Taco

Besides the tacos, try the Pico de Gallo on scrambled eggs, grilled chicken or instead of sour cream on a baked potato.

Serve these tacos with salsa, shredded lettuce, sliced avocado and black olives. Corn and black bean salad finishes the meal—except for dessert. We recommend spice cake.

Puerto Nuevo, a seaside village in Baja California, Mexico, is famous for its Pacific spiny lobster. For food safety, be sure to broil the lobsters immediately after they have been boiled and split. What to drink: Assorted chilled Mexican beers.

Mexican food is usually high in calories; this lean dish is authentic but light.

Chicken in Pumpkin-Seed Sauce

Pass grated cheddar cheese and extra salsa at the table.

For some reason, small tunas like the bonito are not as popular fresh as the large yellowfin and bigeye tunas. Bonito has a delicate yet rich flavor. In this recipe, the fish is highly seasoned, grilled, and then broken up into pieces with the tines of a fork and used as the filling for tacos. The slight bitterness from the grilling combined with the smoky richness of the seasoned fish is a perfect excuse to experiment with several salsas as accompaniments. I particularly recommend Charred Tomato Mint Salsa. Don't forget to have plenty of soft, fresh tortillas on hand.

As the story goes, the Maya served this dish to the Spaniards, calling it papadzules, which means "food for the lords."

These superb tacos are from chef Alex Castro at the Old Mexico Grill in Santa Fe.

Roasted poblanos, jalapeños, and red onion are coated with a melty sauce—warm with the flavors of pepper jack, and stabilized with a block of cream cheese.

Chicken thighs cooked inside parchment packets alongside onions and oranges makes for a flavorful dinner that’s almost entirely hands off.

All thanks to a cult-favorite plant-based protein our editors buy in bulk.