French Bread Taco Pizza features refried beans, salsa, taco meat, and cheese layered on a French bread crust, baked until piping hot, and then topped with cool, fresh lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, and sour cream!
2cupsgrated Monterrey Jack cheeseor Colby Jack or cheddar
Chopped lettuce
Diced tomatoes
1can(2.25 ounces) sliced black olives
½cupsour cream
Instructions
In a pan set over medium heat, brown ground beef. Drain grease and stir in taco seasoning. Set aside.
Place rack in center position of oven and preheat to 400°F. Slice French bread in half lengthwise (so that there's a top half and a bottom half). Place pieces cut-side-up on a baking sheet. All topping ingredients should be evenly divided between the two halves of the loaf.
Thinly spread each piece of bread with refried beans. Top bean layer with salsa. Spread taco-seasoned ground beef on top of salsa. (For a very meaty pizza, use all of the taco meat. I only used about ¾ of it divided between my bread halves and refrigerated the remaining ¼ for another use.) Top ground beef with grated cheese. Bake for 10 minutes or until cheese is melted and pizza is heated through.
Top each pizza with lettuce, tomatoes, black olives, and a drizzle of sour cream. You may add any other fresh taco toppings that you like (jalapeños, green onions, additional salsa, etc.). Slice pizza into wedges and serve hot.
Notes
To drizzle sour cream, I stir until smooth and then scoop it into a sandwich-size plastic baggie. I then squeeze all of the sour cream into a corner of the baggie, twist the top of the baggie, snip off a tiny piece of the corner, and use it like a piping bag to drizzle my sour cream. Or skip the extra effort and use a spoon to dollop it on. :)