Make Leftover Pot Roast The Star Of Your Next Taco Tuesday

Tuesdays are always a good excuse to celebrate with tasty tacos. And to be honest, every day can be a Tuesday if there are good tacos on the line. After all, there are so many different taco styles and ingredients to choose from that you could make a different recipe every day. The best part? You don't always have to make everything from scratch either. Tacos are a great way to use up leftovers, especially if you have the remains of a delicious pot roast sitting in your fridge. After all, that pot roast can be turned into delicious taco meat.

Making pot roast is easy — you only need three ingredients and a slow cooker to make an easy version. And there's almost always plenty of leftovers, so like many other cook once and eat twice dishes, you can repurpose the roast for another meal and save on that ever-growing grocery bill. In other words, a pot roast on Monday makes for perfect tacos on Tuesday. The slow cooked meat comes out very similar to a popular Mexican meat dish, barbacoa, which is often used as taco filling. This dish of slowly braised beef originated in the Caribbean but was perfected over time in Mexican cuisine. 

So, when you're ready to make your tacos, simply shred the leftover pot roast meat and add some Mexican seasonings and toppings to spice it up. Salsa, pico de gallo, cheese, guacamole, cilantro, and onions give you plenty of options.  

A good array of toppings is kind of a necessity for tacos, but if you're using leftover pot roast for your filling, you can also add some seasoning to the meat itself to spice things up. Plus, to use your leftover pot roast in tacos, you'll want to reheat it first, which gives you the perfect opportunity to add in some extra flavor. 

The best way to reheat the meat is on the stove with some liquid, like the leftover gravy from the pot roast, to keep it from drying out while it warms up. However, you can also simply add in water along with some of your favorite seasonings, or use pre-mixed spice blends like taco, carne asada, barbacoa, birria, or fajita seasonings. You can find dry seasoning mixes online or in your local grocery store, which makes them easy to keep on hand in your pantry for such instances. These will infuse some of that familiar flavor so no one will even notice that your taco meat was originally last night's pot roast. 

Leftover pot roast can be easily frozen (for the best results separate the meat, veggies, and gravy, and freeze each component separately), and it will keep for up to three months. With frozen pot roast on hand and a pantry stocked with flavorful spices and seasoning mixes, you can hack your tacos on a Tuesday or any day.