Fourteen Recipes, One Shopping List, and Nobody Doing Mental Arithmetic at the Store

Every dish on this site’s Mexican-night bench (the rice, the beans, four salsas, the pickles, the slaw, the guac, the queso, the corn) already scales itself to a headcount. What none of them can do alone is the thing that ruins a taco night: the moment at the store when you realize six recipes each want “a couple of limes” and you have no idea whether that’s four limes or fourteen.

This is the desk that adds it up. Pick which dishes you’re making, set one headcount, and it does what your cart does: pools the shared ingredients. The limes from the pico, the guac, and the roja land on one line. The white onion from the rice, the beans, and three salsas lands on another. Everything is scaled off each dish’s own base yield first, then summed, then rounded once, at the end. So you get “3 white onions,” not “one-and-two-thirds plus a half plus five-eighths.”

What it does, and what it deliberately doesn’t

• One merged, scaled shopping list. Shared ingredients are summed in a single unit and rounded once. Where an ingredient shows up two different ways (whole limes to wedge and lime juice to stir into a crema), it’s listed side-by-side (“lime — 9 whole · 1 cup juice”), never faked into one number.
• A cost roll-up. Every dish carries representative-2026 prices; the desk totals the make-it cost against the store-bought equivalents and splits it per head. It’s an honest upper bound: it assumes a full serving of every dish per guest, which no real plate does.
• A prep timeline. Pickles days ahead, salsas and beans the day before, pico and corn a few hours out, rice and queso and fajitas à la minute, each row pulling its own live prep/cook/rest times.

Each dish enters at its own sensible default build: arroz rojo, pinto beans, a roasted salsa verde, and so on. To fine-tune any single one (heat, texture, vessel), open its own page and turn its dials. This coordinator is the math for the whole table.

Build the night

Feeds 9 dishes · one headcount check the dishes, set the headcount, shop once →

▪ Bases & mains

rice, beans, fajitas, the hot dishes

Mexican rice cook Refried beans cook Fajita vegetables cook Calabacitas cook Esquites cook Queso cook

▪ Salsas & drizzles

the wet table

Pico de gallo no-cook Salsa verde cook Roasted red salsa cook Hot-sauce crema no-cook

▪ Toppings & pickles

the bowls that do the work

Pickled red onions no-cook Pickled jalapeños cook Cabbage-lime slaw no-cook Guacamole no-cook

The taco-night order

feeds 10

One shopping list (shared items summed & scaled)

• avocado — 5
• black peppercorns — ⅔ tsp
• canned tomato — 2.19 cups
• chicken broth — 3⅛ cups
• chili powder — 2½ tsp
• cilantro — 2⅝ cups
• corn — 10
• cotija — 1⅛ cups
• cumin/coriander/ancho blend — 1
• dried pinto beans — 1 lb
• epazote — 1
• garlic — 19
• green bell pepper — 3
• ground cumin — 2½ tsp
• guajillo — 3
• habanero — 5
• jalapeño — 3
• lard — 4 Tbsp
• lime — 14 whole · 15 Tbsp juice
• long-grain rice — 2½ cups
• mayo + crema (esquites binder) — 7½ Tbsp
• Mexican oregano — ⅔ tsp
• red bell pepper — 3
• red onion — 1
• Ro*Tel — 2.19 cups
• roma tomato — 8 whole · 2½ lb
• scallions — 5
• serrano — 1
• sugar — 1¼ tsp
• Tajín — 1⅛ Tbsp
• white onion — 5
• whole milk — 15 Tbsp
• yellow American cheese — 1¼ lb
• yellow bell pepper — 3
• yellow onion — 3

Plus cooking oil, salt, water — to taste, from the pantry (not summed).

Cost roll-up

Make the whole spread for $58.60 ($5.86/head) vs ~$61.00 of store-bought equivalents — save ~$2.40 .

• Mexican rice: $4.48 (vs $4.50)
• Refried beans: $3.50 (vs $4.00)
• Fajita vegetables: $12.73 (vs $8.00)
• Queso: $8.92 (vs $5.50)
• Esquites: $9.92 (vs $14.00)
• Pico de gallo: $6.05 (vs $5.50)
• Roasted red salsa: $3.82 (vs $5.50)
• Guacamole: $6.71 (vs $8.00)
• Pickled red onions: $2.49 (vs $6.00)

Upper bound: assumes a full serving of every dish per head. A real plate mixes and matches, so you'll spend less.

Prep & cook timeline

Days ahead

• Pickled red onions no-cook Best after a rest; keeps ~2 weeks refrigerated. prep ~10 min active (slice & brine) · 30 min – overnight, refrigerated

The day before

• Refried beans cook Reheats great — loosen with a splash of water or stock. prep ~15 min active · cook 10–15 min fry
• Roasted red salsa cook Keeps 4–5 days; deepens overnight. prep ~10 min active · cook 10–12 min char (+15 min chile soak) · 15 min to let it meld

A few hours before

• Esquites cook Char ahead; dress warm. Serve warm, not fridge-cold. prep ~15 min active · cook 10–12 min to char
• Pico de gallo no-cook Salt-&-drain a few hours ahead; dress with lime just before serving. prep ~15 min knife work · 15–20 min to marry (less if you salt & drain)

À la minute (just before serving)

• Fajita vegetables cook Sear à la minute — they steam and dull if held. prep ~15 min active (slice) · cook 8–12 min hard sear
• Guacamole no-cook Make the day of; press wrap on the surface, extra lime slows browning. prep ~15 min active · 15–30 min chilled
• Mexican rice cook Best fresh; rest covered, then fork-fluff at the table. prep ~10 min active · cook 20–25 min covered · 5–10 min off-heat rest
• Queso cook Melt à la minute; hold on WARM in a slow cooker, loosen with hot milk. prep ~10 min active (grate & prep) · cook 10–15 min low & slow

Only the 14 data-backed dishes merge here. The set-out items — charred scallions & blistered jalapeños, the bases & carriers (tortillas, chips, proteins), and the garnish bowls — carry their own quantity-per-head tables and are not summed into this list.

Each dish is built at its own sensible default. Tune any single dish on its own page; this desk just does the math for the whole table.

The half of taco night this list leaves out

Three things belong on the table but not in the merge, because they’re bought by volume and set out, not cooked to a recipe:

• Bases & carriers: tortillas, chips, rice-as-a-base, and proteins. Costed by the head on their own page.
• Set-out garnishes, out 19 Nov: the bowls of lime, cilantro, diced onion, radish, and cotija that do the most work.
• Charred scallions & blistered jalapeños, out 18 Nov: the one side that needs no recipe, only a hot surface and patience.

Set those out alongside what this desk tells you to buy, and the night runs itself.

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Honest caveats: prices are representative 2026 (“your receipt is the citation”), and the cost total is an upper bound as noted. Count-unit ingredients (onions, limes, avocados) are summed as whole counts, so a “medium” onion in one recipe and a “large” in another both count as one. Round up at the store. Salt, cooking oil, and water are treated as pantry staples and kept off the buy-list. Each dish’s own page carries its sourcing and technique notes. This desk only does the arithmetic.