A few weeks ago I found this recipe from Taco Soup from NYTimes Cooking and realized I had most of the ingredients in my pantry. This recipe does call for quite a few ingredients, including making your taco own seasoning, but that’s what caught my eye.
By making several #SaltSwaps, you can easily make this tasty dish low sodium, without compromising on flavors or textures.
Not-cho Taco Seasoning
The recipe starts with a quick assembly of taco spices instead of using a store-bought seasoning packet. While not 100 percent no salt (chili powder), it’s a fantastic mix allowing you the greatest control of salt.
What’s better is you can easily make this as a large batch for future recipes, including classic tacos. I also love that you can adjust intensity with the chili powder while also making it spicier by adding cayenne.
Easy Beansy
The recipe calls for two cans of beans, rinsed. While super convenient and available in low sodium variants, I prefer to use dried beans either soaked the night before, or in this case, in the InstantPot while I prepped the seasoning and veggies.
One half cup of measured dried beans generally equals one can of beans. I actually made this recipe in half (very doable) and chose a 1/4 cup measure of red and black beans.
Just 20 minutes in the InstantPot with a careful manual release, and you’ve got perfectly tender beans ready to add.
In Stock
While the recipe includes low sodium stock, I always have homemade unsalted stock in the freezer. Today was actually already thawed turkey stock and leftover veggie stock from my morning congee.
We’ve talked about the stock exchange, and even if you don’t have a ton of freezer space, no sodium chicken and beef bouillon powders are also readily available.
Tomato Tomato
Also covered in a recent post, canned tomatoes can be loaded with added sodium. The NYTimes Cooking recipe includes canned fire roasted tomatoes and diced jalapeños.
What I love is their call-out that you can use tomatoes WITH jalapeños, and there are “no salt added” versions of both.
Salt as you Go
Following the above #saltswaps, I didn’t need to add much salt during cooking. In fact, I found it perfectly salted with just a little added when sauteing the onions.
Salt does a lot during the cooking process, so use it when caramelizing or sweating veggies. With the other no/low salt ingredients swapped, adding a grind of pink salt or sprinkle of kosher is totally normal.
Plus, depending on your toppings – hot sauce, crushed corn chips, cheese, pickled jalapeños – your final bowl will be very tasty.
What’s your favorite salty dish and how can I remake with a #saltswap or two. Share below.
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