October 22, 2014 · 46 Comments

Taco Pizza (A Lesson in Using Leftovers)

Name: Taco Pizza (A Lesson in Using Leftovers)
Prep time: 5 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 20 min
Yield: 6
Ingredients: pizza dough for one pizza (use your favorite recipe); 1/2 cup seasoned taco meat (chicken, beef, turkey, etc); 3/4 cup salsa; 1 cup cooked pinto beans (or your favorite beans); 1 1/2 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese; toppings: shredded lettuce (diced tomatoes and onions, guacamole, sour cream, olives, etc)

Budget Cooking· Leftovers· Main Courses· Real Food

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A Look Into My Kitchen

Let me welcome you to my frugal life.

I hate to waste food. I mean I really HATE to waste food.

I do try to be mindful of what I can do to keep my family on budge, which has lent itself to getting creative with what I have on hand. But I also truly am disgusted by food waste–the pictures of hungry children have affected me greatly.

Plus I usually have worked hard to create the food and shop for the food so that is yet another reason why I can not stand to throw away food that has been forgotten about.

So back to leftovers.

I had made my family taco meat for soft tacos. As I packed our leftovers up after dinner, I only had enough meat left for one soft taco and not a single tortilla left. I knew I could make a taco salad for myself the next day for lunch with the remaining meat and toppings and that would have been a lunch that I would LOVE.

However, I did not make that salad after dinner and forgot about the meat the next afternoon when I was making my lunch. This was not like me to forget food, but it happened! I am blaming it on getting up in the night with a tiny puppy!

So when it came time to prep for dinner, I stumbled upon the meat and brilliance struck me.

I was planning on making pizza for dinner that night. What if I turned the leftover taco meat and toppings into a pizza verses making pizza sauce and save my mozzarella cheese for another meal?

I instantly remembered eating “Taco Pizza” as a child. It was a simple concoction of refried beans, meat and cheese that my parents would top with lettuce, tomatoes, onions and sour cream.

How could I have forgotten about that pizza, it was so good! Maybe I can blame that on the puppy again 🙂

Taco Pizza

My pizza dough was waiting for me and the leftover taco toppings were in the fridge–this was one easy meal!

I mixed my leftover taco meat with 1 cup of leftover pinto beans about about 3/4 cup salsa together and spread over the rolled out pizza dough. Next I smothered the meat with my leftover cheese and threw in the oven. DINNER DONE!

The pizza came out of the oven and we topped with our favorite taco toppings that had already been prepped from dinner the night before.

My family was in love.

No one would have guessed this was a last minute effort to use up a bit of leftovers.

And I am telling you, the next time you make tacos–plan for this pizza and you have one of the easiest, tastiest, not to mention cheapest dinners around!

5 from 1 vote