Taco Salad

We LOVE Taco Salads at our house, especially on leftover night. We have tacos at least once a month at our house, and always have leftover meat. What better way to use it up than to make a whole second meal?

There is a secret to making the perfect ground beef taco meat, though. What is that, you ask?

THIS....

I use store-bought taco seasoning, but I never add the water until the spices have cooked with the meat for just 30 seconds or so. When you add the seasonings and just cook it with the meat, it wakes up all those herbs and spices, and makes it incorporate into the taco meat so much better.

So without further ado, here is today's recipe.

Taco Salad:
1 lb. taco meat, browned and crumbled
1 packet taco seasoning, I use McCormick
1 head iceberg lettuce, shredded
1 can black beans, drained and seasoned to taste with chopped onion, garlic powder, cumin, salt    
             & pepper to taste. Cook on the stove until heated through.
shredded cheese
salsa
dressing of choice
Put all the ingredients out buffet style, and let each person construct their own. Sometimes we like to warm tortillas and build the salad on top of those.

Just as a side note, most of my taco salads have no dressing, we just use the salsa as the "dressing".