Which do you prefer, Mexican food or Italian food? On the one hand, Mexican food includes great dishes like enchiladas, tacos and nachos. On the other, there’s incredible Italian pasta dishes, prosciutto and cannolis. But why do you have to choose just one of these styles? Fortunately, the recipe we have today blends the flavors of these two tastes in a perfectly delicious way. And best of all? It uses a slow cooker and couldn’t be easier.
Today, we’re going to make a taco meatball rigatoni dish that may be a little unlike any dish you’ve had before. Though it has the same pasta and meatballs flavor and texture that recognize from Italian food, it also has the spice and seasoning of a classic Mexican meal. At the end of it all, you’ll have a hearty comfort food meal that your whole family is sure to love. So let’s get started.
Here’s what you’ll need:
- 1 24-ounce pack of frozen meatballs
- 2 packets of taco seasoning
- 1 16-ounce bottle of taco sauce
- 1 6-ounce pack of shredded Mexican cheese
- 1 pound of rigatoni pasta
Here’s what you do:
1. To get started, pour in your meatballs, taco seasoning and taco sauce into your slow cooker. Mix everything up before covering the slow cooker and setting it to cook on high for two hours.
2. When the time is up, open the slow cooker and pour your cheese in, stirring it all up again. Close the lid again and let it cook for another 10 minutes. Once that’s done, set the slow cooker on warm and let it set aside.
3. After that, pour your pasta into a pot of boiling water and cook it according to the instructions on the package. Prepare your pasta to the appropriate level before pouring the pasta back into the slow cooker and stir everything up to combine it.
4. When that’s done, scoop the pasta out into bowls and enjoy! For best results, serve it with a side of roasted broccoli.
As you can see, this recipe is so delicious and blends a few different flavors into one great whole. While Mexican and Italian food doesn’t necessarily go together, this dish is too good to pass up. Of all the many slow cooker recipes that a person can make, few are easier as this one is. All you have to do is throw your ingredients together, cook the pasta and combine it—even the meatballs are already made in advance!
Though the basic steps of this pasta are reliable to create a meal that your family will love, you can always add your own twists to it as well. If you want to make things a little more interesting, try making your own meatballs and adding them into the slow cooker instead of the frozen variety. You could mix in some shredded mozzarella instead of the Mexican cheese to emphasize the Italian side a little bit more. No matter how you do it, have fun with this recipe and let us know how it all turns out.
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