Baked Taco Shells

I don’t know where I came across the idea for baked taco shells, but on some website SOMEWHERE, I read that you could just bake corn tortillas straight on the rack at 325 for 10 minutes and boom.  So I decided, I definitely had to try it.  It was…um, a process.  I started with a stack of 100 tortillas.  I was going to make 12 shells (in case some broke as the kind you buy at the grocery inevitably do).  I preheated the oven, sprayed both sides with cooking spray, and sprinkled with salt, then started trying to drape them over the rack.  Well that didn’t seem to work.  They didn’t drape, just stayed sort of flat.  So then I tried to sort of prop them against the center bar so they were in an arch.  But they just tore.  So then I pulled out my trusty baking rack and put those on a baking sheet and used the narrower wires of THOSE to make arch shapes.  But they curled and broke and fell over when I tried to bake them.  So I checked some more sites.  Found one that suggested you steam them between two paper towels BEFORE baking.  Ah ha! Pliancy.  So I tried that and draped them over the rack, baked them.  That was better, but too narrow a shell and not crispy enough.  Then I tried draping it over TWO rails, cranking up the heat to 425 like I do my tortilla chips, and baking for 8 minutes.  VOILA!  Success (42 tortillas later)!  I wound up with crispy, crunchy, flat bottomed taco shells that you can fill and they will stand on their own.  And they come in at 110 calories and 1.5 grams of fat per 2 shells.  WOOT!  Dieter’s friend.

Ingredients:

  • tortillas
  • cooking spray
  • salt
  • filling of choice

Directions:

  1. Preheat your oven to 425.
  2. Spray your tortillas with cooking spray on both sides and sprinkle with salt.
  3. In groups of about six, microwave the tortillas between damp paper towels for 30-45 seconds, until steamed.
  4. Carefully pull the center rack out and carefully drape each tortilla over 2 rails of the rack.
  5. Bake for 7-8 minutes.
  6. Be very very careful as you remove the shells from the racks.  They’re going to be really really hot.  Some of them may have curled so that you can’t just lift them straight off the rack.  I found that if you sort of bump up one side from the bottom, it will sort of do a ring around the rack kinda move and come off the bottom.
  7. Allow the shells to cool for a few minutes to finish hardening.

Printable version.

13 thoughts on “Baked Taco Shells

    1. Hey there, just found this through a google search for baked taco shells and I had to say…

      HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Best comment ever.

  1. This is so cool and innovative, and a dieters dream too! thanks for the idea and doing all the trial and error for us. 🙂

  2. love this!! can’t wait to try it. thanks for doing all the experimentation and then sharing your results……

  3. I have been searching for a way to not fry the tortillas – so I googled and found this – am going to try them in a few minutes – BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  4. Made these with homemade tortillas tonight and worked great. They were smaller so only used on bar for resting on. Didn’t break but did take a lot shorter time to cook. Thanks!

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