A Tex-Mex meal made in a casserole dish, starting with a layer of flour tortillas, topped with shredded cheese, Rotel tomatoes, sour cream, tostada shells, cheese sauce, taco-seasoned ground beef and more cheese, folded, brushed with butter and baked.
Crunchwrap Casserole
Okay, confession.
While I can recall having had a Crunchwrap from Taco Bell only once before and, in fact, while I also recall it being pretty tasty, it didn't drive me to have a constant craving so I didn't have much of a memory about how I felt about it!
Now don't get me wrong.
If I have a taste for a taco or three in a hurry, Taco Bell is gonna be my quick run y'all. They get a lot of ribbing, but I've always had a good experience with their food.
Here's what you call dating yourself. When I was a teenager, I remember when we got our very first Taco Bell here on the Coast. It was located on the corner of Pass Road and Highway 49 in Gulfport, and with very little development back then, it was quite the road trip from Biloxi, but you can bet we sure made the drive!
These days of course, they're all over the place and we've actually got one right around the corner from our house that I could literally walk to.
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When I saw this Crunchwrap Casserole featured on social media from the All Recipes website, well it went immediately viral and certainly got my curiosity up for sure!
You've probably seen what's called sheet pan quesadillas around the web in the last year, and really this is a little like that, except it includes a layer of tostada shells, like the Taco Bell counterpart.
Tostada shells are simply ready to go, pre-fried, crispy corn tortillas used to make tostadas, often sold in large quantity bags in the same area as the wide assortment of flour and soft corn tortillas in your local market.
I haven't personally witnessed it but I'm guessing that Crunchwraps are individually prepared right on the griddle. Since we're making this in the form of a larger casserole in the oven instead, requiring much less work for multiple servings, the oven did remove the crunch from the tostada shells. You'll still get the corn tortilla flavor. It just doesn't stay crunchy.
Some suggestions have been made to use your favorite tortilla chips in place of the fried corn tortillas, and I've not tried that myself to see if it made a different in that crunch factor, but it's a thought for the future.
Here's what you'll need to make my Crunchwrap Casserole:
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 cup chopped onion
- 1 (1-ounce) package taco seasoning, or equivalent homemade
- 2/3 cup water
- 6 to 8 extra-large (about10-inch) flour tortillas
- 3 cups shredded cheese
- 1 (10 ounce) can well-drained diced tomatoes with green chilies (like Rotel)
- 1 cup sour cream
- 6 tostada shells
- 1/2 (15 oz.) jar/can cheese sauce or dip
Suggested Garnishes:
- 1/2 cup shredded lettuce, or to taste
- Sour cream, to taste
- 2 tablespoons guacamole, or to taste, optional
- Salsa or taco sauce, or to taste, optional
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter a 9 x13-inch baking dish on the bottom and sides with 1 tablespoon of the butter. You'll need the butter to crisp and brown the outside of the flour tortillas. Melt remaining butter and set aside.
Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add ground beef and use a masher to break it up.
Cook until no longer pink, stirring and mashing constantly.
Drain off excess fat.
Add onion to skillet drippings and cook, stirring regularly for 3 minutes.
Return meat to skillet and continue cooking, stirring often, until meat is cooked through and onions are softened, about 2 minutes longer.
Seemed only appropriate to use Taco Bell seasoning for this! It's actually the seasoning I like best when using a prepared packet. I just like the flavor! Absolutely use homemade though if you prefer.
Stir in the taco seasoning.
Add the water.
Cook for about 5 minutes longer, stirring constantly. Turn off heat.
I'm using the extra large burrito sized flour tortillas for this casserole.
Arrange flour tortillas along the bottom of the pan, overlapping slightly in the middle and allowing any excess up over the sides. You'll fold these over the filling later.
We're basically building the casserole upside down since we'll be turning it out to a cutting board. Spread 2 cups of the shredded cheese over the tortillas. This layer acts as a glue to help hold the tortillas together.
Scatter well drained tomatoes on top. Normally you'd toss in shredded lettuce here too but since we're doing this as an oven bake rather than individual griddled wraps, reserve the lettuce as part of the garnishes.
Dollop sour cream over the tomatoes and gently spread out.
I find an offset spatula to be the ideal tool for this.
Arrange the crispy tostada shells over the sour cream overlapping them to make them fit.
Next you'll need some cheese sauce or a cheese dip.
Add dollops of cheese sauce or dip to the top of the tostadas. You won't need the full jar.
Spread the cooked beef mixture over cheese in an even layer.
Sprinkle remaining cheese on top.
Place remaining 2 flour tortillas in the center of the beef mixture.
Brush all over with the melted butter.
Fold the over-hanging edges of the tortillas into the casserole dish and over the top center tortillas. Brush those edges with remaining butter, pressing down any loose ends. You don't have to be perfect with this because remember, this is actually going to be the bottom layer, but I do think next time I might try an egg white wash.
Bake until golden brown and lightly toasted on top, about 30 minutes.
Let rest 5 minutes and then carefully invert casserole onto a cutting board.
Using a large serrated knife, cut the casserole into desired servings. You should get about 8 servings, depending on how you cut it.
Garnish with shredded lettuce, additional sour cream and/or guacamole, taco sauce and any other toppings as desired.
For more of my favorite Tex-Mex recipes, check out this collection on my Pinterest page!
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