‘The Pioneer Woman’ Ree Drummond’s Low-Carb Taco Tomatoes Will Make You Forget Taco Shells: ‘Trust Me on This Guys’
It’s well-known by now that Food Network star Ree Drummond has lost an impressive amount of weight.
Recently, she posted a recipe she turns to that’s filling, healthy, and makes her think of tacos. What’s better than that? The Pioneer Woman shows you how to make it.
The base of Drummond’s Taco Tomatoes
To make the beef filling for Drummond’s Taco Tomatoes (full recipe here), you’ll need olive oil, scallions, garlic, ground beef, taco seasoning, salsa, hot sauce, and salt.
And for the toppings for this low-carb feast, you’ll need, of course, tomatoes, lettuce, shredded cheese, sour cream, cilantro leaves, jalapenos, hot sauce, and lime.
The scallions and garlic are cooked in the oil. Then, the raw ground beef is browned, drained, and set aside. It’s the start to so many great recipes, as Drummond who is a cattle rancher’s wife, says in the video for this recipe: “I can never have enough ground beef recipes in my arsenal. You can buy huge family packs of ground beef, you can get it on sale; it’s so versatile, it takes on the flavor of whatever you cook it with.”
How to make Drummond’s Taco Tomatoes
At this point, the taco seasoning (“you can also just do your own seasoning, like chili powder, cumin, garlic powder”), salt, salsa, and hot sauce are added and stirred in to the meat. The hot water is then added, “just to kind of help the sauciness of this meat mixture.”
Drummond notes that the mixture as is is great for “regular tacos, you could do nachos, you could do like quesadillas with meat mixture in the middle.”
To serve, a whole tomato is quartered only 3/4 of the way down. This is important to note as the tomato is the serving vessel in this recipe, as a taco shell would be for regular tacos. The ground beef is spooned into the quartered tomato and then topped with cheese, sour cream, and whatever you like. “You gotta trust me on this, guys,” Drummond told her kids, who watched as she filmed.
While Drummond’s daughter, who was filming her mother as she made the dish, didn’t seem on board with it, her mother didn’t agree: “Paige is not sure, but I have to say, I think this is a super fun idea. I think it’s very like with the times we’re in. For me, it totally works.”
What reviewers are saying about Drummond’s Taco Tomatoes
Overwhelmingly, the reviews for this recipe were generally positive although some home cooks were honest with their opinions.
Instead of a raw tomato, one reviewer said, “I would actually broil these with olive oil and sea salt for several minutes before stuffing them.”
Another reviewer offered a glowing review: “This was GREAT!!! No pesky taco shells. Fresh tomatoes and meat and veggies. Perfect. My family LOVED this.”
Offering constructive criticism, a home cook said, “Filling is very good! Instead of cutting the tomatoes in wedges which makes in extremely hard to fill (Ree even had a problem) I used a spoon and removed some of tomato added it right to the filling! Then there was room for filling!”
