Eating low-carb can be pretty challenging sometimes. I often want to eat dishes that resemble the old high-carb favorites, like lasagna or casseroles. At a recent brunch, I had some little breakfast bagels that were topped with a very tasty mixture of cream cheese, ham, bacon, and shredded cheese. I wanted to make something similar to eat at home, but the bagels were not an option. I decided to use eggs as a “crust” for a casserole-like dish, and that turned out pretty good. I’ll publish that recipe on the blog sometime, once I get it written down. 
In the meantime, tonight I needed to make dinner, and I also needed to use about 1.5 lbs of hamburger. I decided to throw together something similar to the above recipe, only using taco meat instead of bacon. It turned out really good, so I thought I’d share.
I’ve provided the recipe below. Here it is already neatly formatted in a Word document. The taco meat seasoning is a recipe I threw together a few years ago to approximate Old El Paso taco seasoning, without the MSG. It’s mild but flavorful, just the way I like it.
However, if the taco meat portion of the recipe doesn’t look tasty enough for you, here is another Word document, which is a recipe for taco meat from America’s Test Kitchen (from one of their publications, Cook’s Illustrated) that takes more work but would probably have more robust flavor.
I highly recommend that you do not omit the ham. Putting diced ham into the casserole adds a nice richness of flavor.
I used an 8×8 baking dish for this recipe. As you can see from the picture, that made the dish pretty full. If you prefer to use a 9×13 dish, I would suggest adding a few more eggs so you’ll get a decent “crust”, and watch it carefully as it cooks. You still want some uncooked egg on the top of the “crust” when you add the meat mixture, so it will mix with the meat and provide some firmness to the finished casserole. If you forget and cook the egg crust completely, I’d suggest you scramble a couple more eggs and thoroughly stir them into the meat mixture immediately before you add it to the baking dish.
I used bacon grease to grease the baking dish, but of course you can use butter, tallow, or coconut oil just as well. I am happy to report that hardly any of the egg crust stuck to the baking dish, and it was easy to clean up afterwards.
This recipe is easily altered to suit your tastes or available ingredients. You can vary the seasonings to taste, of course, or use more or less hamburger or diced ham, or more cheese, or different cheese. Ground turkey or pork (unflavored) should substitute easily for the hamburger.
I used 80/20 hamburger (20% fat) and didn’t drain the grease, and I did not find the finished dish to be greasy. However, if you don’t like grease, and are using a fatty meat, you may want to drain the grease before adding the seasonings.
This is a very rich dish! I was almost finished eating it before I even thought about topping it with some sour cream – which I didn’t do, because I was almost done, and it didn’t need it anyway. However, if you would like some suggestions for toppings, here they are: salsa, sour cream, chopped black olives, chopped tomatoes, hot sauce, and whatever else you like to eat with tacos. The Cook’s Illustrated recipe I mentioned above has some suggestions at the end for other toppings, like avocados and onions. If you feel the need for a low-carb side dish, I’d suggest a light salad.
I have not provided a carb count because your ingredients may differ from mine. Eggs usually have about 1 gram carb each. Check the packages for the cream cheese, shredded cheese, and diced ham for their carb content. The seasonings probably add a few carbs, but not enough to worry about.
low-carb taco casserole, in an 8x8 in baking dish
Low Carb Taco Casserole
For the “crust”:
- 5-6 large eggs
- 1 tsp bacon grease
For the filling:
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- 8 oz. shredded Mexican cheese mix, divided
- 8 oz. cooked diced ham
For the taco meat:
- 1.5 lbs hamburger
- 2 tbsp chili powder
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1½ tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1 tsp paprika (optional – for color)
- ¾ tsp onion powder
- dash cayenne pepper powder
- Brown hamburger in a large pan or skillet on medium heat, breaking up the hamburger into at least bite-size consistency or smaller (whatever consistency you prefer for taco meat).
- While the hamburger is browning, mix together all the taco seasonings.
- After the hamburger is browned, drain grease, if desired. Reduce heat to medium-low, add the seasonings and mix together.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Add cream cheese to hamburger and cover the pan or skillet. After the cream cheese has softened, mix it in thoroughly with the meat. (Or you could pre-soften the cream cheese in another pan or microwave, but I prefer to use as few dishes as possible!)
- Add the diced ham and about half of the shredded cheese to the hamburger and mix thoroughly. Reduce heat to low and cover, checking and stirring occasionally. (This is to keep the hamburger mixture warm until it is added to the casserole.)
- Crack all the eggs into a single bowl and scramble them thoroughly.
- Grease an 8×8 baking dish with the bacon grease and add scrambled eggs. Put dish in preheated oven on middle rack, and check in 5 minutes. Bake until the eggs are cooked on the bottom and edges of the dish, but still liquid on top. The eggs need to be partially cooked since the cooked portion will be the “crust”.
- Remove the eggs from the oven and add the warm meat and cheese mixture to the baking dish, on top of the egg “crust”. The uncooked eggs should mix up somewhat with the meat and cheese; this will help hold the casserole together when done. Try not to disturb the crust.
- Spread the remaining shredded cheese evenly on top of the meat mixture, and return to the oven for 10 minutes.
- Casserole is done when the eggs are completely cooked and the cheese on top has melted.
- Let casserole cool for 5 minutes on the countertop before serving.
