Texas Straw Hat
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Also called Frito Pie, these Texas Straw Hats are an easy meal that are satisfying and quick for weeknight prep! Top with your favorite toppings and enjoy!
Today I’m bringing you another easy ground beef recipe. Don’t you just love recipes that use the words “easy” and “ground beef”? For me, that spells food for the masses! This one is also easy to tailor to what you have on hand so don’t go out buying special ingredients if you don’t already have them. Feel free to add drained diced tomatoes or tomato sauce in lieu of the tomato paste, leave out the thyme if you like, and just add a little extra chili powder. Cook it until it is nice and thick for layering and you’ve essentially just made yourself a Frito Chili Pie.
Check out some of my other easy meals like Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas, Fiesta Taco Salad, Easy Skillet Chili Bake, Easy Taco Soup, and Instant Pot Beef Barbacoa Tacos.
Ingredients You’ll Need to Make Texas Straw Hats:
- ground beef
- chili powder
- tomato paste
- onion
- pepper
- thyme
- salt
- fritos
- cheese
Quick tip! Sometimes I make the meat up and then just pop whatever is left in the fridge so throughout the week if anyone is hungry they can just heat up some meat and toss it on some corn chips! It’s kinda like my pizza rolls, gives you some time off from cooking later 🙂
Helpful Kitchen Tools
How to Make Texas Straw Hats:
Brown your beef and onion together.
Use this amazing Ground Beef Chopper while you brown your meat. This is one of my very favorite cooking implements. It makes browning ground beef SO much easier, AND is under $5!
Another quick ground beef tip: Usually I have my beef all browned and in the freezer and just take out a bag to use in order to cut out this extra step
Drain your grease off good and add tomato paste…
then add Salt, Pepper, Thyme and Chili powder.
and Worcestershire sauce.
and pour in your water.
Stir all of that up good and bring it to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally.
How to Serve Texas Straw Hats:
Serve hot atop corn chips! Top with your favorite toppings. Some of our suggestions are:
- cheese
- sour cream
- tomato
- avocado
- lettuce (make it a taco salad and add a yummy dressing!)
- your favorite salsa
- guacamole
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground beef
- 6 ounce can tomato paste
- 2 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp salt 1/8 tsp pepper, 1/4 tsp thyme
- 1 c chopped onion
- 1 c water
- 1 tsp Worcestershire
- 2 c shredded cheddar cheese
- corn chips
Instructions
- Brown beef and onion in a skillet. Drain off grease. Add all other ingredients except corn chips and cheese. Stir and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer for twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve atop corn chips, topped with cheese.
looks soooo good i made your banana puddin tonight oh my goodness sooo good..stop by sooon have missed you
Our school and local pool serve chili and the cheese inside the bag of fritos all mixed together and call it a “walking taco”, the kids just love them.
Hey, Christy! The postcard is a hoot!!! My daughter keeps asking “Is it real?” Thanks for the laughs. By the way, our supper tonight was ‘fast food’ fabulous~~pork chop biscuits, corn on the cob and fried peaches. The fried peaches were sort of a combination of several of your recipes. With your help, meals around here are looking a lot better! Thanks! Have a great day!
Hi MaryC. How did you cook the peaches? Fresh/Frozen/or Canned?Sounds good.
Hey, Mary! I used a large 29 oz. can of sliced peaches in light syrup and dumped them into a heavy bottom skillet. I didn’t measure anything, just added a couple of tablespoons of margarine, about that much brown sugar, some cinnamon and allspice with a dash of salt. I got them good and hot with the lid on, them cooked on medium without the lid while everything else was being prepared. A little stirring now and then, and after probably 30 minutes or so, they had cooked down a little and made THE BEST topping for the buttered biscuits. Great to hear from you~~have a great day!
Christy! Before I read the recipe I thought you were talking about making a real hat. LOL!!!
I’ve never heard of Texas Straw Hat because we just call something like this nachos. One of the ladies I work with is always bringing nachos for lunch. She’ll make her bean mixture (because she is vegetarian!), her cheese, salsa and chips and assemble it for lunch.
I’ll be in Texas before I make my way to Atlanta so I will try to find and have some Texas Straw Hat for you there! 😉
I love this, it is the same as my taco salad, but I put nachos underneath, but I think your way is better. I love corn chips! I season my beef and tomato paste with cumin, coriander, oregano, chili powder, garlic and onions. I wanna try it your way too, the thyme sounds lovely! Great recipe, but I’ll have to through a bunch of lettuce and tomato on top to fool myself into believing its healthy for me. LOL!
This brings back memories. Yes, I am from Texas and this recipe is a version of our “Frito Pie”. When our youngest daughter was told by the orthodontist that her new braces would keep her from eating Frito Pie she cried !! She wasn’t in the least bit concerned with having teeth pulled or the wires tightened. I couldn’t stand to see her so heartbroken so I would make the chili portion more like regular chili and pour it over the chips and let them soften up. We toss on raw,diced onions and some cheese on top..sometimes some sour cream and hot salsa. Yummy !
Thanks for another great recipe…and speaking of Worcestershire sauce…I just call it Rooster sauce!