We love Mexican food in this house, so when I saw Street Kitchen’s Smokey Chipotle Beef kit at our local Woolworths I couldn’t help myself. The kit comes with everything you need to slow cook your beef into perfect smokey chipotle heaven. Because the kit makes up enough to feed an army I decided it would be the perfect time to turn our leftovers into a yummy salad in a jar lunch option. It was so easy to do and it made enough to feed a family of 2 adults and 1 toddler, plus make 4 1L Mason Jar salads for lunches that week.

I used the Street Kitchen’s Smokey Chipotle Beef, rice and salad items to make burritos for dinner and then used the leftovers to make these Mexican Salad Jars. Here’s how I did it.

What you’ll need:

• 1 x Packet of Street Kitchen’s Smokey Chipotle Beef Kit
• 1 x 800g+ Blade Steak (or whatever beef cut you like to slow cook)
• 2 cups cooked rice (I used Basmati)
• 1 tin of Black Beans
• 1 tin of Corn Kernels
• 4 x Diced Tomates
• 1 x Iceberg Lettuce (let’s go old school!) – roughly chopped
• 2 tablespoons chopped Coriander (or Cilantro for those in the Northern Hemisphere)
• 2 tablespoons Lime Juice
• Gated Colby Cheese
• For Dinner: 10 Soft Tortillas or Taco’s
• For Lunches: 4 x 1L (Quart) Wide Mouth Ball Mason Jars (Click here to purchase)
• Optional: Mission Ingredients Tortillas Strip White Corn

How to do it:

1. Cook your beef as per the Street Kitchen Smokey Chipotle Beef instructions. Don’t add anything else – it’ll be tempting to do when you put it in there and it doesn’t look like much, but trust me as it starts to heat up the sauce will thin and combine with the juices from the beef and it’ll be more than enough!

Tip: I slow cooked our beef on low for 6 hours, the next time I’m doing it I’m going to go for about 8 hours and get it really falling apart. I checked on the beef every hour or so and just rotated it in the mixture and basted it with the mixture as well. I really wanted to get those flavours in there.

2. About 30 minutes before you’re ready to serve the beef, cook your rice as per your preferred method.

3. Remove the beef from the slow cooker and leave to rest.

3. To the rice add the drained black beans, drained corn kernels, lime juice, chopped coriander and the sauce (juices) from the slow cooker. Mix together well.

Tip: You’re using the Street Kitchen Smokey Chipotle Beef sauce to really add flavour to your rice. I loved this rice so much I could have just eaten it on it’s own.

4. Dinner: If you’re using this for dinner (and why wouldn’t you – it’s two meals for the price of one!) then make up your burritos, tacos or nachos as you like. I used it to make burritos and layered them as follows: cheese, Street Kitchen Smokey Chipotle Beef, diced tomato, rice mixture, lettuce.

5. Salad in a Jar: It’s all about the correct layers with salads in a jar, so you need to layer as follows: rice mixture, Street Kitchen Smokey Chipotle Beef, tomato, cheese, lettuce. Put the lid on tightly and refrigerate until ready for use.

Tip: I served this by taken the lid off and popping it in the microwave until it was just warm and then tipped it in a bowl and ate it with Mission Ingredients Tortillas Strip White Corn.

Optional: If you wanted you could add a nice salsa or guacaomle to it as well, it’s all up to you!