This little beauty straight out of the oven is great for all occasions. I love corn chips and nachos makes it acceptable to eat corn chips for dinner! This recipe is very versatile and a vegetarian option can be made just by substituting the meat for refried beans. Happy eating!
Recipe:
Ingredients:
- Oil or Butter
- Onion
- Garlic
- Mince or Ground Beef
- Cumin
- Chilli Powder
- Oregano
- Fresh or Tinned Tomatoes
- Tomato Paste
- Cooked Kidney Beans
- Cheese
- Corn Chips
- Salt and Pepper
Preparation:
- Mince or dice garlic
- Dice onions
- If using fresh tomatoes, chop them up roughly
- If using raw kidney beans, cook them until soft
- Shred cheese
- Preheat oven to 180°C or 350°F
Method:
- Heat oil in wok or pan
- Saute onion lightly
- Add garlic and saute
- Add meat, break up into small pieces and fry until all meat is browned
- Coat meat with cumin
- Add chilli powder and pepper
- Add oregano and mix thoroughly
- Add tomatoes and break up into small pieces
- Mix in additional oregano
- Reduce until sauce thickens or add tomato paste to thicken sauce
- Mix in cooked kidney beans
- Add salt and pepper to season
- Spoon mixture onto oven tray and flatten out to consistent level
- Sprinkle cheese over the nacho dip
- Place tray in to oven and cook until cheese starts to bubble and turns golden
- Remove nachos from oven and serve with corn chips
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to good for you living is part of the cooking basics series, where I’m going to demonstrate cooking in two easy to follow steps.
Today we’re making easy nachos. This is one of my favourite dishes that can be a real treat but also have healthy options. I like it for myself as a main meal just by adding
different vegetables and it’s also great to share with friends at a barbecue or at a party.
So I want to tell you more about this two-step method. First it’s about oil and water. separate ingredients that you going to cook in oil and those that you are going to cook in water. And second everything’s a salad so if you have ever made a salad before you’ll be able to make this dish with at a problem. So I hope this is going to be good for you and let’s get in to the kitchen.
Let’s start off with a wok or pan on high and here are our oil ingredients. some onion, garlic, some mince or ground beef, cumin, chilli powder and oregano. For our water ingredients we have tomatoes, tomato paste and kidney beans, and our topping will be cheese. Right now that our pan is hot we can add some oil, I’m using butter to fry my onions and I’ve used diced onions in this case. And we just want to caramalise them lightly.
Ok the colour is starting to change and we are ready for our garlic, you can mince this or chop them up into little pieces like I have done. Minced garlic is great if you have a little crusher. The heat is high so we are ready for our minced meat or ground beef. We need to break this all up so it’s all separated.
Ok that’s coming along nicely just making sure that every little bit gets fried
Now once that is done and all our meat is browned we can start with our herbs and spices. Adding some ground cumin, just enough to give the meat a bit of a coating it’s about over a tablespoon, and some chilli powder. Ok I’ve used about a teaspoon here, and you can see the meat getting a nice colour to it. Ok just give it a bit of a mix just to even the herbs and spices out or the spices and now for some pepper and now mix that through thoroughly. That’s our spices we can add our herb now, which is just some oregano. Ok you can be generous here, well I am anyway, give the meat a good coating and mix it through thoroughly. Ok we don’t need to fry it too much so we can move straight into our water ingredients and in go the tomatoes. I’ve used tinned whole tomatoes so I’m going to have to break them up.
Ok our start of the sauce is forming the tomatoes have broken down and I’m going to add some more oregano, this is optional but I love this in Mexican style foods, it’s like the extra herb is for the sauce not just the meat. Oh yes that is looking and smelling great!. Now our sauce needs to be thickened, we can reduce this with a slow simmer and let the water evaporate but I have a bit of a cheat. the quick method here is to use some tomato paste, I’m putting in a couple of heaped tablespoons and if we mix that through we can see the sauce is coming along well.
Ok our final ingredients are kidney beans, these beans have to be pre cooked, so whether it’s tinned or you have them boiled previously just make sure they are not raw beans and that they are already soft. Alright the final bit of seasoning will be some salt, give it a generous little coat and a bit of a mix through. And I’m pretty happy with this, ah the sauce is reduced and it’s not runny that’s what we want because the nachos are like a dip. So now we are going to transfer this into the oven. Now what I’m using is a pizza tray but you can use any kind of thin baking tray and all we do is spoon our mixture onto the tray.
Ok flatten it out nicely so there is a thin layer of meat and sauce. I’ve already pre-heated the oven to 180 degrees centigrade or 350 farenheit and we can add a relatively thin layer of shredded cheese. You can put in more if you like it’s up to you. And once you are happy with it we are going to throw it into the oven until the cheese is melted a light golden brown.
Ok this is straight out of the oven garnished with a sprinkle of shallots and surrounded with corn chips. Now some people like to put corn chips into the oven with the nacho dip, I find that it’s not necessary as the corn chips should already be crunchy and if it goes under the sauce the chips get soggy. But in terms of presentation that looks good. And also you can serve with a bowl of chips on the side as well.