Nuclear Taco Night

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Nuclear Taco Night is an informal gathering of a bunch of friends in Austin, Texas. We prepare insanely hot tacos using the spiciest peppers we can find.

[edit] NTN parties

We get together once a month (sometimes more) to eat tacos and drink beer. Normal turnout is between 15 and 30 people -- everyone is invited.

Normally, Nuclear Taco Night occurs on a Wednesday night from 7pm until around 11pm at my house. Generally we try to do it on the first Wednesday of the month, but that's not always the case. It's best to check the official website to learn about the next one.

We occasionally also do public-key notary signing at our Nuclear Taco Nights, if there is interest. A number of the regular attendees are notaries and collectively we can give anyone enough notary points to become trusted.

[edit] How we make nuclear tacos

The chopped peppers are introduced to the meat.
The chopped peppers are introduced to the meat.

Usually we use "Red Savina" habanero peppers, but we have also recently been using "Naga Dorset" peppers. Both of these peppers are ranked among the hottest peppers in the world! See how their heat compares to other common peppers.

We try to use fresh pepper pods when possible. I have been able to successfully grow fresh "Red Savina", "Naga Dorset", and "African Red Devil" peppers in plant pots in my backyard. We also try to buy fresh Habanero or Jalapeno peppers from the grocery store for flavor, even though they their heat is pretty insignificant relative to the Red Savina and Naga Dorsets.

  1. All of the fresh peppers are put into a food processor and chopped into a chili salsa/mulch.
  2. Add ground beef in a large skillet. We sometimes use the large 5 lb "tubes" of ground beef from the store.
  3. Add the chili salsa/mulch. Also add the dried Red Savina powder for extra spiciness.
  4. Add taco seasoning, ground cumin, and other herbs.
  5. Add a little bit of water to keep the meat from getting too dry.
  6. Continue heating and mixing the ground beef until meat is thoroughly browned.

Put the cooked meat in some hard corn taco shells, or in soft flour tortillas. Add some sour cream, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes, and shredded cheese. Then enjoy! Be sure to have some ice cream or milk available, in case you need to extinguish the flames! Dairy products really do work best for that.

Vegetarian nuclear tacos can be made by substituting crumbled "textured vegetable protein" (TVP) or soy products instead of the ground beef. Some grocery stores have a variety of products that are amazingly similar in appearance to real meat.

Here's some more details about their preparation:

[edit] South by Southwest

Nuclear Taco Night at the South by Southwest festival.
Nuclear Taco Night at the South by Southwest festival.

For the past few years, we've been able to host a large-scale Nuclear Taco event in cooperation with the annual South By Southwest music festival in downtown Austin for one night each March. During these special events, we have a huge tent and a local band providing live music. We historically have brought three or more outdoor propane camping stoves in order to keep up with the demand and prepare everything on-site.

We usually get several hundred people lining up around the block to wait their turn to get their free Nuclear Tacos, free beer, and free icecream. However, because most of the SXSW guests have never had nuclear tacos before, it's a surprisingly common mistake for people to overfill their taco shells with nuclear meat without realizing their mistake until its too late!

SXSW 2009
  • upcoming!
SXSW 2008 [1] [2]
SXSW 2007 [3]
SXSW 2006 [4]
SXSW 2005 [5]
SXSW 2004
SXSW 2003

[edit] Other variations

Occasionally, we've been invited to replicate the Nuclear Taco Night experience for a company event or party. In these cases, it's usually been easiest to just bring a Tupperware container of nuclear leftovers and just reheat in the microwave. This eliminates a lot of the preparation hassle at a foreign place.

One time we had a Nuclear Thanksgiving Night and injected a turkey with Red Savina before submerging it in a turkey deep fryer. It came out pretty good, though it really wasn't spicy enough to be truly considered nuclear. I also made some Nuclear Pumpkin Pie that turned out quite well!

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