This nutritious and flavorful beef taco bowl is so easy to make and sure to be a family favorite! Served over crunchy romaine lettuce, it's filled with fresh veggies, lean ground beef, and served with a three ingredient salsa verde yogurt sauce. So good!
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Why you'll love this recipe
- It's such an easy and satisfying meal! It's filling, crunchy, full of different textures and oh so delicious. You'll need to do a little chopping, but only the ground beef is being cooked. All the amazing flavor of a taco but with a lot of extra veggies.
- This recipe is so great for meal-prep as long as you keep most of the components in separate containers until assembling. Chop the veggies, cook the meat, and make the sauce in advance for a super quick lunch or busy weeknight dinner.
- It's kid-friendly and customizable. You could even serve it as a taco bar for a gathering. The ingredients can easily be switched up, you can serve it with a few tortilla chips on the side, my spicy jalapeño salsa, mango and corn salsa or my restaurant style salsa.
Key Ingredients and variations
- Lean ground beef: choose your favorite, I love 93% lean but 90%, 85% would work too. If you use a fattier ground beef, make sure to drain some of the extra fat before serving.
- Taco seasoning: use your favorite kind, always start with less that too much because some of them can be really spicy. My favorite taco seasoning is from Primal Palate.
- Romaine lettuce: the crunch and freshness really bring the salad bowl together. It's best to use a crunchy lettuce for this recipe.
- Beans: I chose black beans but you can definitely replace them with pinto beans or even corn.
- Cabbage: I love the crunch and flavor for this taco bowl, red (or purple depending on how you call it) or green both work.
- Tomatoes and red onions: you can just use a pico to gallo instead too.
- Avocado: the creaminess and flavor is great in this recipe.
- Salsa verde yogurt sauce: it just completes this bowl beautifully. I use non-fat Greek yogurt and store bought salsa verde and a little lime. So good! You can use low-fat or full fat yogurt, or sour cream, and a red salsa like my restaurant-style salsa instead of the salsa verde if you prefer.
- Cheese: you could skip it but everything is better with cheese for me! Cotija would be delicious too.
- Lime and cilantro: extra acid and fresh herbs just to elevate the taco bowl.
How to make beef taco bowl
- Prep all the vegetables. Wash and chop the romaine, the red onion, the tomatoes, slice the red cabbage, drain and rinse the black beans. Make sure you have some rice cooked. Chop the avocado last, right before serving.
Cook the ground beef with the taco seasoning.
Stir together the yogurt, salsa verde and lime juice. Then assemble the bowls and serve.
More Taco Recipes
If you love tacos check these out!
Tips
- Adjust the taco seasoning to your taste. Some prefer it more pronounced, some lighter. Also certain seasoning are spicier than others.
- These beef taco salad bowls are best eaten immediately after assembling.
- Customize your bowls, you can add bell peppers, sliced jalapeño, corn, hot sauce. While olives are not really used in traditional Mexican cuisine, black olives are very popular in taco bowls in an "americanized" style.
Frequently Asked questions
Absolutely! Ground chicken, ground turkey or a meat substitute, like Beyond or Impossible meat would work great for this recipe. You could also use steak or chicken breast or thighs.
Refrigerate most components in airtight containers. It's best to keep them separated, specifically the lettuce, tomatoes, meat and sauce so the bowl doesn't get soggy. Everything will store well for up to 4 days (even more for some of the veggies).
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Beef Taco Bowl
Equipment
- 1 skillet to cook the beef
- wooden spoon
Ingredients
- spray cooking oil
- 1 pound lean ground beef 90% or leaner
- 1 tablespoon taco seasoning more or less to taste
- 2 tablespoons water
- 5-6 cups romaine lettuce chopped
- 1 cup cooked brown rice or white rice
- 1 cup black beans drained and rinsed
- 2 cups red cabbage finely sliced or chopped
- 2 roma tomatoes chopped
- ½ red onion chopped
- 1 ripe avocado chopped
- ¼ cup shredded cheddar cheese or Mexican-style mix
- 1 handful fresh cilantro chopped
- 1 squeeze fresh lime juice
- salt to taste
- black pepper to taste
For the salsa verde yogurt sauce
- ½ cup non-fat Greek yogurt or low-fat or full-fat
- ¼ cup salsa verde store-bought, more or less to taste
- 1 squeeze fresh lime juice
Instructions
- Prepare all the veggies to build the bowls.
- Heat up a skillet with spray cooking oil, then add the ground beef. Break it up with a spoon, add the taco seasoning and stir it in. Cook on medium-high heat for 5 minutes, stirring often, then add 2 tablespoons of water and continue cooking for 5-6 minutes or until fully cooked.
- While the meat is cooking, stir together the yogurt, salsa verde, and lime.
- Build the bowls by adding lettuce, rice, black beans, cabbage, tomatoes, onion, avocado and cheese. Sprinkle salt and pepper, a squeeze of lime and chopped cilantro. Add the ground beef and yogurt sauce, serve and enjoy!
Notes
- Ground beef: can be replaced with ground turkey or chicken.
Nutrition
About Priscilla Lawrence
Hi there, I'm Priscilla Lawrence! Welcome to Sprinkled With Balance where I share elevated and approachable nutrient-rich recipes that aren't overly restrictive, complicated or boring! Based in California but born and raised in France, I'm a mom of two, former certified nutritionist, recipe developer, and food photographer.
Megan says
Delicious, healthy, and filling! I made this as a taco salad bar for my family. I love how customizable it is. If you're lazy about cooking or just feeling too tired to cook, you can take so many shortcuts with this and still have it be nutritious and yummy. LOVE the yogurt/salsa verde sauce and 100% worth the minimal effort. My son declared this the "best thing ever"!
Priscilla Lawrence says
Thank you so much Megan!! This is the nicest review ever!
Tom says
It was very good
Priscilla says
So glad you enjoyed the recipe Tom!