Easy and Fun Cinco De Mayo Family and Child-Friendly Recipes

Cinco de Mayo is a Mexican holiday that remembers when Mexican soldiers battled a much bigger French army. It is now a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico and throughout much of the United States as a way to embrace Mexican heritage and culture! And no celebration is complete without a lot of great food!

So, here are some easy, kid-friendly recipes to try for your own family Cinco de Mayo celebration. Your kids will love helping you pick out the ingredients and making these dishes. Enjoy!

Make-your-own Mexican Dishes

Many Mexican-related dishes require similar ingredients and you can build them to suit you and your children's tastes! Tacos, burritos, nachos, quesadillas, tortillas, taco salads, and layered dips all can use mix and match ingredients. For example, offer a build-your-own taco or burrito bar. Provide taco shells or warmed tortillas on a platter and then let the fun begin! Let the kids help you get festively colored dishes out to put in diced tomatoes, diced onions, coarsely chopped avocado, shredded lettuce, carrot strings, shredded cheese, rinsed black beans, refried beans, canned corn, and salsa. To spice anything up, add dashes of red pepper flakes or taco seasoning mix. For meat lovers, brown ground meat or diced up chicken or for a twist, baked tilapia.

Baked Mexican Tilapia

2 Tbsp melted butter (per 1 lb of fish)

1 lb thawed tilapia fillets

¼ cup parmesan cheese

¼ cup bread crumbs

2 Tbsp taco seasoning, chili powder, or fajita seasoning mix.

OPTIONAL:

2 dashes of red pepper flakes.

Stir parmesan cheese, bread crumbs, and seasoning into a breading mixture. Dip thawed fish in melted butter and then dip into breading mixture. Place breaded fish pieces into a greased baking dish. Bake at 425℉ for 5 minutes. Let cool and then cut into pieces for use in tacos, burritos, quesadillas, etc.

Tortilla Stack (Serves 4)

5 6-inch tortillas

1 can of refried beans or 1 can of rinsed black beans

1 can (11 oz) of corn, drained

1 12-oz jar of your favorite salsa

1 bag of shredded cheese

OPTIONAL:

1 cup diced onions

1 cup cooked ground beef or shredded pork or shredded chicken

For fun with the make-your-own ingredients above, make a tortilla stack in a 4-qt slow cooker. Grease the slow cooker with vegetable oil or olive oil. Begin the stack with a 6-inch tortilla. Layer refried beans or black beans (or both!), followed by the corn, salsa, and shredded cheese. After adding the last tortilla, top with leftover salsa and shredded cheese. Cook for 2 - 3 hours on high. Cut into quarters, scoop out and serve!

English Muffin Mexican Pizzas

1 bag (8-count) of English muffins (white, wheat, or whole grain)

1 bag of shredded cheese

1 jar (12-oz) of your favorite salsa

1 cup of diced onions

1 cup of diced tomatoes

1 cup of washed, sliced mushrooms

1 can (16 oz) refried beans

1 can rinsed (15 oz) black beans

If you would like to blend an American favorite with Mexican flair, try making your own Mexican mini-pizzas. Separate English muffins into halves and toast. In lieu of traditional pizza sauce, spread some refried beans around the toasted muffin halves. Top pizzas with favorites such as onions, mushrooms or salsa. Sprinkle shredded cheese over pizzas toppings. Preheat oven to 400℉. Bake for 8 minutes. About a dozen pizzas will fit on one cookie sheet. Use leftover salsa as a dipping sauce for the pizzas!

Appetizers

Other treats that your kids may help make are dips, cheese balls, quesos, and tortilla rolls. Besides tortilla or corn chips, encourage your children to try these dips with their chicken nuggets!

For the dips or cheese balls, take 2 Tbsp of your favorite taco seasoning mix, chili powder, or fajita seasoning mix. For dips, take ½ cup mayo and ½ cup sour cream and stir in the seasoning mix. For the cheese balls, take 1 brick (8 oz) of real cream cheese and let the cream cheese soften (to do it quickly, microwave for 30 seconds on high). Mix in seasoning. For full flavor, let both dips and cheese ball chill out in your refrigerator for at least two hours.

To shape your cheese ball mixture into a ball, scoop the cheese ball mixture onto wax paper and roll and wrap. Let chill. When you take the cheese ball mixture out of the refrigerator and while still in the wax paper, roll and shape cheese ball mixture. To make decorative, roll ball in shredded cheese.

For a quick and easy queso, take the cheese ball mixture and warm in the microwave for one minute on high. Add to it, refried beans, rinsed black beans, cooked ground beef, or salsa.

Another fun thing to do with the cheese ball mixture is to make tortilla rolls or Mexican pin wheels. Take the cheese ball mixture and let soften. Spread onto a tortilla. Top with refried beans, rinsed black beans, cooked ground beef, one chopped green or red pepper, one chopped onion, spinach leaves, or salsa. Roll the tortillas. For the tortilla roll ups, cut in half and top with sour cream, guacamole or more salsa. For the Mexican pin wheels, chill the rolled tortillas for about 2 hours. Then slice chilled, rolled tortillas into about 1-inche slices and serve.

Desserts

For easy desserts, take a batch of refrigerated sugar cookie dough and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar before baking per package directions. Or sprinkle cinnamon sugar on scoops of French vanilla ice cream - feel free to generously pour on hot fudge sauce or hot caramel sauce and whipped topping. Sprinkle more cinnamon sugar over whipped topping and mini-chocolate chips!

Or try making mock Tres Leches cup cakes. Prepare and bake white cake mix per package directions for cup cakes. Let cool. Frost with vanilla or white frosting and top with sliced strawberries.

For more recipe ideas, try

The Kraft Company web site:
http://www.kraftfoods.com/kf/Entertaining/HolidaysEvents/CincoDeMayoRecipes.htm

The Food Network web site:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/search/delegate.do?fnSearchString=Cinco+de+mayo&fnSearchType=site

and The DLTK Sites, Growing Together
http://www.dltk-kids.com/recipesdb/viewbycourse.asp?cid=13