This keto taco salad is a super simple recipe. It contains ingredients you would usually put inside a taco shell, but are instead served as a salad. Just think… no more mess when the taco breaks in your hands!
Sour cream is your friend in this recipe. It helps to make the ingredients taste fantastic, binding the separate textures of the lettuce and cheese into a mixture of creamy Mexican-style salad.
Keto Salad Recipes
As the temperature starts to warm up in the Northern Hemisphere, I bet you’re just drooling over fresh, lighter options instead of stodgy casseroles.
Don’t get me wrong, those meals are great when it’s cold, but if it’s 100 degrees outside, nobody likes getting the “meat sweats”.
What is Beef Mince?
Here in Australia, we call ground beef “beef mince“. Beef mince is a cheaper alternative to full cuts of meat like steak and loins, but the fat content makes it more appropriate for a ketogenic lifestyle.
Make sure that when you purchase beef mince (or ground beef) for this recipe, that you always get the full-fat version. 70% or 80% fat works perfectly. Higher fat beef is usually cheaper and higher in calories (which is actually a good thing) than other varieties. High protein meals tend to be low in caloric content in contrast. Many of the essential vitamins and minerals come from fat and must be absorbed by being bound to fat.
Please note, grass-fed is much better than normal mince. It usually contains six times more of the essential amino acids and vitamins than grain fed beef. Don’t worry, though, if you can’t afford it.
Is Grass-fed Beef All That It’s Cracked Up To Be?
Grass-fed doesn’t always mean that the meat is hormone free. Beef cattle are given a large number of hormones to speed up the growth process from calf to fully grown livestock.
Try also to purchase hormone free, organic beef. The extra cost is definitely outweighed by the benefits.
Taco Salad Dressing
This taco salad uses sour cream as a dressing. Sour cream is delicious and gives the dressing a zesty taste that ordinary heavy whipping cream wouldn’t achieve.
- However, if you’re dairy-free, you might want to try coconut yogurt mixed with a little cumin and lemon juice.
- You might also want to give the dressing a Middle Eastern feel by adding garlic to it or by substituting the sour cream with Greek yogurt. The options are endless!
Taco Salad For A Crowd
To make this for a crowd, I would double the recipe and place it into a large serving bowl.
The lettuce would go in first followed by the toppings to ensure that the best parts don’t just float to the bottom.
Low Carb Taco Salad Toppings
There are multiple toppings you can put on a keto taco salad:
- Guacamole (mashed avocado with cilantro, lime, chili, etc.)
- Jalapeno peppers
- Pickled jalapenos
- Plenty of fresh cilantro
- All types of cheeses
- All types of creams
- Yogurt dressings, as mentioned above
Other Taco Recipes
Keto Taco Salad
Ingredients
- 450 g Ground Beef 1 lb
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp ground paprika
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 cups Lettuce chopped
- 1/2 cup Cheese grated (100 g / 3.5 oz)
- 1 whole Avocado sliced
- 1/2 whole Lime sliced
- 2 tbsp Red Onion diced (optional)
- 1/2 cup Sour Cream 115 ml / 4 fl oz
Instructions
- Set a frying pan set over medium-high heat. Add the ground beef and olive oil to the pan, and cook until golden brown.
- Add the paprika, cumin and water; simmer for 5 minutes.
- Slice up the lettuce and grate the cheese. Slice the avocado and lime, and chop the red onion. Toss the lettuce with the avocado, lime and red onion in a large mixing bowl. Divide between 4 plates.
- Top each salad with the ground beef mixture and garnish with the cheese and sour cream.
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Thank you for the great vid. One question, you didn’t put water in the video nor simmered it. Which one should I follow?
Hi Heli,
The water in the original recipe helps infuse the flavors, but doesn’t add to the liquid of the recipe since most gets evaporated. Hope that helps.
Hi. What other option do I have to replace the sour cream. I just can’t eat it.
What kind of white cheese is this? Thank you so much
Cheddar 🙂
Just curious, do you drain the grease off your the meat? I usually do but am unsure if that is ok on Keto.
Keep it 🙂
No! You need that grease for the nutrients in it, that is why you are instructed to use CHEAPER (AKA; less lean) ground beef. Fat, the right kind, absorbs fat!
This was so good! I’ll be eating it often!
I made this for Taco Tuesday this evening. It was delicious but I made some substitutions. I used a lemon instead of lime, no onion, a small chopped tomato, Aldi low carb lime salsa, and black olives. My husband likes a little more carbs so I sprinkled a few black beans on top to make him think it had black beans in it (heehee, that’s why I added a small can of black olives). I baked two low-carb (5 carbs each) tortillas laying on two small bowls at 375 for 15 min. The total carbs were 12+ with the additions for dinner. A great healthy meal that we will be making again!
Yum!! thats so great 🙂
I am looking forward to trying this tonight!! I would love it if you had the ingredients listed in grams though. Weighing makes Keto soooooo much easier (not to mention, more precise)!! 🙂
Hi I really have a hard time eating avocado! It just makes me super ill, which is not ideal when it is such a must eat on keto! Can you suggest other fat options that I could use instead of avocado? Thank you!
Hi Nicole,
Avocado is a really great fat because it contains a lot of potassium (electrolytes). However, they do contain a fair amount of carbs, so on a strict ketogenic diet these might not be the best option.
On salads, i really enjoy Sesame seed oil! Even olive oil. For this recipe you could add more cream and that would be totally okay 🙂