The ‘Secret’ That Made Big Ed’s Taco Pasta Spicy
We sat down with 90 Day Fiancé’s Ed Brown to learn more about his infamous recipe – and the candy he melts into his other signature pasta dish.
Ali Read
Spoiler Alert: This article contains spoilers of season 8 of 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?
Editor’s Note: TLC and Food Network are sister brands under parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
For fans of 90 Day Fiancé: Happily Ever After?, something as innocuous as taco pasta has become much more than a weeknight dish. Big Ed’s now infamous Taco Pasta became the breaking point for Ed Brown and Liz Woods’ on-again-off-again relationship, ultimately leading to their fifteenth breakup and the calling-off of their engagement.
In episode six (“The Itsy Bitsy Liar”), Ed reveals that at a dinner with his family, Liz and her daughter Ryleigh, Liz “blew up” because Ed had made Ryleigh’s taco pasta “too spicy.” Days after the fight, Ed tells his sister that he has decided to cancel the wedding, but has not yet told Liz, days before their would-be ceremony. Liz learns of this news from a text message from their officiant, saying “how sorry he was that the wedding was called off.”
Since the specifics of said Taco Pasta were a point of contention – we wondered, naturally, how spicy was it?
I caught up with Ed inside Food Network’s test kitchen as he made us a batch – it does have a little kick to it – to learn more about the infamous dish (you can recreate his recipe here), and how life has been since the breakup.
Ali Read
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
How did this dish come to be? Did you make the recipe up yourself?
The recipe was a combination of things – I saw some recipes online, I believe it was TikTok, and I kind of added my own little spin.
What was your spin?
That’s a secret – the [spicy ‘ranch’] seasoning. The genius is in the seasoning.
Can you tell us how many spices are in your secret seasoning?
There are about three to four.
What did the dish mean to you prior to the incident?
Well, so before the incident, it was my go-to dish. Now, it’s my sad dish.
Do you still make it?
I still make it, yeah – upon request. No pun intended, but it, it actually left a bad taste in my mouth. But not the pasta of the incident – when this flew off the handle. The food was amazing.
What are some other types of meals you like making for yourself? Do you enjoy experimenting in the kitchen?
I love experimenting in the kitchen. My mom is actually Spanish. And she taught me how to make crescent rolls with yeast. She taught me how to make Big Ed’s mole enchiladas – that again, I put my own spin on. I actually use Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the mole. And then my signature go-to, other than the taco pasta, would be my spinach fettuccine with marinara sauce. And that’s all made fresh. And it’s actually a recipe that my friend John came up with. The recipe is called “John’s Pasta That Ed Likes.” But again, I took it and I added some Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups in the sauce.
How many Reese’s cups for four servings?
So, the Halloween candies – about four to five of the little, little tiny cups. It’s really sweet. It has a sweeter sauce. And it’s very concentrated, so you almost use a dollop of it. It’s not a loose sauce. It’s kind of a heavier sauce.
Did you and Liz often cook together or have a hobby you pursued together? Do you prefer to cook solo or with a partner?
Liz and I did cook together quite often. Liz was a better cook in the fact that she washed every dish as she cooked, whereas I waited to the very end. But the food always turned out really good. And that’s one thing that Liz and I really enjoyed doing together was cooking.
If the breakup wasn’t really about taco pasta, what would you say it was about, ultimately?
So the breakup really wasn’t about the taco pasta and Liz getting upset. It was kind of a culmination of a lot of little, you know, instances that we couldn’t quite solve in therapy, and they wouldn’t go away. And that was, I think, both our faults, we really never addressed it. And we would just sweep it under the rug.
So I recommend anybody that’s having issues in their relationship – communication is so important and talking openly about what bothers the other person. And you know, saying you’re sorry. That’s important. And I was, I was always the one to say I was sorry more.
It’s sad it had to end, but in the long run, knowing that it wasn’t going to work – and I knew for a few months in advance that, you know, this wasn’t gonna … it wasn’t going to be a good turnout. And I didn’t want to put Liz through that, or myself.
Are you seeing anyone now?
I’m not seeing anybody now, but I did meet someone in Arkansas and she’s my really good friend and that’s it, but she’s offered to tie our, um, pontoon boats together. So I don’t know what that means, you know, tying our pontoons together? Are you saying I have a chance? She’s gonna kill me by the way for saying that.
Tune in to #90DayFiance: Happily Ever After Sundays at 8/7c on TLC.
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