Taco nights are a whole lot of fun, but those crunchy tortilla shells sure can make a mess.

May we suggest you replace the classic taco with a “walking” taco?

Similar to one form of what folks in the American Southwest know as a Frito Pie, the “walking” taco uses a small single-serving bag of chips as the shell base for each eater. Then you can add meats, cheeses, beans and any other toppings you want to each serving. We love making our homemade salsa and some simple guacamole to add to ours!

The name comes from the ease with which you can carry your taco safely in the bag and move around if you like. That makes it the perfect party food for events like Super Bowl Sunday.

Offering “walking” tacos is like serving a taco bar that can also be low on mess and cleanup afterward, especially if you prepare your meat and other ingredients ahead of time or use leftovers, and it’s so much fun to make and eat! You won’t even need plates for serving.

In our house, we love meals that include a lot of customization options for each diner or each bite, and this hits that vein perfectly. There’s a never-ending lineup of options you can assemble.

We buy a lot of Aldi store-brand products, so we don’t usually purchase name-brand Doritos, Fritos and other chips, but you can certainly do that and stick to the names you know. So far, we find of the store-brand options we prefer the nacho cheese chips over the ranch variety of Doritos-style snacks. In similar recipes across food blogs I’ve seen some moms saying they have family members who love “Flamin’ Hot” Cheetos for their “walking” tacos.

Any way you set it up, this is a fun way to have dinner, food for a party or just something exciting and new for yourself!

 

“Walking” Tacos

What You Need

Single-serving (small) bags of chips (Doritos and Fritos varieties work great, though you can choose any others.)

1 pound cooked, seasoned ground beef, ground turkey or shredded chicken

1 can heated pinto, black or other beans (You can also use home-cooked, which we highly recommend!)

shredded cheese (Your choice of type, though regular cheddar is great for this.)

salsa (We love our homemade recipe.)

sour cream

guacamole

What You Do

1. Once your meat and beans are cooked, and you have prepared your other toppings, follow these steps for each serving.

2. Slightly crush your bag of chips to break into smaller pieces just a bit.

3. You can open your bag one of two ways. You can use the regular top, or you can cut longways with scissors to have a larger opening to eat from.

4. Add two spoons full of meat to your bag of chips.

5. Add one or two spoons full of beans to your bag.

6. Add a spoon or two of shredded cheese.

7. Stir around your ingredients with a spoon to help mix everything up well.

8. Add your desired amount of salsa, sour cream, guacamole and other topping ingredients to the top.

9. Stir in the bag again if you like to incorporate all of your toppings.

10. Eat!

Yield: If you have about 8 snack-size bags of chips, the above suggestion of meat and beans will probably work, unless members of your family eat more meat and beans in each bag. Then, you’ll want to have more ingredients available.