Taco Salad sans Taco

A couple months ago, Pineapple brought up the fact that she had been craving an old childhood favorite of hers: taco salad. She asked if I could make it for her--adjusted for my diet of course.

So I decided to give it a try. Historically her taco salad calls for corn chips, sour cream, and ketchup but since I cannot have any of those, I leave them out and use olive oil as a dressing instead. Pineapple, on the other hand, will sometimes add sour cream initially and later she may add ketchup.

My initial stab at making the taco salad was a hit, and so I have been making it 4 times each week since.

We find that with this salad we like to have some citrus, so I will often blend up a limeade which we split. I will also eat a red grapefruit (peeled like an orange and eating only the pulp and not the skin on the segments), sharing a few segments with Pineapple.

Ingredients

• 1-1.5 lbs Ground beef 
• Preferably grass-fed, grass-finished (it's often relatively inexpensive)
• Thawed if frozen
• Salt: Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt is easy to apply via pinching
• Iceberg lettuce
• One or more of the following leafy greens
• Romaine
• Red-leaf Romaine
• Lettuce
• Red-leaf lettuce
• 1 medium-to-large sweet onion
• Cooking oil (I prefer MCT/refined coconut oil)
• Optional: extra virgin olive oil
• Optional: sour cream
• Optional: ketchup

Directions

Onion

1. Peel the onion, throwing out the outermost layer(s)
2. Finely chop the onion
3. Heat skillet or wok on medium and add some oil
4. Add the onion and cook it (still on medium), stirring occasionally, until the onions are caramelized; at minimum translucent at maximum golden tan
5. Set aside the onions, probably in an appropriately-sized bowl

Beef

1. If the ground beef has less than 15% fat (e.g. 10% or 7%) add some oil to the skillet/wok
1. I find that 85/15 beef is ideal while 90/10 or 93/7 are too dry to cook well, even in a non-stick pan, so I add oil to compensate for the missing fat
2. Add the ground beef to the skillet/wok
1. Break it apart in the skillet/wok into bite-sized (or smaller) chunks
3. Add 2 pinches of salt, sprinkled evenly across the beef
4. Cook at medium, stirring occasionally, until all the beef is brown
5. When done, place beef in a bowl

Lettuce

Typically while the beef is cooking, I prepare the greens portion of the salad.

1. Slice off a 2-inch wide chunk of iceberg
1. set the rest aside (probably back in the fridge)
2. Chop that chunk into 1/4-inch wide strips
3. Cut those strips in half if you feel they are too long
4. Set aside the chopped iceberg into a bowl
5. With each of the leafy greens
1. Slice off a reasonable portion
2. Chop it into 1/4-inch wide strips
3. Cut those strips in half if needed
4. Put aside the chopped greens into separate bowls

Salad

The salad is typically self-serve so that each person can control how much of each item to add to their salad. The iceberg adds some crunch, but not a lot of flavor, so I typically use a little bit of iceberg while adding a lot more of the other greens.

1. Take a large bowl or plate
2. Put in some iceberg
3. Add each of the other leafy greens, in turn
4. Mix
5. Scatter some of the ground beef across the top
6. Sprinkle some of the grilled onions
7. Possibly add a pinch of salt, if you need
8. If desired, drizzle some olive oil over the beef and salad
9. If desired, add some sour cream (usually instead of the olive oil)
10. If desired, add some ketchup (you might try the salad without ketchup first, and add this later)
11. Enjoy!