| Level: | Easy |
| Total: | 40 min |
| Active: | 40 min |
| Yield: | 4 servings |
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pounds ground beef
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt, or more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne
- Butter, for frying
- 8 corn tortillas
- 12 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated
- Shredded lettuce, for serving
- Pico de Gallo, recipe follows
- 5 plum (Roma) tomatoes
- 3 jalapeno peppers
- 1/2 large (or 1 small) yellow onion
- 1 bunch fresh cilantro
- Juice of 1/2 lime
- Kosher salt
Instructions
- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, brown the ground beef, 5 to 8 minutes. Drain the excess fat. Add the tomato paste, chili powder, cumin, salt, cayenne and 1 cup water and stir to combine. Bring to a boil, lower to a simmer and simmer until thickened, 8 to 10 minutes. Keep warm.
- Heat a separate skillet over medium heat. Smear butter on the bottom and place a tortilla in the skillet. Top the tortilla with some of the cheese and a second tortilla and cook until the bottom side is brown and the cheese begins to melt, about 2 minutes. Flip and cook the other side another 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer to a plate and keep warm. Repeat with the remaining tortillas and cheese, adding additional butter as needed.
- Top each quesadilla with a generous helping of the beef mixture, then top with some lettuce and Pico de Gallo.
- Chop the tomatoes, jalapenos and onions into very small dice (leave the seeds in your jalapenos for a hotter pico, or remove for a milder pico). Next, chop up a nice-size bunch of cilantro. Just remove and discard the long leafless stems before chopping. No need to remove the leaves from the stems completely. Place all of these ingredients together in a bowl and give it a good stir. Squeeze the juice of the lime half into the bowl. Add salt to taste and stir again.
Nutrition Facts
| Serving Size | 1 of 4 servings |
| Calories | 1415 |
| Total Fat | 120 g |
| Saturated Fat | 66 g |
| Carbohydrates | 34 g |
| Dietary Fiber | 7 g |
| Sugar | 6 g |
| Protein | 56 g |
| Cholesterol | 348 mg |
| Sodium | 1250 mg |
Reviews
Delicious and so easy to make.
This was great! Easy for a novice and the best part is this recipe made dad (me) look like a hero in front of the kids. Thank you Pioneer Women!
This was great. Another great recipe from the Pioneer Woman.
Great twist on traditional tacos.
So tasty. We are vegetarian so didnthis with retried beans. It was a great change to Taco Tuesday!!
Really good! I forgot to add the tomato paste to the meat but it tasted fine without it. The corn tortillas brown up nicely in the butter. I can’t wait to make them again.
These are amazing!!! Such a nice alternative to regular tacos! The pico is delicious!!
Wow, this was delicious! Very easy and quick. I wish I had crisped the tortillas a bit longer. I didn’t have ingredients for pico de gallo so I used salsa, and I used cheddar cheese instead. Still great! I’ll definitely make this again and try different variations
These were so good! Definitely making them again. We used salsa instead of the tomato paste
Delicious and perfectly spiced. Omitted the cayenne for the kids and then added it in for me and my husband. Finally the perfect recipe to replace the MSG packages of flavoring