Mexican Taco Pizza

Valentine's Day. I'm going to tell you something: I'm not good at Valentine's Day. I am good at birthdays, excellent at Thanksgiving, champion-level at Christmas, but Valentine's Day trips me up because it requires a kind of planned romantic gesture that doesn't come naturally to a man who expresses love through crawfish boils and rewiring bathrooms. Danielle knows this. She has accepted it. But she also expects something, because eleven years of marriage doesn't mean you stop trying — it means you try differently.

I took her to dinner. A real dinner, at a real restaurant, without children. This required: a babysitter (Angelle's daughter Simone, who is seventeen and the only teenager in Louisiana that Danielle trusts with all three kids, probably because Simone is terrified of Danielle, which is the correct response). I took Danielle to a place on Perkins Road — white tablecloths, candles, a menu I couldn't afford and ordered from anyway. She had the redfish. I had the ribeye. We split a crème brûlée. We talked about things that aren't schedules or kids or whose turn it is to deal with the plumber. We talked about us. About the Breaux Bridge fais do-do in 2003 where I asked her to dance three times. About Katrina, and the kitchen, and "We'll start over." About the years since.

She told me she was proud of me. For the business. For the way I handled the flood. For the kids. I said I didn't know what I was doing most of the time, and she said, "Nobody does, cher. The ones who say they do are lying." And then she said, "But you make good gumbo," and I said, "That I know how to do," and she laughed, and the laugh was the same laugh she had at the fais do-do in 2003, and I thought: this woman. This specific, particular, fierce, organized, extraordinary woman who said yes twice and no once to keep me humble. I chose right. We chose right.

I made the kids a Valentine's dinner the next night — heart-shaped pizza (Rémy's request), strawberry milkshakes (Colette's request), and I let Luc have a Coke with dinner, which is Luc's idea of a holiday indulgence. We ate at the kitchen table with construction-paper hearts that Colette had taped to the chairs, and Rémy gave Danielle a Valentine he'd made at school — a red heart with "I LUV U MOM" in glue and glitter, and there was more glitter on the table than on the Valentine, and Danielle didn't care because it was from Rémy and Rémy is the sun around which this family orbits, and the sun has glitter on it.

That Valentine’s dinner got me thinking about pizza differently — how a simple dough and some toppings can hold whatever a night needs it to hold. Rémy’s request had been heart-shaped, which is just a matter of how you stretch the dough, but the week after, I wanted to make pizza again with a little more swagger to it, something that felt like a celebration hangover from all that good feeling. Mexican Taco Pizza is what happened — it’s got the comfort of pizza and the kick of taco night, and in this house, that combination gets no complaints from anyone, including the one whose idea of a holiday is a Coke with dinner.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 18 minutes | Total Time: 33 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

1 lb store-bought or homemade pizza dough, at room temperature
1 lb ground beef (80/20)
1 packet (1 oz) taco seasoning
1/3 cup water
1/2 cup refried beans
1/2 cup your favorite salsa or taco sauce
1 1/2 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese
1/2 cup shredded iceberg lettuce (added after baking)
1 Roma tomato, diced
1/4 cup sour cream, for drizzling
1/4 cup pickled jalapeño slices (optional)
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
1 tbsp olive oil or cooking spray
Cornmeal, for dusting the pan

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 450°F. Dust a large baking sheet or pizza pan with cornmeal and set aside.
Brown the beef. In a skillet over medium-high heat, cook ground beef, breaking it up as it browns, about 5–6 minutes. Drain excess fat. Add taco seasoning and water, stir to coat, and simmer 2 minutes until the liquid absorbs. Remove from heat.
Shape the dough. On a lightly floured surface, stretch or roll the dough into a roughly 12-inch round (or, if you’re making it for kids on Valentine’s Day, fold the top into two rounded bumps and taper the bottom into a point — heart shape, Rémy’s request). Transfer to the prepared pan.
Build the base. Spread refried beans in a thin, even layer over the dough, leaving a 1-inch border. Spoon salsa over the beans and spread lightly. Scatter the seasoned beef evenly over the top.
Add the cheese. Sprinkle shredded cheese over everything in an even layer.
Bake. Bake for 14–18 minutes, until the crust is golden on the underside and the cheese is bubbling and lightly browned at the edges. Check at 14 minutes.
Finish and serve. Let the pizza rest 2–3 minutes. Top with shredded lettuce, diced tomato, jalapeños if using, and cilantro. Drizzle sour cream in a thin zigzag across the top. Slice and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Mexican Taco Pizza — Heart-Shaped for the Ones Who Put Glitter on Everything