Mexican Pasta Skillet + Low Carb Fish Taco Salad

I love it when our nightly dinner recipe turns out to be something that my family really likes, plus I'm able to make it low carb for me with just a few adjustments.

The original recipe for this Mexican Pasta Skillet comes from Betty Crocker. I left out the corn, used ground turkey instead of ground beef and added a low carb taco spice blend to my recipe makeover. I reserved 1/4 C. of the sauce mixture for my fish taco salad. Then I added cooked elbow macaroni to the remaining sauce for my family.

My recipe makeover looks like this:

Tami's Mexican Pasta Skillet

1 lb ground turkey
16 oz salsa - I used "hot"
16 oz tomato sauce
1 1/2 C. water
1 lb. cooked elbow macaroni
1/2 C. shredded mexi blend cheese
low carb taco seasoning blend* - recipe below

Brown turkey; drain off grease, if necessary. Return turkey to skillet.

Stir in low carb taco seasoning blend, salsa, tomato sauce and water.

Reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes. Stir in cooked elbow macaroni and heat through.

Sprinkle the shredded cheese on top of the pasta. Cover with a lid to allow the cheese time to melt - 2 minutes.

Serve with warm bread and a side salad.

Low Carb Taco Seasoning

1 t. chili powder
3/4 t. paprika
3/4 t. cumin
1/2 t. onion powder
1/2 t. salt
3/8 t. garlic powder
pinch cayenne

I doubled this amount for the recipe above.

I cannot take credit for creating this great spice blend. You can see the original recipe here.


Now for my low carb fish taco salad........

Last night we had Red Pepper & Parmesan Talapia. If you are fond of fish - and even if you are not - you should try this recipe. It's delicious. I also sprinkled a little cajun spice on the fish to give it a little "kick".

There was one piece of fish left over from last night so I decided to add it to my salad. Win-Win-Win! It's low carb...it's delicious....I used up the leftovers instead of throwing them out.

Tami's Low Carb Fish Taco Salad

1 - 1 1/2 C. Italian salad mixed greens
1 piece of leftover red pepper & parmesan talapia
1/3 piece of an English cucumber, roughly chopped
1/4 C. taco meat sauce from mexican pasta skillet recipe (above)
2 TBSP sour cream
2 TBSP shredded mexi blend cheese

Layer in order:

greens
cucumber
fish
taco meat sauce
sour cream
cheese

This new twist on salad will be added to my list of favorites! The recipe makes a big salad that could easily have been divided into 2 salads if you wanted to serve another vegetable with it. I couldn't finish the whole thing by myself.