New Mexico tacos
New Mexico tacos are the tacos of New Mexican home and restaurant cooking, classically a corn tortilla filled with ground or shredded beef mixed with potato, fried crisp or baked, and finished with red or green chile, cheese, lettuce and tomato.
History
Corn tortillas are an ancient staple in New Mexico, but tacos arrived in the state's cooking comparatively late. New Mexico Magazine notes that the cookbooks published after statehood in 1912 promoted posole, enchiladas, tamales, pinto beans, carne adovada and red and green chile, not tacos. Taco recipes begin to appear in print around the late 1930s and 1940s. The magazine identifies Margaret C. de Baca Martinez's 1939 cookbook as probably holding the first printed New Mexico taco recipe: soft, folded tortillas with red chile sauce inside and more chile and cheese on top. Eloisa Delgado de Stewart's 1941 book described rolled tacos dipped in hot fat and filled with beef, pork, onion and celery.
Fabiola Cabeza de Baca Gilbert, a home economist from San Miguel County, is credited with an early recipe for crisp-fried hard shells; the magazine's two articles date it differently, to the 1930s in one and to a 1949 book in the other. By the late 1970s, Lucy Delgado's cookbook referred to store-bought taco shells, and a Taco Bell had opened in Santa Fe in the mid-1970s, spreading pre-fried shells with seasoned beef, cheese and lettuce.
Characteristics
The defining home filling is ground or shredded beef cooked with diced potato, sometimes replaced by shredded chicken. Tortillas are softened in hot fat, filled, folded and fried crisp, or filled and oven-baked to a chewier texture. Toppings are cheese, lettuce, tomato and salsa, and in keeping with the state's cooking, red or green chile, ground or chopped and used as seasoning or sauce. In the Clovis and Portales area, small rolled baked beef tacos are known as taquitos or taquitas, and Las Vegas, New Mexico, is associated with old-school burnt-cheese tacos. Vegetarian tacos use calabacitas, a sauté of squash, corn and green chile.
The writer Denise Chávez described her mother's taco table in Las Cruces, a spread of cheesy baked ground-beef and potato tacos, in her 2006 book A Taco Testimony.
Contemporary scene
Mexican-style taquerias are relatively recent arrivals. Fernando Olea came to Santa Fe in 1989, found plenty of hard shells but no soft corn tortillas, and later opened Bert's La Taqueria, one of the city's first; he went on to win the 2022 James Beard Award for best chef of the Southwest. Today the state's tacos range from blue corn tortillas filled and baked at The Shed in Santa Fe to birria, Korean fusion and Indigenous frybread tacos at fiestas and fairs.
Recipe
Ingredients
- 450 g ground beef
- 1 medium potato, peeled and finely diced
- 1/2 white onion, chopped
- 2 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tsp soy sauce or browning sauce
- Salt and black pepper
- 12 corn tortillas (blue or yellow)
- Vegetable oil for frying
- 1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey Jack
- 2 cups shredded lettuce
- 2 tomatoes, diced
- Red or green chile sauce, or salsa, to serve
Steps
- Brown the beef in a skillet, breaking it up. Add the onion, garlic and potato with a splash of water, cover and cook until the potato is tender, about 10 minutes.
- Uncover, stir in the soy or browning sauce, season and cook until dry.
- Heat 1 cm of oil to about 175 C. Dip each tortilla briefly to soften it, fill with a spoonful of beef, fold in half and fry, turning, until crisp. Drain.
- Open each taco slightly and add cheese, lettuce and tomato.
- Serve with red or green chile spooned over or on the side.
For baked rolled tacos, roll the filled tortillas, brush with oil and bake at 175 C until crisp, then top with cheese.
Where to try it
- The Shed, Santa Fe: Known for blue corn tortillas filled and oven-baked.
- Bert's La Taqueria, Santa Fe: Opened by Fernando Olea; described as one of the city's first taquerias.
Reviews
Reviews and tips open at launch. Readers will be able to share where they found the best version of this and how they make it at home.
See also
References
- "The History of New Mexico Tacos". New Mexico Magazine. Retrieved 2026-10-10.
- "Tacos New Mexico Style". New Mexico Magazine. Retrieved 2026-10-10.