Confession time: I’ve never had a taco. I’ve had a chimichanga, an enchilada, a tortilla, a burrito and a quesadilla, but I’ve never had a taco. So, when Old El Paso sent me some of their products, including their Smoky BBQ Stand ‘N’ Stuff Soft Taco Kit, I finally had my chance to have one.
I haven’t tried a taco before because the shells in the supermarket look crispy and make me think they’ll fall apart, with the filling falling out, but these Stand ‘N’ Stuff ones are user-friendly – as you can guess, they stand up and you stuff them.
For some reason, I thought the tacos would be the size of the box but they’re quite small. You get eight in a box (although I was ripped off as there were only seven in mine) and two is a perfect portion.
I stuffed mine with meat-free mince – seasoned with the seasoning mix that comes in the box of tacos, the sauce that’s also supplied, jalapenos, salad, grated cheese and topped with Old El Paso Sour Cream Topping. After I’d posted on Facebook about my tacos, a friend said something along the lines of, ‘yum, except for the mince’ so, if you don’t like mince, you could use refried beans or mashed up kidney beans instead.
In keeping with the Mexican theme, I served the tacos with some Cajun spiced potato wedges. I loved these tacos – they were so quick and easy to make and the leftover mince and taco shells are in the freezer, to be used another day.
Thank you to Old El Paso for sending me some products to try.
A word of warning: if you’re thinking of buying an Old El Paso Stand ‘N’ Stuff Soft Taco Kit, make sure you check the box for the vegetarian symbol as Old El Paso sent me their Extra Mild taco kit a few months ago and although I couldn’t see anything un-vegetarian in the ingredients, it didn’t have the vegetarian symbol on the packaging, so I asked them if it was vegetarian and they said it wasn’t.
4 comments
what is the reason they are not vegetarian as I bought one thinking it was and when l got home realised l couldn’t eat it but l don’t want to throw it away so which parts can l eat eg..the shell the sauce ???
Hi Nafisa, I’m not sure exactly why, I’d recommended contacting Old El Paso to find out. Plus, this is an old post, so the ingredients might have changed by now.
Hi there, I wondered the same and contacted the company. They said, “Thank you for your question about our product. We would like to advise you that currently all our products except our range of ‘Extra Mild’ labelled kits and our Rice Meal kit products are suitable for Vegetarians.
Our Extra Mild products and our One Pan Rice kits are not suitable for vegetarians as natural chicken flavouring is used in the tomato sauce.”
I suggested they might make this clear on the packaging or have something on the product page on their website.
So the taco ‘boats’ themselves are fine!
Aah, thanks for finding out! I had no idea why it wasn’t vegetarian when I wrote this post 11 years ago 🙂