Best Lunch Box Recipes: Mini Build-Your-Own Tacos

Marin Mommies presents this week's guest recipe from Nicole Cibellis, Marin mom and author of the blog A Family that Eats Together, where she shares meal plans and recipes that will please foodies and children alike. Here's her meal plan for this week.

It’s back-to-school time again. As we go out and buy all the prerequisite back-to-school supplies, lunch is always at the top of the list. We are all looking for easy and creative ways to fill our kids' lunch boxes so that they will eat everything. This year, I wanted to create some fun lunch box ideas that are built on some kid favorite foods. So, this week’s feature is a simple build-your-own taco lunch. In this recipe, I use beef but these tacos can easily be made with chicken, turkey or tofu. To make it even easier on you, I recommend making the taco meat the night before for dinner and use it to feed your family tacos, burritos or taco salad and then use the leftovers for lunch the next day. I bet even the adults will want to take this to work!

Lunch Box Fixings

• Tortilla Chip “Scoops”
• Chipotle Taco Meat (see below recipe)
• Grated Jack or Cheddar Cheese
• Salsa
• Guacamole
• Yogurt Covered Pretzels

Chipotle Beef, Chicken, Turkey or Tofu Taco Meat

Servings: 4 plus lunch for 2-3 the next day
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients

• 2 pounds ground beef, chicken or turkey meat/2 containers of soft tofu
• 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 chipotle in adobo pepper and 5 tablespoons of the sauce
• 2 tablespoons of onion powder
• 1 teaspoon of garlic powder
• 1 tablespoon ancho chili powder
• 1 teaspoon salt

Directions

1. Pour oil into a large skillet over high heat. (Use a non-stick skillet if using the tofu). Add meat or tofu and crumble it using a wooden spatula. Add the chipotle and sauce mashing up the chipotle as your mix it in. Sprinkle in the onion, garlic and chili powder and then add the salt. As the meat cooks, taste and adjust the seasonings accordingly to your taste.
2. When the meat is brown, remove it from the pan and serve with your favorite Mexican fixings.