Indian Tacos & Fry Bread: Wyoming’s Most Beloved Fair Food

You smell it before you see it. Walk through the gates of any Wyoming county fair in July, or up the midway at Cheyenne Frontier Days, or across the grounds at a summer powwow, and somewhere in that swirl of funnel-cake sugar and grilling onions there’s one smell that pulls you sideways: dough hitting hot oil. It’s a sound, too — that low, rolling hiss when a flattened round of dough goes into the fryer and puffs up golden. That’s fry bread. And if you follow your nose to the source, you’ll usually find a line.

This is the food people line up for. Not the corn dogs, not the deep-fried Oreos. The fry bread stand — often run by a Native family who’s been working that same booth for years — is where the real fairgoers go. You can get it dusted in powdered sugar and honey like a warm cloud, or you can get it loaded up as an Indian taco, which is, in my opinion, one of the great plates of food anywhere in the Mountain West. Let me tell you about it, and then let me show you how to make it at home.

What Is Fry Bread (and What’s an Indian Taco)?

Fry bread is a Native American food, and its story is a real one that’s worth telling honestly. It traces back to the mid-1800s, when the U.S. government forced Indigenous peoples off their lands and onto reservations, cutting them off from the game, fish, and native plants they’d relied on for generations. In place of that, the government issued commodity rations — white flour, lard, salt, sugar, powdered milk. They weren’t familiar ingredients, and they weren’t much. But people made do, and out of those few rationed staples came a simple fried dough that could feed a family. That’s fry bread. It was born of hardship, and it became a survival food, and then, over generations, it became a tradition.

An Indian taco is fry bread put to work as a plate. You take a hot, golden round of fry bread and pile it high the way you’d build a taco — seasoned ground beef or shredded meat, beans, shredded cheese, crisp lettuce, diced tomato, maybe onions and a spoon of salsa or a few jalapeños. The fry bread is the base, the warm, chewy, slightly crispy foundation that soaks up everything in the best possible way. Today you’ll find Indian tacos at fairs, rodeos, and powwows all across the Great Plains and the Mountain West. They’re as much a part of a Wyoming summer as a snow cone or a funnel cake — except they’re a whole meal, and they mean something.

A Food With a Complicated, Proud History

It’s worth sitting with the fact that fry bread is a complicated symbol for a lot of Native people, and I want to be careful and honest about that as someone who loves this food but didn’t grow up with it. For some, it’s a painful reminder of the commodity-ration era — of land taken and diets imposed. For others, it’s a genuine source of pride, a thread of continuity, the taste of grandmothers and gatherings and community. Often it’s both of those things at once. That tension is part of the dish, and I think the respectful thing is to acknowledge it rather than flatten it into “fair food.”

If you want to experience fry bread where it carries the most meaning, go to a powwow. Right here in Wyoming, the Plains Indian Powwow in Cody happens each June at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, and it’s one of the best places in the state to see Native dancers, drummers, and artists — and yes, to eat fry bread made by people for whom it’s part of their living culture. Buy it from the families making it. That matters more than any recipe I can give you. Making it at home is a way to appreciate the dish; supporting the communities it comes from is a way to honor it.

Indian Tacos Recipe

This is a simple, forgiving fry bread that comes out puffy and golden, crispy at the edges and soft in the middle. It serves 4 to 6, and it’s the base for everything below. The dough takes minutes; the frying is where the attention goes.

Fry Bread Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar (optional)
• 3/4 cup warm water (a little more as needed)
• 1/4 cup warm milk
• Neutral oil for frying (vegetable, canola, or traditional lard) — about 1 to 1.5 inches deep

How to Make Fry Bread

1. Mix the dry ingredients. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a large bowl.
2. Add the liquid. Pour in warm water and milk, stir until a shaggy dough forms. Add a splash more water if too dry — it should be soft and slightly tacky, not sticky.
3. Knead briefly. Turn onto a floured counter, knead just until smooth, about one minute. Don’t overwork it.
4. Rest the dough. Cover with a towel and rest 20–30 minutes. This relaxes the gluten and makes the dough puff instead of resist.
5. Heat the oil to 350–360°F in a heavy skillet or pot. Use a thermometer — too cool and the bread drinks oil; too hot and it burns outside before cooking through.
6. Shape the rounds. Divide dough into 4–6 pieces. Pat and stretch each into a 6-inch round, about 1/4-inch thick. Poke a small hole in the center — the traditional vent that helps it cook evenly.
7. Fry. Lay gently into the hot oil. Fry 1–2 minutes per side until deep golden, flipping once with tongs. A cast iron skillet holds heat steadily and is the ideal pan.
8. Drain. Lift onto a wire rack or paper towels. Keep warm and work in batches.

Building the Indian Taco

• Beans first — warm refried or seasoned pinto beans spread on the hot fry bread
• Seasoned ground beef (or shredded beef, bison, or chili) while still hot
• Shredded cheddar added while meat is hot so it melts
• Shredded lettuce, diced tomato, diced onion for the cold crunch
• Salsa, sour cream, jalapeños to finish

Balance is everything — let the fry bread stay the star. Eat it with both hands and lean forward. There’s no dignified way to do this, and that’s part of the joy.

Serving Suggestions & Variations

Don’t sleep on the sweet version: a hot round dusted with powdered sugar and drizzled with honey is dessert-stand magic — the one I always grab on the way out of the fair. Add cinnamon-sugar or a scoop of ice cream for a full dessert.

For a crowd, set out toppings in bowls and let people build their own — it travels beautifully to a cookout. Pair with Rocky Mountain oysters for the full county-fair experience, or fold it into a Wyoming Fourth of July spread where it’ll absolutely steal the show.

Worth Making, Worth Seeking Out

Fry bread is worth making at home because it’s genuinely simple and genuinely delicious, and because making it slowly — paying attention to the dough, the oil, the puff — is a small way of appreciating where it comes from.

But the best fry bread in Wyoming is the kind you buy from the people who’ve been making it for generations, at a powwow or a fair, handed to you hot on a paper plate. Make it at home, absolutely. Then go find it out there — in Cody in June, at your county fair in July, at rodeos and gatherings all summer long — and support the families keeping the tradition alive.