Navajo Tacos

This past week I made a favorite dish that I haven't made in months. It was first introduced to me by my sister in law Chelsey, the cook in the family. Everything she makes is so yummy - her Navajo Tacos are no exception (and it just so happens some of my favorite people in the world are Navajo - this one's for you Benally sisters!). Now, at first the combination of ingredients didn't really make a whole lot of sense to me. Chili and lettuce? Chili, guacamole with fried bread? However, one spoonful of all the ingredients together shut me up real fast. SO YUMMY. Plus, incredibly filling.

The first step is to prepare your chili - for Navajo tacos, I step up my normal recipe of chili a little bit by mixing ground beef and pork sausage together:


1lb of ground beef
1lb of pork sausage
1 can of Bush's chili beans (or kidney/chili beans)
1 tsp of chili powder
1/2 tsp of dry mustard

I also added some fresh chopped tomatoes off my vines and a small can of tomato sauce.

While I let the chili stew and "age" (that's a fancy cooking term, yeah?) I started chopping up all the toppings for my tacos. Now, this is completely up to you. Toppings can include - homemade guacamole, sour cream, lettuce, assorted cheeses, chopped onions, green peppers, tomatoes, black beans, corn, salsa, etc. I set everything to the side while I started to prepare the "taco", or fried bread dough.

My sister in law in the past has been extra fancy and made her own bread from scratch but in the Brewer household we're all about quick and easy. I bought a roll of Pillsbury Buttermilk Biscuits and flattened out each biscuit and plopped it into a hot pan of vegetable oil. Note: Make sure your oil is hot, otherwise the dough will just soak up all the oil and be all... oily. Yuck. The biscuits cook up really fast, so be sure to watch them so they don't burn!

Set them aside on some towels to cool and soak up any excess oil. Then it's time to layer! First, your fried taco. Then, top with chili, and add all your desired toppings. Stack it high! The challenge is to get all the layers into one spoonful but when you do - HOLY COW. So good.

Can you see the biscuit under there? It's being swallowed by all the delicious toppings, but it is the key component to the dish. Somehow it manages to stay flakey and light throughout the meal!


The best part of the dish is that I actually got two meals out of it! With my leftover chili I combined my leftover chopped onions and green peppers and wrapped it up for chili the next night. Add in some cheese, chips and sour cream and you have another yummy meal ready to go the next night. I love it when that happens, and chili always reheats good. =)