauce.

 Chicken Tinga

One of my most unique tacos came about one summer while on vacation at our spectacular national parks in Utah. I stopped to eat and had an Indian Frybread Taco. Frybread is flour dough that's rolled out and deep fried. You top the frybread with chili beans, lettuce, tomato and cheese.

Frybread Taco

Carne Asada, or grilled steak, is a favorite taco of mine. Just make my marinade for thin sliced steak, let it set for an hour, then slap it on the grill. After the Carne Asada is done you chop it up and serve on a corn tortilla

Carne Asada Taco

The marinade is a simple mix of lime juice, oil, cilantro, cumin, garlic, salt and pepper.

Drive anywhere in Los Angeles and you will see taco trucks, sidewalk taco vendors, and taquerias on almost every street. And I've stopped at most of them. What follows are a few of my faves - with a few recipes I cribbed from them, too.

When I moved to Los Angeles over 40 years ago, I discovered the taco truck. Boy, have they evolved over the years. In the beginning it was just hamburgers and tacos made with ground beef. Well, that all changed about 9 years ago when a hotel chef named Roy Choi, who was down but not out, rebounded from couch surfing to start Kogi Taco Truck.

A fellow co-conspirator came up with the idea of a Korean taco, and Roy Choi assembled the taco ingredients of Korean barbecue short ribs with an kimchi-style coleslaw, served on corn tortillas. His truck was an instant hit, and Kogi jump-started the ongoing nouveau taco truck renaissance.

Kogi is still around and I still love them. Check out my video below, where I hang out night and day, for L.A.'s most uniquely mouthwatering taco.



Inspired by Kogi's mashup of Korean BBQ and Mexican Tacos, I came up with the Loxaco, that combines Jewish and Mexican cuisines.

A Loxaco is comprised of homemade lox (cured salmon) in a fast food crunchy taco shell topped with cream cheese and thin sliced red onion. I introduced this preposterous concoction at a book signing in Libros Schmibros, a lending library in East Los Angeles. How did it go over with book lovers? The following video is a twofer, you get a recipe plus a literary happening scene.


After a double feature at my fave art house cinematheque like the Egyptian or New Beverly Theater, on the way home I swing by Leo's Taco for a few al pastor pork tacos. They just cost a $1.25, and the line can be long, now that the word is out.

This is porcine perfection on a paper plate. It's tender and flavorful grilled marinated pork, that's cooked in front of a gas grill called a trompo. A cook manning the grill slices off thin slivers, finishing the taco with flare: a flying slice of pineapple. Check out the yummy action below.



I've followed the Two Hot Tamales from the beginning, when the Border Grill was in a storefront with half a dozen tables on Melrose Avenue. Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken are fixtures on the L.A. dining scene who jumped on the taco truck train, bringing their neuvo take on Mexican cuisine to four wheels. They primarily park their taco truck in the environs of Silicon Valley West Coast, Santa Monica.



My Tacos El Primo video review has gone viral. That means this YouTube video gets thousands of views per month - right now it is pushing half a million. Why? I'm not sure. Let's see... in this video I review Buche and Tripas tacos, or tacos made from slow-cooked stomach and intestine. Gross right? One thing I noticed is half my visitors are from Mexico, so maybe half my audience is curious how gringos react to offal.

That doesn't seem interesting enough really, but hey, what do I know, I'll take it. I did the taco review because Tacos El Primo was a midnight munchies stop on my return home from various Hollywood treks.

When you have a neighborhood food stop, you eventually dive deeper and try eats you would not normally taste.

Tripas (intestine) Taco

Well, join the multitudes and check out my Cheap$kate video review of Tacos El Primo.



Deep fried Fish Tacos are one of L.A.'s great culinary contributions. These battered depth charges of crunchy perfection are based on the street food of Baja Mexico and other coastal communities. If you like British Fish & Chips, you will love Fried Fish Tacos.

Fish Taco

The battered fillets of fish are typically served on corn tortillas and topped with a white crema and chopped cabbage. I have my own recipe for Fish Tacos you can see by clicking on the recipe name.

And this is the best taco deal in town: Today (Wednesdays) is $1 Fish Taco day at Tacos Baja! Yeah, that's what you heard - don't believe me? Just watch the video below and see it for yourself.



Celebrate National Taco Day with me today. Hey, celebrate it any day now that I've shown you a slew of taco recipes you can make easily and cheaply.

And I'll end with a queasy taco review, from of all places, Jack In The Box's 2 for 99 cent tacos...ugh, watch it with a barf bag.

Breakfast Salsa Tacos - Leftovers Series

Usually when I make Carnitas Tacos from scratch there are leftovers. We threw a party for my father-in-law Bob on his 80th birthday this summer. There were 10 of us to feed and I cooked 2 whole pork shoulders (click here for my Pork Carnitas Recipe.) I also made homemade Pinto Beans and Mexican Rice. It was such a big hit, that all the Carnitas were eaten -- so no leftovers there.

To get the birthday party rolling I made 6 homemade salsas served with a big bowl of store-bought tortilla chips. Since the main entree, and the beans and rice, were made a day ahead, I wanted something fresh, so the salsas were made the day of the party with veggies, fruit and pungent dried (and rehydrated) chilis.

For my salsa party recipes, just click on any name listed here: Roasted Salsa Verde (tomatillo,) Red Chili (2 dried types - but same recipe,) Pico de Gallo, Mango, and Avocado Crema. I had a lot of salsa leftovers - mainly Mango, Roasted Salsa Verde and the 2 Red Chilis. Not that the guests didn't like the leftover ones, they raved about them, especially the Mango Salsa, I just made a lot.

So the easiest way I thought to use up the salsas was to make Breakfast Salsa Tacos. I combined two of my favorite Mexican Taco recipes, Scrambled Eggs with Refried Beans, and Mexican Chorizo and Eggs (click on the names to see the complete recipes.)

Homemade salsas are so delicious and will keep in the refrigerator for about 5 to 7 days. And the cooked salsas, Red Chili and Roasted Salsa Verde (tomatillo,) can be frozen for later use.

My homemade salsas add appetizing color and intense flavors. I also used Soy Chorizo that I get from my local 99 cent only Store. Corn tortillas, pinto beans and eggs are cheap too. It's quite impressive when you serve this colorful breakfast made from humble ingredients.

Using fresh made salsa is such a refreshing way to start the day. So read on as I take you step-by-step on my Breakfast Salsa Taco cooking journey.

Ingredients ( enough for 2-3 people)

• 4 eggs - I used large eggs.
• 3 to 4 tablespoons Mexican Chorizo - the soft kind. I used Soy Chorizo, okay to use beef or pork chorizo.
• 3 tablespoon cooked pinto beans - homemade or from the can.
• Corn tortillas - about 6 to 8. I used the small taquera or taco truck ones (measures 4 inches across.) Of course, okay to use regular larger ones. Also, you can use flour or wheat tortillas.
• A few teaspoons of cooking oil, or leftover pork fat and broth from Carnitas - which I used.
• No seasoning necessary as Chorizo and beans have plenty of salt - at least for me.

Directions
Get out the salsas to bring to room temperature, so they are ready to top your tacos.

In my original Chorizo and Eggs recipe listed above I cooked the two ingredients together. For this recipe I cooked the chorizo by itself, adding it to the Refried Beans and Eggs later.

I get things going by adding a teaspoon of oil (or leftover Carnitas broth/fat) in my frying pan, over a medium heat. I add the chorizo and cook and stir it until the liquid is cooked away the the chorizo is crumbly, but still a little moist - about 3 to 5 minutes.

Remove it from the pan when done and set aside. Add more oil if needed and spoon-in the 3 tablespoons of cooked pinto beans. Add a tablespoon of the liquid too. Use a fork and mash the pinto beans. You will form a chunky paste. Stir and heat beans through, about 3 minutes.

Now add the 4 eggs. I like to break the yokes and cook it a minute until the eggs start to set - without stirring. That way you get nice egg pieces and it's not all brown from over-stiring.

At this point see the paragraph below and start the tortillas heating up.

Once eggs are semi-cooked break it all apart and loosely stir it together. Just cook eggs until they are at your desired scramble doneness. About 3 to 5 minutes total.

(If you like your eggs well scrambled, so the white and yoke are blended, then mix eggs in a separate bowl, add them to refried beans. I would still let the eggs set for a minute, then start slowly mixing it all together.)

Once the eggs have cooked for a minute, that's when you start the tortillas heating up. I add a little pork fat or oil to a grill or frying pan and start heating the tortillas over a medium heat. If the tortillas cook too fast, then just drop the heat to low and stack the tortillas and flip them, from time-to-time, until eggs are done.

You can heat the torilllas a little or char them, it's up to you. It takes just 30 seconds, to a minute, for each side to heat through. It's okay to cook all the tortillas ahead and wrap them in a paper towel (to keep warm) and place them on a plate. You can even give them a 20 second microwave to reheat them when the eggs are done.

When the eggs are almost done, I move them to one side of the pan and add the cooked chorizo to heat it up, too. Cook eggs until desired doneness. You could also microwave cooked chorizo for 15 to 30 seconds, if your pan is too small.

That's it, now you just assemble the Breakfast Salsa Tacos by adding some eggs and chorizo to the warm corn tortilla and top with any salsa, or combination of salsas.

Hindsight
It's easy tweak the the main ingredients to balance the tacos your way. Do you like a lot of egg and no chorizo? How about mainly chorizo and refried beans? It's all good. Just break an extra egg or two, or add another scoop of chorizo and refried beans.

It's best to keep leftover salsa in the refrigerator until you get to cooking. Bring the salsas to room temperature before serving.

You can use a favorite cooking oil instead of leftover Carnitas broth/fat (if you are making these Breakfast Salsa Tacos from scratch.) And, of course, you can use your preferred jarred salsa, too.