A salad in a bag — delish and fun!

My colleague Wade Shirkey has given me so many good food ideas. He's clearly a great cook and a great appreciator of  'ono local food.

The other day I walked by his desk and saw him eating something out of a split-open bag of Fritos. It's a kind of taco salad that would make a great casual party lunch or supper. I call it Fritaco Salad.

Here's how you do it. Buy as many bags of Fritos  (the small ones or the 10-ounce ones for big appetites) as you have guests. Place each bag on its side on a plate and slit it open with a scissors in an X shape opening the flaps outward. Then pile on your desired ingredients: a base of shredded lettuce topped with chili or taco-seasoned hamburger, refried beans or pinto beans, grated Cheddar cheese or Mexican queso blanco, chopped tomatoes, finely diced onions or minced green onions, finely chopped jalapenos, Thousand Island or ranch or French dressing, a dollop of sour cream. Anything you like.

Because the Fritos get soggy rather rapidly you need to make these right before serving. A good plan would be to prepare the plates with the Frito bags and set them out, then set out the salad ingredients in a buffet and let everyone make their own.

This isn't a new idea; I vaguely recall having heard of it before. But it's got a nice light-hearted energy that will really make a party and has the advantage of requiring very little work of the host or hostess. Use disposable plates, buy premade chili and pre-shredded cheese and all you have to do is a little chopping and assembling.

This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 12:00 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.