Mac and cheese meets American-style beef tacos in this melty mashup of epic proportions.

Taco shells and cheese is a truly pun-derful recipe, featuring mini pasta shells smothered in a rich and creamy cheese sauce, swirled with spicy seasoned ground beef. Served atop of bed of crisp iceberg lettuce it’s ever so satisfying.

I swear, mac and cheese is harder to photograph than ice cream; the time between a perfectly rich and creamy sauce and a congealed mess feels like mere seconds. No matter how creamy it starts, as it cools the sauce will no longer have the same visual appeal… and that sort of time-sensitive recipe makes for a very stressful photo shoot.

We made this recipe upwards of half a dozen times. Photographed it twice. Which might seem like a lot of work for a recipe that is, in actuality, quite simple. But getting the right proportions of cheese sauce to pasta, not to mention the right amount of spice in the meat… took some effort to fine tune.

But all that work is totally worth it when the result is nothing short of perfection. Cheesy, spicy, perfection served atop a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce.

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