Light, fresh, and full of flavor—Chef John’s Taco Beef Lettuce Cups are a low-carb twist on a classic taco night favorite. In this video, Chef John shows you how to make perfectly seasoned taco beef served in crisp lettuce leaves and topped with all your favorite fixings.
00:00Hello, this is Chef John from FoodWishes.com with Taco Beef Lettuce Cups.
00:08That's right, we're giving crispy taco shells the day off.
00:12And instead, we'll be filling nice, fresh, crisp lettuce cups with what I think is the best, easiest, most crowd-pleasing ground beef taco filling I know.
00:22And to get started, what we'll do is add some sliced green onions to a little bit of vegetable oil, set over high heat.
00:28And then we'll also be transferring in one pound of lean ground beef, which as usual, we'll break up with a spatula.
00:36And by the way, you could use any onion for this.
00:39But what I love about the green onion is that we can use the white part and light green parts to saute with.
00:44And then we can save and slice up the dark green parts and use that to garnish.
00:49But anyway, like I said, we'll break that meat up with our spatula.
00:52Not super fine at this point, but fairly small, into something that looks like this.
00:59And once we reach this stage, we'll reduce our heat to medium-high.
01:03And then we'll flavor and season this up with some salt, followed by some freshly ground black pepper, some garlic powder.
01:10We will also want to do some chili powder, of course, followed by some ground cumin, as well as three or four shakes of cayenne, just to warm things up a bit.
01:20And then I think we also want a nice big pinch of oregano, ideally Mexican oregano if you can find it.
01:27But if not, regular will work.
01:29And then we'll finish up with some tomato paste, as well as my one and only secret ingredient, some tomato ketchup, which is going to add a touch of sweetness,
01:39plus give us that little bit of hint of warming spice in the background.
01:41And what we'll do is cook this stirring for about a minute, at which point we'll kind of spread everything out into a nice even layer.
01:49And then we'll let it cook for another minute or two, without stirring it.
01:53Since what we want to have happen is this mixture to dry out a little bit, to the point where things start to caramelize onto the bottom.
02:00So let me go ahead and grab a spatula and give you a good look at what I mean.
02:06All right, you see how those crumbles of meat are taking on a little bit of browning?
02:09That right there is exactly what we want.
02:12And not only is that going to make our taco beef look better, it's going to make it taste better.
02:17So once that's happened, we'll give it another mix and then spread it out again.
02:22And we will give it a second crustification, which is plenty for me.
02:27But if you want to go for a third, feel free.
02:29Just be careful not to go too far, since golden brown is good.
02:33But we want to try to avoid any golden black.
02:36And that's it.
02:37Once we've done the old crust and stir twice, we will finish up by tossing in a nice big splash of cold fresh water.
02:44And we'll go ahead and stir that in.
02:47And basically what we're doing here is rehydrating the meat.
02:50And adding some moisture back in that just got evaporated out when we were doing the crusting step.
02:55And at this point, it's decision time.
02:58Right, this is now pretty much ready to use whenever we want.
03:01And we could, if we want, leave it kind of saucy.
03:03Or we could actually let it crustify again to get a drier, stickier version.
03:09And personally, as I tend to do, I'm going to go somewhere in between both.
03:12But anyway, right about here, I was very happy with the appearance.
03:17And it smelled incredible.
03:19So I went ahead and turned off the heat and grabbed a spoon.
03:22So we can give this one more stir.
03:24And of course, taste for seasoning and adjust if need be.
03:28But mine was tasting absolutely perfect.
03:30And once it is, we can arrange our lettuce cups on a tray.
03:33And for this, I highly recommend you use butter lettuce or bib lettuce, which features these perfectly shaped cup-like leaves.
03:42And yes, some are going to be nice and big like this one.
03:44And others are going to be half the size.
03:46But that's fine.
03:48The people that are going to be enjoying this are also going to be different sized.
03:52So we got that going for us, which is nice.
03:55And that's it.
03:56We'll take our still warm taco beef.
03:57And we will fill our cups up with as much as we think will fit.
04:03Oh, and I should mention, you don't have to portion for your guests.
04:06You can set this up as a taco beef lettuce cup bar.
04:09And have all your lettuce in one bowl, and your beef in another, and your fixings around the side.
04:14So if you'd rather do that, go ahead.
04:17I mean, you are after all the eon flux of your taco beef lettuce cups.
04:21But no matter which way you go, people are going to be very animated when they start eating these.
04:26And that's it.
04:28We'll finish up very simply by garnishing with some shredded Monterey Jack.
04:32Or the taco cheese of your choice.
04:34And since I really want the taco beef to be the star, I'm not going to overdo it with the toppings.
04:39Okay, I think just a little pinch on each is perfect.
04:42And then I'm also going to do a little scattering of finely diced red onion.
04:46Followed by some diced tomato.
04:49Or if you wanted, you could use like a mild tomato salsa.
04:53But I think the beef is so perfectly seasoned.
04:55I do prefer the plain diced tomato.
04:58And then we will finish up with a little bit of freshly sliced green onion.
05:02And that's it.
05:03Our taco beef lettuce cups are ready to enjoy.
05:06And that, my friends, I think is the perfect delivery system for this very flavorful, very savory beef.
05:13And that's coming from someone who absolutely loves and grew up eating crispy beef tacos.
05:17And I'm always up for enjoying some of those.
05:20But I have to say, I really do like these just as much.
05:23And as I mentioned earlier, if you learn this version, you've actually learned lots of different versions.
05:30Since instead of beef, you could use pork or chicken or turkey or lamb.
05:34And instead of taco seasoning, you could do a Middle Eastern take or an Asian take.
05:39So I think this is a really fun recipe to experiment with.
05:43And maybe you and the kids can get together and come up with your own signature version.
05:48And while I think the optimal temperature to enjoy this meat would be warm,
05:52these are also really, really good at room temp,
05:55which makes it perfect to bring to that party when you weren't sure what to bring.
05:58But you know you have to bring something.
06:01And with these, that thing might be the best thing.
06:04But no matter what temp you serve these at,
06:06or how you tweak things to your own taste,
06:09these taco beef lettuce cups are a fun, frugal, easy thing to make.
06:13And I really do hope you give them a try soon.
06:16So please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts,
06:20a printable written recipe, and much more info as usual.
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