Walking Taco Casserole Recipe

Making this walking taco casserole recipe is so much fun! This delicious Crock Pot chili is layered with Fritos chips and toppings like cheese, sour cream, and green onions to make an out-of-this-world Mexican casserole. This family-friendly ground beef casserole is perfect for any occasion and makes dinner time quick and easy!

What are Walking Tacos?

You may be asking yourself what is a Walking Taco Casserole? The original Walking Tacos are when you take an individual chip bag and crush the chips, cut the top off and scoop chili right into the bag. You can step up your walking taco game and add your favorite toppings like cheese, sour cream, and onions to the bag to make your “walking taco” just like a normal taco! Finally, grab a spoon and you can walk around with an easy-to-eat meal.

It’s a fun festive way to eat dinner for a party, campfire meal, or just an easy dinner night. The best part is there are no dishes to clean up at the end.

Making walking tacos into an easy weeknight ground beef casserole is a great way to change up your meal rotation. I have a serious love of Mexican food which included my delicious Beefy Taco Cheesy Potato Casserole and my Taco Tater Tot Casserole. Actually, it looks like I love tacos and casseroles and putting them together all the time!

Walking Taco Casserole Recipe

This Walking Taco Casserole Recipe can be served two ways. The first way is you can just serve it in a bowl and add your toppings. When we have this for a regular dinner at my house I usually serve it in a bowl. I go ahead and just top it with shredded cheese and Fritos right in the Crock Pot. This way it’s simple for busy weeknights when I’m just trying to get dinner on the table. Everyone gobbles it up and dinner is done.

Frito Pie is a similar recipe to Walking Taco Casserole. Frito Pie usually puts the corn chips on the bottom and is baked in the oven. I prefer to have a little crunch to mine so I just make the beef casserole and then add the Fritos at the end. However, if you want to add another layer to the taco casserole you could easily pour a bottom layer of Fritos into the Crock Pot at the bottom. I actually do that in my Doritos casserole with chicken which is also a crunchy fun dinner.

Ingredients for Walking Taco Casserole Recipe with Fritos

• Ground beef- 90% / 20 % is what I recommend but you can use any kind. You can even use ground turkey or chicken.
• Onion- I used a sweet onion for this recipe. Since I’m already browsing the meat I like to throw the onions in first and sautee it since I already have a pan out.
• Taco Seasoning– I used McCormick Taco Seasoning because it is gluten-free.
• Rotel tomatoes– These come in different spice levels so you can adjust them to your heat level.
• Tomato sauce- If you like a thicker chili swap tomato sauce for tomato paste.
• Pinto beans- You can use any bean to make this recipe. Don’t like pinto beans swap them for black beans.
• Kidney beans- Again, swap for any beans you like if kidney beans aren’t your favorite.
• Fritos– This was the chip that was used for the original Walking Tacos so I like to stick with it but swap it with any snack-sized chips you want.

Toppings

• Shredded cheese
• Green onions
• Sour cream
• Cilantro
• Jalapenos
• Shredded lettuce
• Diced tomatoes
• Avocados

Walking Taco Bar

If you come to my house for Game Day, Cinco de Mayo, or Halloween I always have a Walking Taco Bar set up where people can choose how they want to top their walking tacos. You can make the sky the limit with what individual snack chips you offer and toppings.

Every year it seems my list of toppings gets longer and longer. Check out my ingredients list for all my toppings I recommend. Last time I even served it with my On the Border Queso Dip that people spooned on top.

My kids love when we have this for parties because they get to carry their own little bag of chips around and eat right out of a bag. I just get the Coscto sized chip variety and set it out for people to choose their chips. My son choose Cheetos as his chip of choice which cracked me up. But that is the fun of this recipe is how many different options there are. I love it because I have fewer dishes to clean!

Either way, this dinner is a way to upgrade your classic Crock Pot chili!

Taco Bake with Fritos

This simple recipe only takes a few minutes of prep with browning the meat and onions. After you do that step you just pour everything into the Crockpot and let it cook all day. Once it is cooked you can assemble it in minutes with all your favorite toppings.

How to make Walking Taco Casserole?

Step 1. Heat oil in a skillet and saute diced onions. Add ground beef to onions and cook until no pink remains. Drain fat.

Step 2. Add ground beef and onions to the slow cooker.

Step 3. Add Rotel tomatoes, tomato sauce, kidney beans, pinto beans, and taco seasoning to the slow cooker.

Step 4. Stir to combine ingredients.

Step 5. Cover and cook on low for 3-4 hours or 2-3 hours on high.

Step 6. Once finished sprinkle Fritos on top of chili and serve with desired toppings.

Taco Casserole with Fritos- Freezer Friendly

One of the things I love about this meal is it is a great freezer-friendly meal! I like to double the chili portion of the recipe and freeze half of it. Reserve half of the chili and place it in a freezer-safe bag and mark it with the date. Just pull it out of the freezer the day before you are ready to eat it and let it thaw in the refrigerator overnight. Add the frozen chili to the crockpot and cook it for 4 hours. Add a bag of Fritos and your favorite toppings and dinner is all done!