Spiralized Sweet Potato Taco Skillet

Tacos are life. I’ve been having a consistent taco craving fooorr…I wanna say…approximately 15 years. It’s never ending – I’m always down for a taco. Luckily, on whole 30, a taco craving is actually pretty easily satiated. There are a lot of healthy substitutes where you ditch the cheese and tortilla but still get your taco fix.

Lettuce wraps = perf. Taco bowls (with cauliflower rice) = always. Spiralized sweet potato taco skillets = yes please erryday for erry meal. Obsessed? Only slightly.

Tacos are an easy thing to fake because the main taco-y element is the meat that is seasoned to Mexican perfection. If you have taco meat, I feel like anything can taste taco-like. Especially when you add some other goodies like avocado, cilantro, jalapenos, rotel, green chilis, etc…the possibilities and taco reminiscent additions are endless!

There are other cravings that, while on whole 30, are almost IMPOSSIBLE to satiate. I was craving pizza with a burning passion for a solid 2-3 weeks, and I tried SO HARD to eat things that would kill the craving – read: loaded pizza potato skins. Did it work? Nah. Without the cheese, pizza crust, and pepperoni (couldn’t ever find whole 30 compatible pepperoni), it just ain’t gon happen.

So, tacos? Thanks for being easy to make healthy. You da real MVP.

And pizza? My love for you is strong, but you can be a pain in the butt on a healthy eating lifestyle. But…what is life without pizza? Answer: a sad, dark, black hole. I LOVE YOU PIZZA DON’T EVER LEAVE ME.

Anyway, back to this taco skillet situation. This was one of our favorite whole 30 recipes – Seth said it was his all time favorite from the whole month. Because food is all about dat flava, and this dish is loaddddded with flavorful goodness.

We’ve got our homemade taco seasoning that is lovingly layered into every facet of this taco skillet, bringing Mexican deliciousness in every bite, the yummy, tender ground beef, our tasty veggies, and – of course – our delicious sweet potato noodles!

Load it up with a generous – GENEROUS I SAID! – amount of avocado (my whole 30 love) and lots of cilantro, and you are ready to go! Spiral a nice big bite of taco-y sweet potato noodles and love life until that bite has been chewed and swallowed. Repeat forever.

In order to bring maximum taco flavor to this skillet, we’ve gotta pull out all the stops:

• The taco seasoning: chili powder, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, oregano, smoked paprika
• The veggies: onion, red bell pepper, garlic, jalapeno
• The extra Mexican goodies: rotel, canned green chilis

Put all of these elements together? Just try it, you’ll see.

Seth and I embarked on the undertaking of our LIVES yesterday: landscaping our hot mess of a front yard. Since we’ve lived in our house, we have had a tree in the front yard with a stone encasement (correct lingo? No idea) around it, and a CRAP TON of dead weed/flower things within that little enclosure. Our flower bed (also don’t know if it’s actually a flower bed), which is like twelve feet long in front of our house, has also been overrun with weeds and dead bushes since we moved in.

We moved in two years ago…soooo it’s been ignored for a while. Why un-ignore it now when we are moving in January? Not sure. But we decided to unignore it nonetheless.

I think I use the word “we” rather strongly here. We had just finished mowing the lawn and were sitting in the living room relaxing and I said…”You know what would be fun? If we pulled up all our weeds around the tree and planted flowers in our flower bed! We should go to Home Depot when Ford wakes up and do it!” He wasn’t ultra enthusiastic, but he was down.

I’m traveling back to when I said “You know what would be fun?” Fun…FUN. Lolololol. I’m sorry, but fun is the last thing this little journey was. Satisfying? Yes. Worth it? Yes. But fun? NOOOOOOPE.

I also felt kiiiinda bad, because this whole thing was my idea, but I basically ended up doing nothing until the flower planting/mulching portion started because I had to watch Ford so he didn’t fall onto his stomach in his little baby pool we had set up in the front yard, and then I had to go inside and feed him lunch/put him down for a nap.

So poor Seth got dragged into this mission and then ended up basically doing the whole thing himself…whoops. My B.

Our extreme home makeover: landscape edition included the following…a cleared out “around-tree” area, which ended up being mulched, a completely cleared out flower bed with new soil, lots of flowers planted, and mulch, weed pulling in our stone patio area, and some aesthetic changes with a few rocking chair additions and 5 potted plants (basil, dill, cherry tomatoes, red bell peppers, and cucumbers). Cha girl, we got it done. Well…mainly Seth. DON’T JUDGE ME, I had to parent.

Also, Seth got sunburned. Badly. So he had to do the entire project that was my idea in the first place, and he ended the day looking more like the lobster from the little mermaid than his former self. But he was really happy that we got it done, and we ended up spending the evening outside appreciating our his hard work once Ford went to bed.

In conclusion: yard work is hard. Sweet potato taco skillets are good.

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If you make this or any of my other recipes, be sure to Instagram it and hashtag #thegarlicdiaries!

In the mood for more yummy whole 30 recipes? Check these out:

Creamy Vegan Cashew Curry Sauce

Roasted Root Vegetable Soup with Fried Sage Leaves

Blackened Chicken with Avocado Cream