Easy Weeknight Dinners // If I didn’t love meat so much I would be a vegetarian… Seriously, I LOVE vegetables! I would much rather have a plate full of veggies along with a small side of protein. With all of the wonderful Farmer’s Market goodies at this time of year, I thought I would make a tasty Roasted Veggie Taco Salad for dinner. You can also check out my Taco Hand Pie recipe if you just can’t get enough tacos.
It’s was a knock it out of the park hit with the family! The combination of the savory roasted vegetables with the fresh Mango Salsa was perfect. It was just fun and colorful enough that the kiddos didn’t balk at a plate full of veggies and my meat loving sweetheart didn’t even complain once.
Layering it all with lettuce, refried beans and topped with Queso Fresco made for a very satisfying weeknight meal. Here’s how you can make it for your family tonight.
Ingredients for Roasted Veggie Taco Salad
1 zucchini
1 yellow summer squash
1 large onion
1 small head of garlic
1 jalapeño
1 large green chili
2 green tomatoes (optional)
1 T extra virgin olive oil
2 T taco seasoning
salt & pepper
1 can of refried beans
4-6 tortilla bowl or a large bag of tortilla chips
1 large head of green leaf lettuce, red leaf or Romaine
1/2 cup Queso Fresco or a mild Feta cheese
Sour Cream
Taco Sauce
Directions on how to make Roasted Veggie Taco Salad
Heat oven to 450˚, wash and cut veggies in large, yet still bite size pieces.
If you would like to have your salad on the spicy side leave the ribs and seeds in the jalapeño, for a milder salad, remove the ribs & seeds. Remove the garlic from it’s skin, but leave whole. I just happened to have some green tomatoes in my garden and I thought I would add them to the mix. The roasted up perfect and tasted fabulous, but they aren’t a deal breaker by any means. If you don’t have any, don’t worry. Really you can add any kind of veggie you want to this mix. That’s the beauty of this recipe.
On a baking sheet drizzle with olive oil and generously season with salt, pepper & taco seasoning. Toss to coat everything with the oil and seasoning.
Roast at 450˚ for 30 minutes or until the veggies start to char a bit. Remove from oven and let cool.
While the veggies are cooling you can mix up your Mango Salsa. You can check out my recipe for that here.
I just love this fresh salsa and it adds such a bright flavor to the salad.
Next, in a small sauce pan, heat your refried beans. Once they are warm, you can start to layering your salad with the beans at the bottom of your tortilla bowl or on the bottom of your plate surrounded by corn chips.
The next layer is the lettuce that you have washed, dried and cut into bite size pieces. Then top of with a good helping of the roasted veggies, then the mango salsa, with a good sprinkling of the Queso Fresco or Feta.
I then add a dollop of sour cream and then a splash of taco sauce to act as the “dressing.” Mix together and enjoy!
This will take Taco Tuesday up to a whole new level for sure!!
