Looking for a healthy tacos recipe? Look no further! These tacos are simple and use all of your favorite Trader Joe’s ingredients!
Who doesn’t love Taco Tuesday, or let’s be real, tacos any day of the week?! We love tacos in our house and are always looking for some healthier meal ideas. After tossing the tortillas, this is how we came up with this delicious yet healthy tacos recipe using some of our favorite Trader Joe’s items!
The healthy tacos recipe is a part of our Trader Joe’s Dinner Ideas series! You’ll find other Trader Joe’s Dinners at the bottom!
Healthy Tacos Recipe with Trader Joes Ingredients
The Healthy Meat
My boyfriend is ALWAYS pushing for dinners without red meat during the week so I am often looking for healthy alternatives. We LOVE making healthy tacos with ground turkey since it truly doesn’t taste that different from ground beef once you season the meat. You can also make your tacos a little healthier with ground chicken too. If you’re looking for a vegetarian alternative you can even make your tacos with Brussels sprouts or sweet potatoes!
For the purposes of this dinner, we went with ground turkey tacos! I typically use ground turkey from Costco because we can buy it in bulk, but you can also buy it at Trader Joe’s.
How to Cook the Meat
Cooking ground turkey is SO EASY! Because we buy ours in bulk from Costco, it’s typically frozen by the time we remember that we want to cook it!
Pro-Tip: I always forget to take the meat out the night before to defrost. If you’re like me and looking to defrost meat quickly without the microwave, let it sit in a bowl of COLD water for 1-2+ hours.
Thankfully ground turkey/beef/chicken cooks just fine if it’s a little frozen, but hard if it’s totally frozen! I use my nonstick stone pan by Ozeri so that I don’t need to cook with olive oil! Just place your meat in the pan and turn on medium heat. I usually season with Trader Joe’s Chili-Lime Seasoning and a little garlic powder. I am a WHIMP when it comes to spice and thankfully, I don’t find this seasoning to be too spicy! Feel free to add in Chili powder or other spices to kick it up a notch!
Pro-Tip: Although cooking with taco seasoning is an easy option, it’s usually loaded with sodium. If you are looking to make this truly a healthy taco recipe, skip the taco seasoning and make your own!
Break up the meat with a non-stick or silicone spoon as it starts to cook. That’s right- you don’t need to pre-cut it or anything, put the whole block of meat in the pan. I will also add about 1/3 cup of water and let it simmer so the meat doesn’t burn. Once the meat has mostly browned I like to throw in some chopped white onion. You can always skip the onion or add onion powder if you prefer!
F3 Cooking Must-Haves
The Healthy Taco “Shell”
If you’re looking to amp up your healthy lifestyle with some healthier tacos, you are going to LOVE these taco shell alternatives!
1. The Jicama Wrap
Since we are nixing the taco shell to make these tacos healthy, we still need a taco “shell”. We LOVE the Jicama Wraps from Trader Joe’s! They are soft-taco shell sized yet only 7ish calories each, and totally gluten free. If you’re thinking “what the heck is a Jicama?!”, you’re not alone! I was at a loss the first time I came across them too. A jicama is a root vegetable and looks like a cross between a potato an a turnip BUT has taste and texture similar to an apple. Don’t worrry, it’s not as sweet as an apple and won’t influence the taste of your taco!
You can find these Jicama wraps in the refrigerated section at Trader Joe’s – usually by the carrots and lentils!
Pro-Tip: Sometimes they are a bit slimy from being stuck together so we just pat them down with a paper towel.
2. Lettuce Wraps
Lettuce wraps are a great healthy alternative to traditional taco shells as well! We typically try to buy romaine lettuce because we prefer the long leaf with a studier center. Iceberg lettuce provides more of a shell with its big leaves, but this type of lettuce is mostly water and not very nutrient dense. Both are great options though!
The Toppings
Now the BEST part of the taco, the toppings! While the meat is cooking, you can start to prepare the toppings. Truthfully, you can put anything you love on a taco! These are some of our favorite healthy taco toppings – and you can find most of them at Trader Joe’s!
- Tomato
- Onion
- Cilantro
- Shredded Cheese
- Dairy-Free Options: Daia Shredded Cheese or Nutritional Yeast
- Crushed pineapple (not found at Trader Joe’s unfortunately)
- Peppers
- Jalapenos
- Lime
- Salsa
- Pro-tip: you can also cook your meat with your favorite salsa
- Sour Cream
Our “secret sauce” that we LOVE to use to top our tacos is the Cilantro-Lime Dressing from Trader Joe’s! You can find it in the refrigerated section by the salad kits. Don’t worry if you aren’t a cilantro fan, the cilantro taste is rather underwhelming.
This post was all about how to make a simple healthy tacos recipe with ground turkey that the whole family will enjoy!
I hope you enjoy these healthy turkey tacos as much as we do! I am telling you, the cilantro-lime dressing from Trader Joe’s really changes the game for us on Taco Tuesday! Like I always say, life is about balance, and yes- you can eat your tacos and live a healthy lifestyle too! As always, let me know your favorite way to make your tacos a little healthier in the comments below!
