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If you use crunchy corn taco shells, such as Old El Paso or Ortega to make tacos at home, the instructions will tell you to heat them in the oven for around five minutes. This is done to crisp and freshen them up. So, you lay them on a baking sheet, heat them, and to your dismay, you pull them out five minutes later and the shells have closed up so that you can’t get the filling inside! Surprisingly, I’ve read all sorts of strange and precious rules on how to heat up taco shells. Taco shells are not an ancient culinary tradition with hundreds of years of attached lore. They are a strictly American thing. It doesn’t matter how you heat them! But it does matter if they close up and you can’t really use them.
Wrong Ways To Keep Crunchy Taco Shells From Closing
You’ll find many different methods of keeping hard aco shells from closing in the oven. Here are the methods that will not work.
- Laying them with their openings facing down (this will usually not work)
- Hang them on the oven rack (this will not keep them from closing and is meant for soft tortillas)
- Eat soft tortillas (this will not keep your crunchy ones from closing in the oven)
- Pray to the Taco Gods (they will not hear you as they find crispy taco shells to be sacrilege)
How to Heat Keep Taco Shells From Closing Up
The solution is simple. When you get the taco shells out of the box, you will find that they are placed one inside the other, in an overlapping fashion, to save room (and to make the whole thing more resilient and less prone to breakage).
Well, that is the way you need to bake them. Place each taco slightly inside the other on a baking sheet, but not to the extent that they are jammed together in the box. Each taco shell will keep its neighbor from closing up while heating. Then you just have one, poor, unfortunate taco shell on the open end which doesn’t have another shell to help it stay in shape. For that guy, you just need a ball of aluminum foil, about the size of a small lemon or a little larger. Stuff the balled-up aluminum foil into the open end of the taco shell to keep it open.
You do NOT need to place a ball of aluminum foil in each and every taco shell. Whoever is spreading this recommendation must be on the old tin foil board. Just overlapping the taco shells within each other will keep the adjacent shells from collapsing. Then only the last shell will need help in the form of an aluminum foil ball.
You could also use a crispy taco shell rack, as discussed below. But, unless you are planning on baking soft corn tortillas in the oven to make them crispy, there is no need to buy one of these.
Problem solved. All the taco shells will stay open. You can save the ball of aluminum foil and use it again and again if you make a lot of crispy tacos.
Why Do You Need To Bake Crispy Taco Shells?
You don’t have to bake crispy taco shells in the oven. They are ready to eat. The reason we are instructed to heat them in the oven is to freshen them up. As already fried taco shells sit in the package, they basically go stale. This doesn’t mean they are spoiled, only that are not as crisp as they could be. Heating the taco shells in the oven brings them back to a fresh-like state and makes sure that they are nice and crunchy.
Now, you know, in Mexico, they don’t use crunchy corn tortillas. They eat them soft. You should try that! You can make your own, of course, which takes some work. Or you could buy some from a store. It would be especially nice if you were able to get them from an authentic Mexican or Latino market. Warm up the corn tortillas by toasting them briefly in a dry skillet and use them like you would use soft flour tortillas. The “fresh” corn tortillas you can buy at the supermarket, unfortunately, have the texture of cardboard, for the most part.
Make Your Own Crunchy Taco Shells
If you’re into frying, you can make your own “crispy” taco shells by dipping fresh corn tortillas into boiling oil, at around 375°F. When using a deep frying method, you can use two pairs of tongs to hold the tortilla into a shell shape and then simply hold the whole thing under the oil for half a minute or so, while it crisps up (yes, it’s fast). You can also do this in a shallow pan with about an inch of vegetable oil.
Heat the oil until up to frying temp. Have a pair of tongs handy and place a corn tortilla into the oil, laying flat. Let it fry for 10 to 15 seconds and then use the tongs to lift one edge of the tortilla and fold it over into the shell shape you need. Allow the half that is still in the oil to fry for another 15 seconds or so. Then, flip the whole thing over and let the other half fry for 15 seconds.
Now, you have your crunchy shell. The problem is you can only do one at a time, but the great thing about this is that you can control how crisp your crispy fried tortillas are. So, if you want them a bit more chewy and flexible, you can do that. The other good thing is this will make those supermarket-brand corn tortillas worth buying.
You can also make crispy corn taco shells in the oven. But for this, you need a specialized piece of equipment, a crispy taco shell rack.
Oven Method for Making Crispy Corn Tortillas
You can use an oven to make crispy taco shells, as well. Heat the oven to 375°F and use a tortilla rack like this Chicago Metallic Professional 6-Shell Baked Taco Rack.
To do this, you need to make your corn tortillas more soft and flexible. Most of these racks make 4 shells at a time, so place 4 tortillas between damp paper towels and heat them in the microwave for around 15 seconds. Then, spray both sides of the tortillas with cooking spray, or brush them lightly with oil. Place them inside the V shapes of the rack, so that they form shell shapes.
Bake them until crisp, about 8 to 10 minutes. This method is not foolproof because different tortillas tend to perform differently. You may have to experiment to get the desired results.
Some people have been known to drape tortillas over the rungs of an oven rack to make shells (2 rungs at a time). This makes a very wide shell with a flattish bottom, which may not be exactly what we’re looking for. It’s also a good way to get burned. And, to be honest, my oven is never that clean! Readers often ask how can I eat a cruncy taco without it falling apart? You may not like the answer!
