Breakfast Tacos

After I posted about my plans for making breakfast burritos for Father’s Day, I decided to rename them since most people in Austin, Texas, where I live call them breakfast tacos. They’re kind of a big deal here, and the variety and availability are rather impressive. You can easily pick up a breakfast taco at several local gas stations, fast food restaurants or food trucks all over town for grab-and-go dining.

To make your own stockpile of breakfast tacos, here’s what I do. This week was all about convenience since I had a packed schedule of places to be and things to do. I opted for frozen cubed hash browns, then cooked them in a large skillet with hot vegetable oil, scooped onto paper towels to drain excess oil, then salted them. They taste like mini french fries.

Next I cooked a pound of chorizo, which is tricky to know when it’s done since it’s always red and packed with red spices. I would rather overcook it than under cook it to be safe. For some reason, the chorizo never looks as appealing, but it definitely adds a delicious element, so I keep adding it. This is the one ingredient that benefits most from the paper towel cycle.

In the same skillet, you’ll cook the bacon. But wash the pan first from all the chorizo mess. Slice the entire package of bacon into small strips, then you can avoid crushing them up after they cook. That tends to smash them up too badly and you get tiny crumbs. I have the hardest time resisting eating crispy, heavenly bacon.

The eggs are next, but you don’t have to wash the skillet this time. Keep the bacon grease hot, then crack all the eggs and add them all at once, cooking and stirring until they are done. I used 22 because I love the burritos/tacos to be eggy.

The eggs can bypass the paper towel cooling step. They just need to be seasoned with salt and pepper after you remove the scrambled eggs from the skillet to cool.

The next step is to grate cheese. Basically what ever type is in my refrigerator is the cheese I use. This time it was Monterey jack, and I prefer using my food processor to grate it quickly. I rarely buy cheese that’s already grated. It just tastes gross to me with the preservatives that are on it when it comes pre-grated. Freshly grated cheese tastes a thousand times better, and it really doesn’t take much effort to zap in a food processor to grate.

Add green chiles from a can, or if you’re lucky enough to have some freshly roasted peppers, that would be even better.

Sometimes I buy mild and sometimes I buy spicy. They rock my world regardless.

My mother-in-law makes scrambled eggs for breakfast almost every morning after their daily walk around their lake with friends. She always adds green chiles to the eggs with salt and pepper, and it’s amazing how that one ingredient enhances the taste.

Mix everything into a large bowl, the four main ingredients (potatoes, chorizo, bacon, eggs) plus the cheese and green chiles. Just before assembling, add a lot of salsa or picante sauce so you don’t have to bother with it when you reheat them to eat. Use 6-inch flour tortillas. Some tortilla types will need to be heated up first to soften and bend to easily to roll up.

Foil sheets make life easy. If you’re going to make these, get some. Fill each tortilla with a generous amount of the mixture, roll it, then wrap it with foil. Repeat until all the mixture is gone. I ended up with 40 total this time, and put most in the freezer, and some in the refrigerator. Here’s what they look like.

To reheat (to eat) the refrigerated ones, remove foil and place on a paper towel.

Wrap the taco with a paper towel and heat on high in the microwave for 45 seconds. The cooking time will vary for each microwave, I would guess. Frozen tacos will take longer to reheat, obviously.