Car Meals: Cheese Taco Sandwich
Good morning, my loves!
Today, we’re going to talk about everyone’s favorite topic: FOOD. Before I got diagnosed with EOE and had to drastically change my diet, I had figured out a lot of ways to eat healthy, easy, yummy meals on the road. And I want to share a lot of my healthy road trip snacks, meal ideas, restaurant reviews, and other food blogs with you guys! And most of the food recommendations and meal ideas can be altered for different types of dietary restrictions, but not all of them. So just use at your own risk!
Let’s start off with a super easy and delicious meal “recipe” that you can make in a car, whether you live in it or not! This is literally one of my favorite meals to eat when I’m living in my car and on the road. And this recipe can be gluten free or fit a few other dietary options if needed! (At the end, I’ll explain how I’d alter this with my new EOE diet.)
Okay, are you ready for this? This recipe is for…
Cheese Taco Sandwiches.
Yup, you heard me. Three of the best food words ever. Cheese. Taco. Sandwich.
Sandwiches are one of my favorite foods, so I’m glad I found an easy way to make one in a car (and this one doesn’t have bread, but you can use bread too if you wanted).
Here’s what you need from a grocery store or a Walmart.
2-3 slices of cheese from the deli counter. (My favorite cheese to use for this recipe is picante (or regular) provolone because it doesn’t break when you bend it. And yes, as you may have guessed, the cheese is going to be the “shell” of this taco sandwich. And yes, you can just go up to the deli and ask for three slices of provolone. I do it all the time.)
About 1/5 or 1/6 of a pound of your favorite deli meat. I usually get turkey. And sometimes I’ll even get a few slices of hard salami to add in there, too. Two to three slices of cheese and 1/5 or 1/6 of a pound of meat will be about one serving size and make, you guessed it, two to three taco sandwiches. Obviously, if you try this and realize you’re still hungry or that you didn’t eat it all, you can adjust accordingly for next time.
Any sandwich toppings you’d like. (If you’re living in your car and don’t have a refrigerator, get toppings that are not perishable and/or that are a small serving size that you might finish in the next few hours after you purchase them. One idea is a single serving size of pickles (there are some in the refrigerated deli section of grocery stores, and some individual Mt. Olive pickle packs in the regular pickle aisle). Other ideas might be a small avocado, a tiny little onion, or even some chips for an added crunch.
Any condiments you’d like. (Individual serving sizes of mustard, mayonnaise, and salad dressing can be found in some deli sections of grocery stores. I also keep a little salt and pepper shaker in the car to add to meals like this one.)
Now, on your handy dandy steering wheel desk, lay out a napkin or plate for your taco sandwich. Then, put down a slice of cheese, add your meat, and then add your toppings and condiments. Make sure to only fill about half of it cheese with the meat and toppings. Then - and this is the fun part - pick it up, and fold the cheese up like a taco. And then eat it like a taco!
Again, if you get provolone, it shouldn’t break when you fold it. Other cheeses might break, and it’ll be more of just a cheese sandwich, but that’ll be just as yummy.
I usually eat these cheese taco sandwiches with a side of chips and maybe even a side of pickles, but I generally add chips and/or pickles to most of my meals. :)
And again, if you’d like this to be a proper sandwich, the same groceries can apply! Just take all of those ingredients and put them on some bread or a wrap.
To make this EOE friendly (where I can’t eat any of the top eight major food allergens), I clearly and sadly would not use the cheese. I’d probably have a loaf of allergen friendly bread in my car and use that instead. My current favorite bread is the BFree White Loaf. I’d take one slice of that bread and break it half because it’s quite large, and then I’d add the turkey, avocado, pickles, and mustard (obviously checking that any prepackaged food is top eight allergen free). So, this would really just be a sandwich, which I don’t really need to give you a recipe for…BUT it’d still be delicious and it’s very easy to make in the car, and that is what I wanted to share with you guys today!
When I was able to eat cheese, this was one of my favorite car meals and I eat it all the time! It’s quite inexpensive, decently healthy, and so yummy!
Let me know if you try this! :)