I love recipes that can be thrown together, this taco soup recipe is no exception.  Especially when you can throw them together and let the crock pot do all of the hard work for you.

This is one of my all time favorite recipes.

Honestly, I think I'm addicted to it...

You'll understand when you make it.  It has a ton of taco flavor and when you top it off with sour cream, cheese and tortilla chips, you can't go wrong.

This recipe has a slightly long ingredient list, but it's cheap and super simple to put together.

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My day job is teaching agriculture and honors biology to high school students.  One thing that's really popular right now in education is something called PLC's. PLC is an acronym for "Professional Learning Committee" or something like that...

Basically, it's a time when a group of teachers and instructional facilitators get together and meet to talk about how we can teach our students better.  In other words, we spend our precious free time talking about lesson planning, testing and teaching content.

Not exactly what teachers want to do on their free time.

My instructional facilitator wanted all of the high school science teachers to start meeting a few times a month during our lunch time for PLC's.  She said that she would provide us lunch during those days.

The first time we met, we had this taco soup.  When I ate this, I literally told her that I would be more than glad to have PLC's anytime that she fixed that soup.

I was surprised to learn that the recipe had actually come from a cookbook that our high school had sold as a fundraiser several years before.  (This was before I started teaching).  She dug me out a copy of the cookbook.

Now, this taco soup has become one of my favorite things to fix.  I crave it at least once a month.  It's a great recipe to have because it's one of those that makes a huge pot.

​I can easily make this taco soup and have dinner for the next two nights in less than 20 minutes.  Plus, this soup is so much better the second day once the flavors have all married together overnight.

Don't let this slightly long list of ingredients intimidate you into not making the greatest decision of your life, which is to make this taco soup.  For reals, it's amazing.

​I've also done all of the shopping for you and attached links to all of the ingredients!  I'm a huge fan of Amazon shopping.  Seriously we even buy bulk toilet paper from Amazon.  It's cheaper and I don't have to go to the store.  Double win!

You'll need-

1 lb. ground beef
1 lb. ground sausage
1 medium onion
2 packages of taco seasoning
1 package of Ranch dressing mix
1 large can of crushed tomatoes
2 small cans of tomato sauce
1 can of pinto beans
1 can of kidney beans
1 can of red chili beans
1 can whole kernel corn
1 can of Rotel
1 quart V-8
tortilla chips
Fritos scoops chips
shredded cheddar cheese
​sour cream

The first step in this recipe is the hardest (not that it is hard at all!).

​Brown your ground beef and sausage in a skillet and drain them.

While this is cooking, drain all of the cans of beans and the can of corn.

Chop the onion up as well.

​When the meats are finished cooking, remove them from the pan and let them drain.  Cook the onion in the leftover fat until it is transparent.

Drain the onion and add it to the meat.  The hard part is done!

Now, put the tomatoes, tomato sauce and Rotel in a large crock pot. (This makes a lot of soup, so if you don't have the big crock pot, you can split it between two normal sized crock pots or put half of the recipe away in the freezer to cook later.)

Stir in the packets of ranch dressing mix and taco seasoning.

Mix the tomatoes and seasonings until they are blended together.

Turn the crock pot on high.

​Add the meat and onion to the tomatoes and seasonings.  Mix it together.

Add the beans and corn, mixing it again.

Carefully add the V-8 and mix it up one last time.

Let the crock pot work on high for 4-6 hours.  You can set it on medium for 6-8 hours, too.

I like to put it on before I leave for work so that it is ready by the time I get home.  You can also make the same recipe in a large soup pot.

If you plan on making the recipe on the stove rather than a crock pot, make sure that you have a soup pot that is large enough to hold the entire recipe, or two pots to split it into.

If you don't you can always freeze half of the soup.  I promise once you make it you will want to make it again! And again, and again... (sometimes even twice a week!)

When you get ready to serve it, stir it up and make sure everything is mixed up well.  Ladle some into bowls.  Top it with a dollop of sour cream and some shredded cheese.

Serve it with tortilla chips on the side.  The scoop tortilla chips go great with this because you can scoop some of the soup up into them.

​Fritos scoops are also the bomb with this, too.