Forget Tortillas, Try Your Next Taco With This Genius Potato Swap

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Tortillas can be tricky. Store-bought tortillas should be warmed up in the microwave to get pliable enough to wrap around the taco filling; and while homemade tortillas are worth the effort, they do take a lot of time to make. What if you just skipped them completely? Instead of tortillas, you could build a wrap to house your tacos with something totally different. Home chefs and professional foodies have broken the mold with a new style of mock-tortilla that doesn't take hours to make. Instead of reaching for flour when it's time for taco night, they're digging out root vegetables and building a shell for tacos with smashed sweet potatoes and a few other basic items.

One method for turning sweet potatoes into a taco shell requires only two ingredients: sweet potatoes and cheese. You'll first melt your favorite kind of cheese (parmesan, mozzarella, and cheddar are great options) in a few spots on a griddle. Then add an already cooked sweet potato to the top of each cheese patch and use a round cast iron burger press to flatten the sweet potato into the cheese. Sear the mixture until it's lightly crispy and browned, then flip it and toast the other side.

You can make a thinner mock-tortilla with boiled sweet potatoes and cassava flour by combining 1 cup of cassava flour with 1 pound of mashed sweet potatoes. Form it into balls and flatten with a tortilla press. Fry them up in a pan and use them to build all kinds of tacos.

Sweet potatoes are begging for Tex-Mex toppings and provide a great base for all kinds of Mexican-style tacos. Use them to put a twist on carne asada, tacos al pastor, peachy pork carnitas, or barbacoa. Sweet potato taco shells are a great pairing for Mexican-style street tacos topped with diced onion, cilantro, and shredded chicken; but classic taco ingredients are just the beginning for flavor combinations. Sweet potato pulled pork tacos are popular online, and are filled with succulent shredded pork, onion, jalapeno slices, and BBQ sauce. Red cabbage slaw and black beans are also great ingredients for tacos built with sweet potato shells. Alternatively, create a taco with island-style vibes with sweet chili shrimp and diced onions.

One of the bonuses of sweet potato taco shells is their added nutrition. They're a gluten-free and lower carb take on tortillas that work great for vegan and paleo diets. You can create nutrient-dense toppings for the tacos as well to really maximize the health value of the meal. For a taco with higher nutrient statistics, try filling sweet potato taco shells with grilled chicken, Greek yogurt, onion, avocado, shredded lettuce, and hot sauce.