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Easy Swiss Chard and Fried Egg Tacos

Tender Swiss chard and over-easy eggs folded into soft corn tortillas. With salsa-spiked pinto beans and avocado–a winning combination! Chard and fried egg tacos are one of the easiest dinners on the planet.

Chard is a two-for-one vegetable, meaning we can eat the stems as well as the leafy greens. The chard stems enhance vegetarian dishes with their meaty texture and pleasing crunch. These tacos are a delicious way to use my favorite leafy green.

Click here to save these Swiss chard and egg tacos on Pinterest.

Don’t toss out those stems! Simple chop them like you would do for celery. Sauté the chopped stems like you would cook chopped onions. The leaves cook quickly, wilted in after the chard stems are tender.

This recipe for is more of a guide than an exact recipe. You’re on your own to decide how much filling goes in each taco shell and how how hungry you are, how many tacos each person wants.

For example, last night I devoured 2 tacos and Robbie ate 3. We used one bunch of rainbow chard, 1 avocado, 5 eggs, and 5 corn tortillas.

Disclosure: I tend to over-fill my tacos. If that’s you too, no worries, just use a fork to eat what falls onto the plate.

Tips and ideas:

I used pinto beans here, but you can make these tacos with black beans instead. Either bean, they’re mashed with salsa and spread on the warm tortillas.

If you have the time, cook your pinto beans from scratch. Truly, the flavor and quality of homemade pinto beans are the superior to that of canned pinto beans. Learn how to cook beans quickly in the pressure cooker or Instant Pot.

Tip: To soften and warm corn tortillas, spray them with cooking spray and bake for 5 minutes. If you don’t want to turn on the oven, spray the tortillas and soften them on the grill. If it’s just 2 of us, I’ll use the toaster oven. (Mexican cooks fry their corn tortillas in hot oil to make them pliable–this spray and bake method is a whole lot easier and healthier.)

Here’s how to make chard and fried egg tacos.

Time needed: 25 minutes.

  1. Sauté chard stems with garlic and jalapeño chile.

  2. Mash some pinto beans with salsa.

  3. Soften tortillas in the oven.

  4. Pan-fry one egg per tortilla.

  5. When all is ready, spread tortillas with beans, top with chard, egg, and avocado.

  6. Enjoy with your favorite salsa.

Sauteéd rainbow chard with stems in a skillet.

A bit about chard–questions you might have:

What’s the difference between chard and Swiss chard?

They’re the same thing. Swiss chard is a general common name for chard. The Swiss part is a misnomer, because it implies that it’s a chard varietal from Switzerland. It’s not. The names chard and Swiss chard are used interchangeably.

What is chard, aka Swiss chard?

Chard is the leafy green beetroot top that went wild in the garden, a botanical relative to beets and spinach. When eaten raw, the tender leafy green leaves have a slightly bitter taste. When cooked, chard’s bitterness dissipates, turning into a mild, sweet taste similar to spinach. Delicious!

What about rainbow chard?

Rainbow chard isn’t a specific variety, but a blend of the red, yellow and white varieties planted and harvested together.

Chard is easy to grow and available year-round. If you search “chard” on this blog you’ll find more than a few recipes.

More vegetarian taco ideas:

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This is an update of the recipe I posted in July 2013! It was on my first food blog and migrated over when I began publishing here on Letty’s Kitchen. Updated with new photos and directions.

Filed under: Main Course, Mexican

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2 comments

  • Dawn J Ritts

    I can’t wait to try this Now to find the Swiss Chard… Reply · 27 July, 2022

    • Hope you don’t have to buy a case. 😄 Reply · 27 July, 2022

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