Let's Cook! - Old El Paso Stand N' Stuff Taco kit

Hello Everyone!

It's time for another Let's Cook! Today I'll be showing you Old El Paso's Stand 'N' Stuff soft Taco kit - this is the smoky BBQ one. Old El Paso very kindly send me some of their new range to try out, as I've already tried out the fajitas before (The BBQ one is one of my favourites!) I decided to try out the taco kit first as I've seen these advertised on TV recently and as I like Mexican food was curious about them.

The kit comes in a brightly coloured box - you'd definitely notice this in a super market! I love the fact Old El Paso's branding uses a red tile roof, it makes you think of somewhere warm and sunny. So the kit is very easy to use - you only need to add 500g of minced beef, two tomatoes, lettuce and 125g of grated cheese. The back has very simple and straight forward instructions on how to prepare the tacos - I think this is ideal for a week night dinner as it's ready in 20 minutes with very little fuss or mess.

Inside the box are the tacos, a sachet of seasoning mix and a pack of salsa.

The instructions say to heat a little oil in a pan, add in your mince and brown the mince. Easy peasy!

Once the mince is browned, the box says to drain off any excess liquid (I didn't seem to have any!) Then sprinkle in the seasoning mix.

Once the seasoning has been added you mix it through to coat the mince before adding the water. I do love the smell of this seasoning.

I'll be honest I found it quite hard to get the seasoning to mix through as there didn't seem to be enough of it or water. The box says to let it simmer and once its boiling to let it boil for 10 minutes stirring occasionally. Mine never came to a boil as it just didn't have enough liquid in it despite following the instructions. I'm wondering whether I should have cooked this in a sauce pan rather than a frying pan, the box didn't specify either way and I use this pan for fajitas.

Whilst the mince is cooking you need to warm up the taco shells - again this is really straight forward, you simply take them out of the packet, carefully separate them and pop them on a microwaveable safe plate and into the microwave for 30 seconds on high power.

After about 10 minutes the mince looked like this - I think due to the lack of liquid it did dry out in a few places, it smelt really good though!

Here's my pre-pared lettuce, tomato, cheese and the salsa sauce from the kit.

Everything all together! Look how colourful it is!

Assembling the tacos is simple, you take an empty shell, add some mince, some tomato, lettuce, salsa and finally cheese! How easy is that? Dinner in 20 minutes with very little mess to clear up after which is always an added bonus. These did taste pretty good, although I thought a little dry and the flavour wasn't super strong - it's very similar to the BBQ fajitas which is great in my opinion. If I bought these again (and I may well do) I'd be tempted to add either more water or try a different pan to see if that made a difference to the dryness. As tasty as these were and fun to make I still think Old El Paso's fajitas will remain my favourite for the time being, but I'd definitely recommend giving this a try for a straight forward and easy dinner!

You can find the Old El Paso range in most super markets, but if you'd like to check out their products, why not take a look at their website below?

Old El Paso Website

Ta-ta for now,

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In collaboration with Old El Paso.