Dec 01, 2003
This deserves ten stars! Absolutely amazing dish. I made this when I was visiting my parents and it was a HUGE hit. None of us were expecting to be so crazy about it, but wow.
I'm trying to cut red meat out of my parents' diets, so I substituted the beef with turkey--without telling them (my dad wouldn't have tried it otherwise). I added some spices--cumin, season all, a couple of different kinds of pepper. I also did as others suggested and used one can black beans, one can spicy refried beans. I would up forgetting to add the taco seasoning, but it definitely wasn't missed. Instead of taco sauce, I used chunky salsa. I served it with a handful of shredded lettuce, a couple of spoonfuls of fat free sour cream, and extra salsa on the top.
This made a nice sized casserole--I had to cut the tortillas to fit, though, because I bought the extra large ones and only had a...whatever the normal size cass. dish is. It's a very filling meal, and mom ended up freezing half of it, which she told me they plan on eating this coming week. There was *still* enough for us to have left overs the next day--it tasted just as good after a night in the fridge, by the way.
Fat free tortillas aren't your best bet for this, just fyi. I was hesitant about them, so I only used one in the middle, the rest were regular tortillas. Upon later inspection, the fat free tortilla kind of dissolved. So use fat free sour cream and use your fat grams for the cheese and tortillas. It's worth it!
—LED