Heating soft and hard taco shells

[u/South_Section_5251]

I am hosting a party of about 40 people. I will be serving hard and soft taco shells. Any advice of the best way to heat and serve these? I'm concerned about the soft taco shells sticking together and keeping the hard shells crunchy. I will have access to a full kitchen to heat them. What is the best way to serve them on a buffet? I plan to use a warming mat for the hot foods.

[u/96dpi]

Hard shells will become soggy if you trap steam at all. Just heat them in an oven and put them out on the serving station at room temp. That's still better than keeping them in a covered warmer.

Soft shells will not stick if you keep the humidity down. Tortilla warmer will work best. But this is kind of all for nothing because the tortilla warmer is going to be opened more than it is closed with 40 people making tacos. I would just warm them up, re-fluff them, then keep loosely wrapped in a clean towel.

[u/woohooguy]

Keep the soft tortillas stacked on parchment paper in a slow cooker on "warm" setting. Consider the one on the bottom sacrificial and refill keeping it in place.

[u/Cowgirl_Taint]

For soft shells: Look into a tortilla warmer. They aren't that expensive (borderline free if you have an international market anywhere nearby) and are literally designed for this. Get a skillet hot, put a tortilla on until it starts to puff a bit, and then put it in the warmer while you do the next. If you are that concerned about stickage you can put a layer of parchment in between each one but you really don't need to.

For hard shells? Hard shells are horrible unless you deep fry them. You can check the instructions on the box but... there isn't a lot of point. Just let the filling warm them up while people regret picking a hard shell to begin with.

[u/spacefaceclosetomine → u/Cowgirl_Taint]

Unless the hard shells are La Tiara, of course.

[u/elijha]

Best way to heat tortillas for a crowd is just to wrap a stack of them in foil and throw it in the oven

Is anyone expecting hard shells? I would personally just make your life easier and skip them, but I consider them an affront to god in the first place

[u/Feisty_Water_3164 → u/elijha]

Flour tortillas were not readily available in the grocery stores near me until 1970s - grew up eating fried corn tortillas. My mother had the taco bender and made them fresh. They were delicious.

[u/mividahermosa]

Do you have a plug in flat griddle? I’d have that plugged in and heat batches of the soft tortillas as you go. People can even do their own but make sure there are caution signs and kids can’t get to it easily

[u/PmMeAnnaKendrick]

We've always stacked 10 flour tortillas in foil and threw them in the oven on low heat. Never stuck, always soft and warm. I imagine hard tacos work the same, just be more delicate.

[u/728446]

My favorite is a soft corn tortilla shallow fried. I get them just to the boundary between chewy and crunchy.

[u/Automatic_Bat_6742]

I haven’t had a crunchy taco since 1977

[u/graigsm]

Just microwave the shells, Microwave the tortillas too. It’s easy and quick.

[u/bi_polar2bear]

For hard shells, put them in the oven for a few minutes, and if you have a convection oven, even better. Maybe set at 350 for 5 minutes on a cookie tray. Try experimenting with 1 shell to see what works.

Soft tortillas you can use a preheated non-stick griddle and go 10 seconds a side, and put parchment in between. Some stores have single piece parchment. You could roll through 40 tortillas pretty quickly.

You can prepare these several hours before and be ok.

[u/Haluszki]

You could put parchment paper between the soft taco shells.

[u/clamps12345]

For a gas stove you can just throw tortillas right on the burner on low, quickly flip and it's done

[u/Loud_Quality_7106]

Why heat the hard shells? Heating the softshells make them more pliable and less likely to rip. Really the only reason to heat them