Apron Free Cooking ~ Taco Lasagna

By Noel Lizotte

A friend of mine asked the ques­tion this week: What is your “go to” potluck dish?

That got me think­ing. Peo­ple do have a dish they always or almost always take to potlucks. I have a sis­ter who prefers to make desserts and when she’s asked to bring a dish, she’ll bring some­thing sweet. I tend to put together a main dish in my crock-pot, like chili or shred­ded chicken unless some­body places a request. I have a friend whose recipe for dev­iled eggs is top notch and folks are upset if she doesn’t bring them to the dinner.

What hap­pens when you’re asked to pro­vide a dish that’s out­side of your auto­matic con­tri­bu­tion? Do you have a fall back option?

While my sister’s go to recipe cat­e­gory is desserts, she does have a back pocket recipe she pre­pares when asked to bring a main dish. She makes a taco style casse­role. She likes the recipe since it is easy to pre­pare and will serve a fair num­ber of people.

She didn’t share her recipe with me, at least… not yet! But I’ve got a recipe I’ve used that’s similar:

Taco Lasagna

•1 pack­age Soft Tor­tilla Shells

•1 pound Ham­burger ground, browned, drained

•1 jar Salsa

•1 can Tomato Pieces

•1 can Corn whole ker­nel, drained

•1 pack­age Moz­zarella / Ched­dar Cheese shredded

Layer ingre­di­ents in order listed in ingre­di­ents list in 9 inch round bak­ing dish or casse­role. Repeat lay­ers until ingre­di­ents are used. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 min­utes. Serve with sour cream, shred­ded let­tuce and salsa.

Make it a meal: If you’re serv­ing this at home, and not a potluck, you’ll want to dress up your lasagna serv­ings with your favorite Mex­i­can top­pings. I usu­ally serve nachos and cheese sauce on the side. My son always doses his plate lib­er­ally with taco spices!

Approx­i­mate Nutri­tional Value per serv­ing: Serv­ings Per Recipe: 8, Amount Per Serv­ing: Calo­ries: 505, Fat: 23g, Cho­les­terol: 83mg, Sodium: 1152mg, Total Carbs: 44g, Dietary Fiber: 2g, Pro­tein: 33g.

Vari­a­tions: Lower the sodium con­tent by dic­ing toma­toes instead of using the canned ver­sion. Add a layer of refried beans. Add black beans and diced green pep­pers with the corn layer.

I’ve made this dish for potlucks and usu­ally bring home an empty casse­role dish. The nice thing about it, I can use it as a main dish or a side dish.

Potlucks are a great chance to try new foods and sam­ple other people’s cook­ing. I think it’s a good idea to take tried and true recipes to the table, but some­times it’s a chal­lenge. Espe­cially when the orga­niz­ers announce the potluck will have a theme!

The best potluck dishes are portable, require low cost ingre­di­ents and feed a crowd. If you’re look­ing for some new recipes, you’ll want to con­sider how the recipe meets those con­sid­er­a­tions. But when some­body calls and says “We’re hav­ing a potluck, bring a dish” then I say … take your standby and enjoy the meal!

Noel Lizotte is break­ing free of cor­po­rate stress with con­ve­nience cook­ing! This recipe is sim­i­lar to ones printed in her cook­book Apron Free Cook­ing which is avail­able on the web­site www.apronfreecooking.com. She also writes a monthly col­umn at www.culinarychat.net.

Posted by Noel Lizotte on Jul 24 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.