Easy Taco Pasta Salad Recipe And Meal Plan

This easy taco pasta salad recipe makes an easy and tasty one dish meal. It’s a great way to use leftover meat and veggies, too!

Taco Pasta Salad Recipe And Easy Menu

Tips:

When making cornbread, I grease a cast iron skillet with bacon grease. Then, I heat it in a 400 degree oven until it is really hot. It should sizzle when a couple of drops or water are dropped in it . Watch it carefully until it is ready. Then, I pour the cornbread batter into it, adjust the oven temperature to what is called for by the recipe directions and continue baking.
Store cleaned celery upright in a wide glass or cup filled half full of water in the fridge until you are ready to use it. The Victorians made special vases for this very purpose. This is a good way to store other things like parsley or cleaned carrots.
Cleaning the microwave. Sometimes we make things so much more difficult and expensive than they need to be. Here is an example:

The actual tip says, “Heat water and vinegar to clean the microwave.”

But here’s the easy way: You don’t need to bother with the vinegar at all. It really doesn’t work any better than plain water. If you keep on top of cleaning your microwave, you can make it even easier by heating up a cup of water for tea. Then you can wipe the microwave just before you sit down and enjoy your tea. Keep it simple!

Recipes:

Taco Pasta Salad

6 Tbsp. water
1/2 envelope taco seasoning
1/2 lb. cooked hamburger or 1 cup cooked chicken
8 oz. rotini or some type of pasta, cooked, drained and rinsed
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped
1/2 cup onion, chopped
1 tomato, chopped
1 can (2 oz.) sliced black olives
8 oz. shredded Colby jack cheese or your favorite kind of cheese
1 (8oz.) bottle Catalina or red French salad dressing*

Combine taco sseasoning and water in a medium skillet. Bring to a boil. Add meat, simmering for 5-10 minutes until most of the liquid has evaporated. Set aside to cool while you chop the veggies. Pour the pasta in large bowl along with everything else, tossing to coat it with the dressing. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

*This seems like a lot of dressing so you can adjust it and all the ingredients to your own taste. Rotisserie chicken is great for this too.

Non Fondue Dessert

1 small (3 oz.) package of instant pudding*
1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup sour cream
8 oz. container of whipped topping

Mix the pudding and milk. Add sour cream and fold in whipped topping. Chill 5 hours or overnight. Serve with cake cubes or fruit.

* You can use cooked pudding if you like. Just be sure to let it cool before you add the rest of the ingredients.

For more quick and easy recipes like these, check out our Dining On A Dime Cookbook!

Comments

Rachel H says
January 16, 2014 at 9:13 am

I’d like to do some kind of Mexican pasta dish, but baked in the oven. Maybe I will tweak this and come up with something.

Reply
Conni says
January 16, 2014 at 9:38 pm

Love your newsletter, hints, everything! One heads up, though, on today’s hint to keep celery in a cup of water in the refrigerator: the newer ‘frost free’ refrigerators will work overtime (=increased electrical costs) trying to remove any moisture/evaporation source so itt might be wise to make sure the container is covered. Thank you again, Jill and Tawra…I really appreciate your wise, frugal and fun approach to running a household.

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Tommie says
January 18, 2014 at 10:08 am

When I am freezing small bags of ground beef (or whatever) I like to use inexpensive
sandwich zip bags—then put all of them in a quart or gallon size freezer bag. I think it protects
from freezer burn and odors even for short-term freezing, plus I can find them. Used
freezer bags (I wash mine until they spring holes) work great. I love your recipes and tips.
Tommie in Abilene

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Linda says
January 18, 2014 at 9:09 pm

Re: Cleaning microwave. The way I clean mine is…I use the vinegar and water because it doesn’t streak the glass. ANother thing I do is I turn my micrwave upside down and wash the top of it as if it were the bottom. Then flip it back over and wash the bottom. Viola…no problem.

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Cindy M. says
March 5, 2015 at 4:38 pm

I have a tip for keeping celery crisp: Trim the root end just a little – not enough to separate the individual ribs, but to open up the end to pull water back up into the ribs. Take a sheet of aluminum foil (I use heavy duty) and stand the stalk in the middle. Bring up the ends of the foil to the sides of the stalk, then go back and bring up the shorter sides up to the stalk. Take your hands and form this ‘cup’ snugly around the whole stalk. Pour about a tablespoon down in to the bottom of the ‘cup’ and return to the original plastic bag in which it came. I take a bread tie and close up the top of the bag (there are holes in the bag itself to allow the celery to breath but that’s why it gets limp in the first place, especially in a frost-free refrigerator). If the stalk is limp to begin with, it will take a couple of days to rehydrate, but I have kept celery like this for up to 2 weeks. I also don’t separate each rib when I cam cutting the celery. I learned this from a cooking show on TV. Take the whole stalk and cut crosswise to obtain the necessary amount of celery you need. The stalk holds together and gives something to grip when cutting. You can cut thin or thick slices. It only takes about four cuts to get a cup of celery. Hope this helped some of you.

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Cindy M. says
March 5, 2015 at 4:39 pm

Oops! I meant to say “pour about a tablespoon of WATER” down inside the ‘cup’.

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