This one-skillet recipe is not fancy cooking, which makes it a good candidate for the occasional weeknight meal you can hand over to a young or beginner cook in your family.
Prep-wise, there are only four ingredients that call for chopping or knife work, but a few kitchen lessons can still be gleaned here. When you allow tomato paste to cook for a bit in a cleared part of the pan, its flavor deepens. A package of refrigerated corn tortillas almost always has a few that are torn or a little dried out; those are the ones we turn into a crunchy counterpart by toasting them in the oven. And we’re using canned beans, which, when rinsed and drained, should override the need for seasoning with salt.
If you want to bump up the seasoning in this dish, you can sprinkle the tortilla strips — after they’ve been hit with a spray of cooking oil — with smoked paprika or flaky sea salt. The ground turkey could stand to handle a pinch of dried oregano.
Turkey Tortilla Skillet
Servings: 3 to 4
Six 6-inch corn tortillas
1 medium white onion
3 cloves garlic
One 15-ounce can red kidney beans
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons tomato paste
2 tablespoons Sriracha or other hot sauce, plus more for serving
1 pound ground turkey, preferably dark meat
1/2 cup low-sodium chicken or vegetable broth
2 scallions
Sour cream, for serving
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the tortillas into 1-inch strips and spread those on a baking sheet. Give them a light coating of cooking oil spray; bake for about 8 minutes, until lightly browned and crisp. Watch closely so they don’t burn.