Zucchini and yellow squash tacos with mushrooms not only give you an easy and delicious way to use up your bounty of squash, they’re quick and filling!
When did we become adults? I blinked and missed it (note: that blink happened a long time ago…I’ve been an adult for a lot longer than I’d like to admit). While Philip and I were having dinner at Two Ten Jack with our friend Brian, with whom we’ve been friends since we were teenagers (over twenty years, in fact), I realized how much our conversations have changed. Of course, my earliest conversations with Brian were mostly work-related (we were all Chuck E. Cheese’s co-workers back in the mid-nineties) but then after Philip and I started dating when I was in my early twenties and we would hang out with Brian our conversations were generally about music: what shows we’d been to, what CDs we’d bought, etc.
Our conversations that night were about a variety of things: politics, work, craft beer (a love Philip and Brian share), and food issues. Brian chooses to eat a mostly vegetarian diet, and as we were discussing the many reasons that he does so I laughed in my head thinking about how we were the old people I would have made fun of twenty years ago. Why so serious? It’s just food.
There’s no such thing as “just food” any more. Food = life for me in so many ways. I have been pretty open here about the fact that I have gained a few pounds over the last few years, due to a variety of factors. Blogging is, I’m certain, one of them. Moving into a more sedentary job is another, and, as much as I’d like to deny it, my doctor says that age is a factor as well. Age must be the reason that appearance is no longer the sole reason that I’m concerned about my weight (though I would be lying if I said that it wasn’t a concern). Health is my major concern, and I’ve been trying to weight my food choices more toward health than decadence (because food doesn’t have to be decadent to taste good). Sorry if my blog doesn’t always reflect that, though I promise I’m trying.
Recipe development in the summer definitely lends itself to promoting healthy cooking. I don’t take the omission approach to healthy cooking. I believe that you should eat the things that you want to eat in moderation and concentrate on making it mostly about the healthiest foods that you love. Luckily, I love fruits and vegetables, so June, July, and August are more or less an eater’s paradise for me.
A trip to the produce stand last week resulted in an excess of zucchini and yellow squash, so in my haste to find a way to use them all up I decided to cook up some squash tacos. Onions and mushrooms seem at home in squash tacos, don’t they? In my house, onions and mushrooms are at home in pretty much anything, but that’s just us. Soft corn tortillas, onions cooked till they’re on the verge of caramelization, zucchini, yellow squash, smoked cheddar cheese (or whatever you’ve got, but smoked cheddar works so well here), and a drizzle of sour cream and Sriracha. That’s what I call squash taco perfection.
If you have some extra zucchini and yellow squash to use up, why not make these zucchini and yellow squash tacos?
Mary
Yield: 8 tacos
PTH10MPrep Time:
PTH15MCook Time:
25 minTotal Time:
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Ingredients
- 1 medium yellow squash, cleaned and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 medium zucchini, cleaned and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt, divided (if using table salt, use half the amount indicated here)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 1/2 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 4 ounces cremini or button mushrooms, cleaned and thinly sliced (about 1 cup)
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 8-16 corn tortillas (we like to double up and use two tortillas per taco)
- for serving: cheese (smoked cheddar is great here, but Monterey jack, queso fresco, or regular Cheddar are fine too), sour cream, Sriracha, avocado, lime wedges, cilantro
Instructions
- Place the cut zucchini and yellow squash on a plate lined with several layers of paper towels. Sprinkle with 1 teaspoon of the salt and let stand while you prepare the onions and mushrooms.
- In a medium pan, heat one tablespoon of the olive oil over medium heat. Add the onion and the remaining 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Cook until translucent and beginning to caramelize. Add the mushrooms and cook until tender.
- Press the top of the squash with more paper towels to remove excess liquid. Add the squash to the pan with the onions and mushrooms and cook until tender and beginning to brown, 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat and salt and pepper to taste.
- Heat the tortillas according to package directions. Fill with the vegetables and top as desired. Serve immediately.
By the way, the taco holders featured in the pictures are seriously life-changing and very inexpensive. I have included an affiliate link for them below. This means that if you click the link and make a purchase, I will receive a small commission. This does not affect the cost to you. For more information, please see my disclosures. Thank you for supporting my blog!
