How to Use a Crock-Pot to Keep Tortillas Warm

If you're having a party and trying to figure out the best way to keep tortillas warm for a taco bar, here's what you need to know. One way to do it is to keep the tortillas warm in a Crock-Pot.

Read more: How to Heat Up a Fully Cooked Ham in a Crock Pot

A taco bar is a great idea for a party because you can feed a lot of people with little effort. Apart from tortillas, all you need is either meat or beans for the base, some salsa, lettuce and cheese. You can also provide other ingredients like sour cream, chopped tomato or avocado if you like. If you need ideas for the filling, try our All-Day Soft Taco recipe.

Most of the ingredients don't need to be served warm, so you can leave them out for a couple of hours and they'll be just fine. The tortillas, however, are the tricky part. You need to keep the tortillas warm for the party so that they stay soft and supple. Cold tortillas are stiff and prone to cracking, causing all the filling to spill out. Besides, they're just not as fun.

There are many ways to keep tortillas warm for a party. For instance, Food & Nutrition, the magazine published by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, suggests making tortillas and wrapping them in a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm. This is an easy way to keep the tortillas warm for a short time; however, it may not work if you need to keep them warm for a couple of hours.

If you have a slow cooker, it's probably the best way to keep the tortillas warm for a taco bar, since you can use it to keep the tortillas warm for a couple of hours. The University of Wisconsin-Madison explains that the warm setting on slow cookers is a great way to hold food at the right temperature before you serve it.

Read more: How to Get Tortillas Crunchy

Follow these steps to keep the tortillas warm in a Crock-Pot:

• Wrap the tortillas in a damp napkin: Tortillas can dry out as they cool off, so wrapping them in a clean, damp napkin can help ensure that they stay moist. Depending on how many tortillas you have, they may not all fit in one napkin, so Oregon State University recommends five tortillas to a napkin. Wring out the napkin thoroughly before you wrap the tortillas in it, so that it's damp and not wet; you don't want to end up with soggy tortillas.
• Place the tortillas in the slow cooker: To keep the tortillas warm for the party, place them in the slow cooker and keep it on the warm setting. You can take out the tortillas as you need them.

The Texas A&M University recommends opting for corn tortillas as much as possible since they have fewer calories, more dietary fiber and less sodium than wheat tortillas. According to the USDA, a corn tortilla offers 45 calories, 9 grams of carbs, 1 gram of protein and 0.5 grams of fat. It also contains 40 milligrams of calcium.

Read more: Are Tortillas Healthy?