My boyfriend and I have a little tradition we call “25 tacos for 25 dollars.” It is exactly what it sounds like. We go to the little taco shop down the road, order far too many dollar tacos, then feast until we can feast no more. (They’re small tacos, but it’s still quite a bit for two people.)

At first, we loved the novelty of getting a bunch of different meats—pastor, pollo, chorizo, asada—but quickly realized we both gravitated toward the al pastor. And, no disrespect to the establishment in question, we also noticed that they were skimping a bit on the pineapple.

Making our own was the obvious next step, except for one problem: I don’t have a spit roast. Luckily, we have an oven-friendly recipe. Instead of doing the cooking on a rotary spit, we shingle saucy, thin slices of well-marbled pork shoulder on a sheet pan, with similarly thin slices of pineapple layered on top. The fatty edges of the meat brown and crisp while the fruit lightly caramelizes, then it’s all dumped into a big pile and chopped so you get a perfect mix of tangy, sweet, spicy, salty, meaty, crisp and juicy. Scoop it into corn tortillas with a little bit of onion and cilantro, and you have a pretty great taco. If you have any leftovers, it makes a great addition to a breakfast burrito.

I’m not saying it’s my favorite recipe in our Taco Night collection, but it’s in the top five.

Also ranking highly is our Cumin-Spiced Beef with Tomatoes, Onion and Peppers, also known as puntas de res a la Mexicana, a one-pan affair in which beef is spiked with cumin and balanced by the sweet acidity of tomatoes. This one is all killer, no filler. Every ingredient is there for a reason. The short rib provides deep, beefy flavor and plenty of richness. The onions give the dish a savory backbone. Juicy tomatoes give it a saucy quality, so there’s no need to get extraneous liquid involved. A few peppers, both hot and sweet, provide vegetal sweetness and chili heat. And it all happens in a single skillet. You could serve it over rice, but it makes a fantastic taco filling.

Moving from land to sea, I have three shrimp taco recipes I’ve been meaning to try. The first is a Single-Seared Garlic Shrimp Tacos. Shrimp are notoriously easy to overcook, so to keep them plump and tender, we brown them in a hot skillet on just one side. You get plenty of flavor without turning them tough and rubbery. Tuck ‘em into warm corn tortillas and finish with the citrusy cabbage and onion slaw.

Moving from land to sea, we take a completely different approach the other two. Tacos gobernador, or “governor’s tacos,” are a modern Mexican classic that combines shrimp with cheese. (I know seafood and cheese are odd companions, but it really works here.) Shrimp get a light parcook with some onions and peppers, then chop it all up and mix it with mozzarella cheese, pickled jalapeños and—my favorite part—pickled jalapeño brine. Fold and fry and they’re ready to serve.

If cheese and shrimp is a hard sell, but you still want a fried shrimp taco, give these bad boys a try. They’re based on the fried shrimp tacos served Raul Ortega’s food truck in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, they feature a perfectly seasoned shrimp filling, stuffed into tortillas and fried until golden brown. His recipe is a closely guarded secret, but food writer and recipe developer Paola Briseño-González helped us replicate that delicious melding of flavors and textures.

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Claire Lower

Claire Lower is the Digital Editor for Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street, with over a decade of experience as a food writer and recipe developer. Claire began writing about food (and drinks) during the blogging boom in the late 2000s, eventually leaving her job as a lab technician to pursue writing full-time. After freelancing for publications such as Serious Eats, Yahoo Food, xoJane and Cherry Bombe Magazine, she eventually landed at Lifehacker, where she served as the Senior Food Editor for nearly eight years. Claire lives in Portland, Oregon with a very friendly dog and very mean cat. When not in the kitchen (or at her laptop), you can find her deadlifting at the gym, fly fishing or trying to master figure drawing at her local art studio.