banh mi smash tacos
Truthfully, I have been seeing “smash” tacos all over my Instagram and I do think it is a fun way to do some food mash-ups. Plus, after making these, I think they are incredibly easy!
Other note: this recipe makes a ton of smash tacos so adjust the toppings to however many tacos you plan on making.
Meat ingredients:
1 lb of ground meat of your choice (I used ground turkey but you could do ground chicken, pork or beef - whatever you prefer or have on hand)
2 scallions; white to greens chopped up finely
2-3 cloves of garlic; grated or finely minced
1 inch piece of ginger; grated
1 tbsp of fish sauce
1/2 tsp of Kosher salt
1/2 tsp of gochugaru (if you don’t have these Korean chili flakes, you could use regular red chili flakes or a tsp of chili crisp)
Other ingredients:
A package of mini flour tortillas
A cucumber; julienned (cut into thin strips)
A large carrot; julienned (cut into thin strips)
A few radishes; thinly sliced
A bit of red onion; thinly sliced
A jalapeno; thinly sliced
Some pickled daikon/carrots (easily bought from any Asian grocery store or made at home)
Cilantro
Thai basil
Mint
Thai sweet chili sauce
In a large bowl, mix together all the ingredients for your meat, making sure the other ingredients are nicely distributed in the meat. You can make this earlier in the day and place it in the refrigerator for later if you want, or you can start cooking right away.
Prep all your other toppings before you start cooking, so they are ready to go when the smash tacos are done cooking.
Start prepping your tacos by spreading a heaping spoonful of the meat mixture onto the tortillas. You want the meat layer to be thin enough that it cooks quickly, and not overflowing on the sides of the tortilla (leave a bit of gap between the meat and the edge of the tortilla). Place the prepped tortillas to the side until you are ready to cook them - tortilla side down.
In a large pan, heat up a bit of oil. When the oil is hot, put the tortillas, meat-side down and cook for about 7 minutes. Your meat should be fully cooked and starting to get crispy. Keep cooking until everything is nice and crispy. At the end, I like to flip it so it is tortilla side down in the pan for a few minutes, so the tortilla heats up a bit.
Serve with your desired toppings.