illdothedisheslater

So I don’t do viral recipes often, mostly because I’m not on TikTok (mostly because I’m old), but this one caught my eye and I was like “First of all why didn’t they call them Big Macos?”  Swing and a miss.

Read more: Viral Big Mac Tacos: No wait, scratch that. Big Macos

This is appealing because – hey – I like Big Macs a lot, and in a year of dieting my fast food consumption has bottomed out.  Boy oh boy do I miss it.  Dry salads and sugar free Jell-O and counting out six peanut M&Ms… That makes my only daily treat air-popped popcorn lightly spritzed with zero calorie butter substitute.  Life has been grim for many reasons, but diet is definitely in the top five.  There are dozens of blogs with this same idea (I mean it’s viral right?) (and mostly British for some reason?), but some of them were really… out there.  Greek yogurt, sea salt, hot sauce… Coconut aminos?  To make true junk food you need to cook with garbage!

There are hundreds if not thousands of copycat Special Sauce recipes online – mine is not any better or worse than the rest, but here it is.

½ Cup Mayo

3 T Ketchup

2 T Dill Relish

2 t Yellow Mustard

½ t Apple Cider Vinegar

1 t Sugar

¼ t Garlic Powder

¼ t Onion Powder

¼ t Paprika

¼ t salt

Just mix it all up.  It’s not quite as pinkish as the real thing, and tastes too sweet just by itself, but once applied it gets pretty darn close. 

The rest of the ingredients are as follows:

8 oz. Ground Beef*

4 Flour Tortillas (street taco size – approx. 5”)

4 slices American Cheese

Shredded lettuce

Dill pickles

*Note – I used ground chuck (80/20) which was a little too juicy and greasy.  If I make these again I’ll choose a leaner beef.

Divide the beef into 2 oz. portions and roll them into balls.  Kind of smoosh the balls onto the tortillas – pushing it as close to the edges as you can get.  The beef will shrink up when cooking.  Sprinkle with a little salt and pepper, but not too much.  Remember that the burgers at McD’s are gray and bland!  Get a stainless-steel pan good and hot and spritz with a little veg oil spray. 

Wow, that picture is unappealing.

Plop them meat-side down and hear that sizzle!  After 2-3 minutes, flip them carefully and quickly with a metal spatula.  If any bubble form in the tortillas, pop ‘em.  Once the beef looks cooked well, flip them once more to let some of the juices drain/cook off, then transfer tortilla-side down to a plate.  Try to fold them into taco shape if you can and immediately top with a slice of cheese.  You can put them into a warm oven while you cook the rest and it will help the cheese melt – but not too much!  McD’s cheese is never fully melted. 

Then just top with shredded lettuce, a couple pickles, and a splash of your Special Sauce.  (McD’s uses rehydrated dehydrated onions on… well, everything, but I’m not a raw-ish onion fan so I left them off – feel free to add some.)

That’s it – the flavor and taste is dead on, but the quality of the ingredients is better.  But not too much better!  It tastes like a fresh, well-made Big Mac but without the stale-ish buns and less than half the carbs.  Other pros: you can control the amount of lettuce, which McD’s applies with a shovel, guaranteeing every Big Mac is just over lukewarm when you bite into it.  Cons: not actually a Big Mac, which is sad.  More things should be Big Macs.  Also this isn’t a good make-ahead dish.  I made four and still have three left, which will be basically inedible within 20 minutes.  ☹

So there you go, biz-nitches.  I’m back!  I’ll spare you the details of my Terrible, Horrible, No-Good, Very Bad Year.  Give me a few posts to get my groove back, but I promise not to disappear into the void again any time soon.  At least I’ll try.