F*** the box: Taco Night upgrade
45sThe profanity-laced rejection of the taco box kit immediately grabs attention and sets up a satisfying from-scratch alternative.
▶ Play ClipAI Summary
This video is a comprehensive guide to elevating the classic American 'Taco Night' by making everything from scratch, including taco shells, seasoning, and sauce. The host demonstrates how to create a superior version of the boxed taco kit, complete with a taco bar setup and a special cheesy gordita crunch technique.
Chapters
[00:00]
The Nostalgia of Taco Night
The host recalls childhood Taco Night as the pinnacle of weeknight dinners, highlighting its fun, interactive, and customizable nature. He expresses a soft spot for the 'Gringo Taco' but declares that in 2026, they will do it better by making everything from scratch.
[00:33]
Deconstructing the Boxed Taco Sauce
The host analyzes the ingredients of a boxed taco sauce, noting it's primarily water and tomato paste. He proposes making a superior sauce from scratch using dried chilies like ancho, guajillo, and chile de árbol, which can be adjusted for heat preference.
[02:00]
Homemade Taco Seasoning
The host demonstrates making taco seasoning from scratch, emphasizing its ease. The base includes chili powder, coriander, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and cayenne. Optional additions like chipotle powder, sumac, black pepper, and MSG are mentioned, with salt added directly to the beef.
[03:45]
Making the Taco Sauce
After boiling the chilies for about 15 minutes, they are blended with a touch of cooking liquid, chicken bone broth, salt, and white vinegar. The host compares his sauce to the boxed version, noting his is superior. He suggests freezing the sauce in ice cube trays for future use.
[04:53]
Creating Homemade Taco Shells
The host uses quality store-bought corn tortillas, microwaving them for 20 seconds to make them pliable. He then hangs them on oven racks, first on one rack for 10 minutes, then adjusting to two racks to create a perfect gap for toppings, baking until crispy.
[07:58]
The Cheesy Gordita Crunch
To address the structural integrity issue of crunchy tacos, the host demonstrates making a cheesy gordita crunch: melting cheese on a flour tortilla and wrapping it around a corn taco shell. This adds a chewy element to the crunch, a technique he credits to Taco Bell.
[08:30]
Cooking the Taco Beef
The beef is cooked in a hot pan with neutral oil, broken up and seared until browned. The host seasons it with the homemade taco seasoning, deglazes with beer (Modelo), and adds taco sauce to create a glaze that binds the meat. It's finished with lime juice.
[10:44]
Setting Up the Taco Bar
The host prepares simple toppings: guacamole (mashed avocado with lime, garlic, cilantro, salt), finely shredded iceberg lettuce, finely grated Colby Jack cheese, and diced tomatoes (seeds removed). He also recommends a sour cream squeeze bottle for easy application.
[11:57]
Assembling the Ultimate Taco
The host assembles the cheesy gordita crunch taco, layering meat, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and jalapeños. He suggests setting up a bar of favorite hot sauces for customization. He concludes that this is the definitive way to do Taco Night.
The video successfully demonstrates that making taco components from scratch is simple and yields a vastly superior product to boxed kits. By following the steps, viewers can create a memorable, customizable Taco Night experience that surpasses childhood memories.
Mentioned in this Video
Tutorial Checklist
3
01:48
Add chilies, garlic, and shallot to boiling water and cook until chilies are soft (about 15 minutes).
4
02:00
Mix taco seasoning: 4 tbsp chili powder, 1 tbsp each of coriander, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and a few dashes of cayenne. Add optional sumac, chipotle, or MSG.
5
03:45
Blend cooked chilies with a touch of cooking liquid, 1/4 cup chicken bone broth, salt, and a splash of white vinegar until smooth.
9
07:16
After 10 minutes, open shells slightly to fit over two racks and continue baking until crispy (about 20 minutes total).
13
10:29
Mix in about 1/4 cup of taco sauce and cook until it glazes the meat. Finish with lime juice and salt.
15
11:57
For cheesy gordita crunch: melt cheese on a flour tortilla, wrap it around a corn taco shell, and press to glue.
16
12:29
Assemble tacos with meat, sour cream, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and jalapeños. Serve with a hot sauce bar.
💡 Key Takeaways
💡
Deconstructing the Box
Provides a clear comparison between processed and homemade ingredients, setting the stage for the entire video.
00:33
🔧
Homemade Seasoning is Easy
Demystifies taco seasoning, showing it's simple to make and better than store-bought.
02:00
🔧
Cheesy Gordita Crunch Technique
Offers a practical solution to the structural integrity problem of crunchy tacos, a common issue.
07:58
🔧
Glazing the Meat
Explains the importance of reducing the sauce to bind the meat, a key step for taco assembly.
10:29
💡
The Ultimate Taco Assembly
Showcases the final product and the layering technique, making the viewer want to replicate it.
12:29Full Transcript
[00:00] If you ever saw your mom without this box, you knew without a shadow of a doubt, tonight, we got a winner! Growing up, Taco Night was the pinnacle of the weeknight dinner. Fun, interactive, customizable, and even now with all the incredible tacos of Mexico at my fingertips,
[00:16] I've got a soft spot for the Gringo Taco. But in 2026, f*** the box. We do Taco Night like this now. Homemade shells, homemade taco seasoning, homemade taco sauce, and all the fixings and a few upgrades that's going to put your childhood to shame.
[00:33] This is Taco Night in America. Now if we take a look at the box, it says their taco sauce contains water, tomato paste, and then 2% less of sugar, cornstarch, chili pepper, salt, spices.
[00:47] So it's water and tomato paste. We can do better than that. We're going to start with some fresh chilies. I've got a few ancho chilies, maybe three or so. I mean, when am I going to leave one? And then some guajillo chilies.
[00:59] An ancho is just a dried out poblano chili. Guajillo is a dried out mirasol pepper. And then we've got chili de arable. One if you like a little heat, two or three if you like a lot, none if you don't want heat at all.
[01:11] First up, we can get the seeds out of these. Now, if you make a big batch of all of this, maybe outside of the tortillas, you can make this sauce and freeze it like I'm going to show you. then make the spice and save it in your pantry.
[01:24] I'm going to show you how easy the shells are, and there's really going to be no need for you to ever buy a box again. So we're definitely going to be making more of this than we need, but having it on hand so we can make this easy on ourselves next time.
[01:36] Next, I've got a few cloves of garlic. I'm going to give them a little smash. Then you can do an onion. I've got a shallot I've got to use. Just going to peel off the paper twice and half. Now here on the stove, I've got a pot of boiling water.
[01:48] We're going to go ahead and add all of that into the pot. We're going to get that back on the stove, bring that up to a boil, and we're just going to cook all of that until the chili starts to become so soft that they can almost kind of fall apart.
[02:00] Now, to make a taco seasoning, it's insanely easy, and you should almost never consider buying it. First off, obviously the base is chili powder. Now, you could just buy chili powder.
[02:12] Everyone usually has on hand, which I'm going to add, but I also like to get some single chili ground, like this New Mexican chili. It's got great, like, vibrant color. We're going to go about a tablespoon, one, two, and then we'll do about one of the generic
[02:25] chili powder. Actually, we could do two. Four tablespoons of chili powder. And then we got the two other groupings, which are the coriander, the garlic powder, onion powder, one tablespoon of each of those four things.
[02:37] And then the final two are the color pieces. Paprika, one tablespoon. And then cayenne, you don't really have to measure. You could just give a few dashes, depending on how hot you like it. Some other roots you could add to that base is, you know, you could add like another chili, a chipotle chili powder.
[02:53] You could do a little sumac, which I love. It's kind of like a subtle chili powder. It's got little citrusy notes. I'm going to just add a little bit of that. You could hit it with some black pepper. Only if you want to. You could just kind of hit it with a little MSG.
[03:06] Only if you want to. And we're not going to salt it. Salt's going to be added directly to the beef when it cooks. And that's your taco seasoning. It should smell aromatic, vibrant.
[03:18] There should be like some citrusy notes from the coriander and the sumac The taste Right Let see what caramel mix looks like This is much finer I don know This is kind of weird You tell me which one you prefer
[03:32] It's all similar. Let me just fill up a spice bottle. Can you believe people pay for this? I mean, I don't get it. Chili's needed a little bit. While they finish cooking, I'm preheating my oven to 300 degrees in preparation to cook our taco shell.
[03:45] Now that's about like 15 minutes of boiling. Everything's nice and broken down. Let it cool down for a bit. Now, you can add that to a blender. We can add just a touch of the liquid, not too much, because we're going to be adding
[03:59] some chicken bone broth. I love this new brand. We got like real collagen rich broth. So we're going to go with about a quarter cup or tablespoon, season it with salt, a
[04:11] little splash of white vinegar. And we're just going to load it up and let it go. Now if you wanted to, you could add some tomato paste to this, like their sauce, but you're not going to need it though. That's my chili sauce. And this is theirs.
[04:24] It looks like tomato paste ketchup. Smells even worse. Now, while we're going to be using this, the smart thing to do is to put these into ice cube trays. I did this with my leftovers test batch. And in your freezer, taco sauce cubes.
[04:38] Now we got our taco sauce made, our taco seasoning made, onto the taco shells. Now, as far as quality store-bought tortillas, corn tortillas, that is, this brand is quite good. Good structure, good flavor, even raw and untoasted.
[04:53] First step, and then I got about 10 the best looking tortillas in the pack. We're gonna wrap them in a towel, microwave for 20 seconds. They're nice and pliable, right?
[05:05] Now over to the oven. Now, as I get older, I get sleepier in the afternoon. And I need a quick pick-me-up thanks to our sponsor today, Cometure. Want a latte? Cometure is a new way to make, or more accurately, melt coffee at home.
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[05:50] You've got fresh brewed coffee in an instant that tastes like a barista just brewed it in your home. No effort or skill required. I'm more of an iced coffee guy myself. For an iced coffee or a latte, just melt down a capsule and pour it over iced water or milk.
[06:04] I particularly like Proud Mary's Tumbler. It's a medium blend with notes of chocolate, fudge, caramel, and date, and it's kind of delicious. And unlike standard coffee pods, the coffee is always fresh and never stale.
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[06:30] So no flavor is lost from being to come. If you haven't tried Comatier, you can get $20 off your first order when you visit comatier.com backslash not another cooking show or you visit the link down in my description. Here's what we're going to do. We're going to take our tortillas, hang a few on the top shelf, hang a few on the bottom.
[06:47] Now we going to cook them untouched for 10 minutes and we going to watch as they start to kind of curl closed But as you notice we have them hanging on one single piece of the metal rack I found if you cooked it all the way on one they close up too shut
[07:02] And if you dry them over two of them, they're too wide and it kind of screws up the eating experience. So after 10 minutes, we're going to pull them off of that one rack, open them up slightly just to get them to barely fit over the two racks.
[07:16] It's going to continue to dry out with a gap big enough to add toppings to it and create a perfect crispy taco shell. After 20 minutes, they're firmed up but they're still pliable.
[07:28] What I like to do is flip them over, cradle them in between the grates now. Just let them continue to dry out. These start off slow and then they get crisp and too dark suddenly. You got to keep an eye once you've passed about the 20 minute mark and then just pull
[07:44] them out of the oven as they're ready. Now compare it to the tortillas that came broken in the box. I mean, come on. Now you see that? The number one issue with a crunchy taco, as delicious as it is, structural integrity.
[07:58] That's why at our taco bar, we're going to have the option for cheesy gordita crunches. Melt some cheese on the flour tortilla, wrap it around corn tortilla. You still get the crunch. Now you get a little bit of chew. I'll give Taco Bell a lot of kudos, but however much money they spent developing the cheesy gordita crunch,
[08:16] paid off. Next up, the beef. We've got our seasoning and our sauce over here. Now the sauce on the box, they tell you to put on after. You just cook the beef with the seasoning in the water. We're not going to do that. We're going to cook the beef with the seasoning and the sauce. We're
[08:30] going to degraze with a little Modelo and we're going to finish with some lime. Now let me get a nice wide pan. Once the pan's hot, we're going to add in some neutral oil and then we're going to add in the beef. You want to hear a nice hot sizzle. And once it's in the pan, you want to
[08:44] Just sort of break it up into little bits and then leave it alone. Allow it to sear for a minute or so. Now once one side gets nice and brown, we can start mixing it up and we're going to start to dice it up. Break it down into more of like a fine mince that's going to fit nicely into the taco shell.
[09:01] Now once it's broken up nice on high heat, we're going to let it go. And just like any time we make a ground beef, we know it goes through a few stages. And the first is giving up its moisture, which you can see happening now.
[09:13] That's going to take a few minutes, maybe like five to eight minutes. Now is also when I'll season the beef. Remember, there is no salt in the taco seasoning. Then, once all that water has evaporated, what will be remaining is only the meat and the fat.
[09:30] And you're going to hear it go from like a steaming to a sizzling and a crackling and a popping. Now I can hear the meat frying. I'm going to take it a little bit longer, but I just want to wait until I can see some
[09:42] nice caramelization building up. More importantly than the meat browning though is a lot of this brown bit building up on the pan. Now is about the time I'm going to add my spices.
[09:54] Maybe two or three tablespoons. Stir it together and start to bloom those spices. And optional, if you want a little bit of that tomato flavor, you can add a little bit of tomato paste now and work it into the meat. Our pan is nicely browned, but it's not burnt.
[10:08] Now we can deglaze with our beer. Scrape off all those brown bits If you cooking for kids don worry All that alcohol is already burnt off Then we going to mix in about a quarter cup of our taco sauce And then we just going to begin to cook it until that sauce almost glazes every kernel of the meat while
[10:29] also sort of like binding it together so it all kind of compacts inside of the taco shell. After it's cooked for a few minutes, we're going to turn the heat off and finish with a squeeze of lime. Use a touch of salt, but other than that, we are in business. Now all that's left to do is
[10:44] some toppings and to set up our taco bar. First up, a little guac. We're going to cut that avocado in half, remove the pit, and then just right in the avocado, we're just going to mash it up and scoop it out. No need to fuss, really, you know what I mean? Then immediately to that, we're going
[10:59] to do a lime, one tiny grated clove of garlic, torn cilantro. I like it kind of rough in my guacamole, and some salt. Mix it up. You've got guac. Next up, a head of iceberg. You don't need
[11:12] a full head, cut into manageable pieces, and then slice as thin as you can. Now we got a block of Colby Jack. Use a box grater and use the finest grate on it. The finer the cheese is shredded, the better. That's what I want to see. Tomato, in case you like it,
[11:27] it is tomato season. We're just going to quarter them, and we're going to slice the gel out of them, so that all that's remaining is just the flesh of the tomato. Then we're just going to cut them in strips, and then into a dice.
[11:42] One of the great innovations since the 90s is these sour cream squeeze bottles. Like a piping bag. We're just going to take our taco meat and get it into our serving bowl. I forgot my jalapeno. And then for my final trick, we're going to turn them into the cheesy gordita crunch.
[11:57] A little bit of cheese on each tortilla. Not too much, just like that. Microwave for about 30 seconds, 20 seconds, just until they're melted. We're dealing with hot cheese, so we're going to glove up. Once they're melted like this, all we do is take a corn tortilla, fold it over, and then flip it.
[12:15] And with your fingers, just sort of press the cheese out to the edges to glue onto the shell. Just like that. That is the ultimate way, in my opinion, to eat a taco.
[12:29] We're going to go in and add a little meat. Just a little bit, you know. Then I like to go sour cream. And you sort of try and drape it and pull it back. Kind of like a hot dog. Then I like to go cheese. Then we go a little lettuce on top, tomatoes on top.
[12:42] And I like to go in with some jalapenos. Then ever since my food truck back in the day, where we had a curated hot sauce bar, I think it's fun to sort of add, instead of making your own, you get some good local hot sauces.
[12:54] Maybe you like those kind of things. And you just set up a bar of your favorite hot sauces and people can kind of dig in how they please. Take a bite out of this first. The texture just gets me every time.
[13:08] Let's try a little hot sauce. It just doesn't get much better than that. See, if one holds together, just the crispy. As a kid, I probably would go heavy cheese. Heavy cheese jalapeno hot sauce. Let's see.
[13:21] Better than I thought it would hold up. This is how you do taco night in America now, okay? You can't tell me nothing. I don't want to hear it. This is how we do it. Recipe's going to be down in the description. That's all that I have today. I'll see you next time.
[13:33] Until then, take care of yourself. Go feed yourself.
