Want to make the best chicken tacos ever? This easy 15-Minute Chicken Tacos recipe is your answer for a busy weeknight meal that the entire family will love. Using our tried and true taco seasoning blend, these taco chicken meat is so flavorful with minimal effort involved. Serve it with all your favorite taco toppings and call it dinner!
Easy Chicken Taco Recipe
This is one of those recipes where it’s kind of a recipe, but also kind of bordering on so easy it’s barely a recipe. These 15-minute chicken tacos have been on the dinner rotation for a while because they are quick, delicious and with minimal clean up. Serve it up with all of your favorite taco fixin’s and dinner is ready. This recipe uses this new taco seasoning blend, which you’ll be glad to have on hand when you make this chicken taco recipe again next week (and the week after).
Here’s what you need for these chicken tacos
Boneless skinless chicken thighs
Homemade taco seasoning blend
Lime
Oil of choice, for cooking
What goes well with chicken tacos?
The EASIEST Slaw (a must with these)
Tortillas (we love the Cassava Flour Siete Foods Grain-Free Tortillas)
Tomato
Cheese
Guacamole
If you like this taco recipe, check out these others:
Pat chicken dry to remove excess moisture and place into a bowl.
Add 2-3 tablespoons of taco seasoning. If you are all about the flavor, add 3 tablespoons. If you have some picky kids (or adults), use 2 tablespoons.
Add lime juice and mix well until chicken is coated.
Heat oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Once hot, add chicken in one layer. Cook for about 10 minutes, flipping halfway through, until chicken is cooked through at 165ºF.
Once done, remove and chop chicken as desired and place back into the skillet to coat with the spices.
Serve immediately with your favorite taco toppings, or in a taco style salad.
Recipe Notes
Want to grill these? Go for it, this recipe is perfect for it!
Substitute any other high heat cooking oil for the avocado oil.
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There may be affiliate links in this post! By clicking on them, or purchasing recommended items I may receive a small compensation, at no cost to you! However, I only recommend products I absolutely love and use in my own home! Thank you for supporting Lexi's Clean Kitchen when you shop! See my privacy policy for more information about this, the information we save, and more!
This Pork Carnitas recipe, made either in the Instant Pot or Slow Cooker, is an easy and flavorful dinner or meal prep for a healthy start to the New Year. It’s Whole30, Paleo and Keto friendly and pairs with so many different sides (including this Healthy Cole Slaw recipe) that makes it a no-brainer to put on your cooking list now.
Pork Carnitas (Instant Pot and Slow Cooker)
This recipe is a favorite at our Food Editor Kelli’s home. It’s on rotation at least twice a month and served for both dinner and then for lunch a few days of the week. It’s so easy to put together in either the slow cooker or the Instant Pot and with minimal ingredients. It’s also versatile in how you serve it: you can put it in tortillas as a kid-friendly dinner, serve it with cauli-rice if you’re doing the low-carb thing, or as Kelli’s favorite over a simple slaw for a quick meal that can be eaten for lunch over a few days.
We love the simplicity in the flavors here: the pork isn’t inundated with too many spices but really relying on the basics: an onion, a teaspoon of chili powder and a pinch of garlic and cinnamon. Wondering about the cinnamon? There is no sugar in this recipe, but the cinnamon gives it the most subtle hint of warmness that you couldn’t detect what it is, but would surely be missing out if it wasn’t included. Trust us on this one.
We’ve included recipes for both the long method in the slow cooker, or the faster version in the Instant Pot. For the Instant Pot version there isn’t any liquid included in the ingredients. The onion and the pork will release so much liquid that it isn’t needed and will safely come up to pressure.
After the pork is fork-tender you can do the optional step of broiling the carnitas until they’re nice and crispy. Garnish with a bit of lime and a splash of the cooking liquid and this meal is simplicity at it’s finest. Check out the Healthy Cole Slaw recipe to pair it with!
Place all of ingredients in a 6 or 8 quart Instant Pot, close the lid and set the vent to sealing.
Cook on Manual High Pressure for 60 minutes, and let it natural release for at least 10 minutes (but you can let it fully naturally release if desired).
Pre-heat broiler to 500ºF.
Shred the pork and using a slotted spoon place carnitas on a rimmed sheet pan and place under the broiler until nice and crispy, about 5 minutes. Spoon some of the cooking liquid and the juice of 1/2 a lime over the carnitas.
Serve with cole slaw, tortillas or with caulirice.
For Carnitas (Slow Cooker):
Place all ingredients in a slow cooker and cook on low for 7-8 hours until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender.
Pre-heat broiler to 500ºF.
Shred the pork and using a slotted spoon place carnitas on a rimmed sheet pan and place under the broiler until nice and crispy, about 5 minutes. Spoon some of the cooking liquid and the juice of 1/2 a lime over the carnitas.
Serve with cole slaw, tortillas or with caulirice.
Recipe Notes
Don't throw away the liquid remaining in the bottom of the Instant Pot / Slow Cooker, it's super flavorful and should be spooned over the crispy carnitas! There is some fat in there, so you can store it separate so you can scoop it off when it's cold, but we didn't feel this was necessary we just stored and leftovers all together.
Not it isn't a mistake the no added liquid is included in these instructions! For both the Instant Pot version and Slow cooker there isn't any liquid included in the ingredients. The pork releases so much liquid that it is not needed. We are aware the it states the Instant Pot needs 1/2 cup of liquid at least to work, so we initially tested it with 1/2 cup of liquid but it resulted in an extreme amount of liquid at the end because the pork and onions releases so much that going forward we did not use any added liquid in the beginning and ours cooked up beautifully during testing, with no error in our IP. We tested it in two different Instant Pot's (a 6 qt. and an 8 qt.) with no error. If your Instant Pot has an error message, as we've gotten one comment with that, go ahead and put in 1/2 cup liquid, either water or broth. You may need to reduce the liquid after the cooking time. You are looking for a resulting flavorful broth!
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There may be affiliate links in this post! By clicking on them, or purchasing recommended items I may receive a small compensation, at no cost to you! However, I only recommend products I absolutely love and use in my own home! Thank you for supporting Lexi's Clean Kitchen when you shop! See my privacy policy for more information about this, the information we save, and more!
Looking for an easy weeknight meal? My go-to is this taco salad. It’s easy to prepare, deliciously satisfying, and customizable with your favorite taco toppings! Plus, it’s made even lighter by using salsa as the dressing, one of my favorite things to do!
Flavor town!
This past weekend I was in Austin, TX for the PaleoFX conference and hung out with so many amazing and inspiring authors and bloggers. Everyone was so sweet, and if you follow me on Snapchat and Instagram you definitely saw how much fun we had. Lots of laughs and we ate, A LOT. Austin has the best food ever! 24 Diner, Picnik, Snooze, Salty Sow, Chilantro, La Barbecue, Dolce Neve, Lick, Texas Coffee Traders, and so much more. I told you, we ate a lot!
Lots of love to these beautiful people: Cassy from Fed and Fit, Vanessa from Clean Eating with a Dirty Mind, Suzanne and Sean from Pastured Kitchen, Juli from PaleOMG, Anthony and Kat from We Are Primal Two, Ben and Jenni from The Urban Poser, Russ from The Domestic Man, Kristin from The Paleo Attorney, Diane from Balanced Bites, Tony of Kasandrinos Olive Oil, the Siete Foods family, and EVERYONE else who made this weekend so wonderful, and all of you who came and said hi!
 Now that I’m home, I’m eating light with this taco salad and getting ready for this upcoming weekend, my bachelorette party with my girlfriends! June is a crazy month, you guys!
In a small bowl combine the seasonings and mix the seasoning into the ground beef mixture.
Heat oil over medium heat in a skillet, and cook beef until browned, about 7 minutes. Add in salsa and mix to combine.
Strain extra juice out of the beef mixture and set aside, covered.
Assemble Salad: Place lettuce in bowls, top with taco meat, tomato, avocado, onion, jalapeños, cheddar if adding, and garnish with scallions and cilantro.
There may be affiliate links in this post! By clicking on them, or purchasing recommended items I may receive a small compensation, at no cost to you! However, I only recommend products I absolutely love and use in my own home! Thank you for supporting Lexi's Clean Kitchen when you shop! See my privacy policy for more information about this, the information we save, and more!
You may remember that last year we headed down to Austin, Texas for a long weekend with friends filled with… mostly FOOD! Only kidding, but we did eat our way through. Would you expect anything less? We fell in love with that city that weekend are are super excited to head back in 2016. It was just so wonderful. Friendly, fun, easy to navigate and all that jazz. Now while we were there we ate some fancier meals, some BBQ, some desserts, some Thai, some American, a little bit of everything. But there were a few spots, and one in particiular, that really stood out to us!
When planning a trip I always head over to Trip Advisor for restaurant reviews and suggestions.  When they reached out to create a recipe inspired by a dish I loved while traveling, I was instantly excited. I mean, I actually use their website when traveling, so it was a no brainer! They have tons of awesome resources that we love to use before heading on a trip, and aside from reader and friend recommendations, they are just an awesome resource to finding the best foodie spots. I love how other researchers like you and I share pictures of their meals, too! Since I’m a visual person, it makes it all the more easier for me.
Now we dined at some fancier spots with some delicious food for sure. Ones that are up there with or on the Trip Advisor’s Travelers’ Choice List and all that fun stuff. Today though, I’m sharing with you a recreation of one thing we ate in Austin (thanks to Trip Advisor) that we literally recreate on a montlthy basis.
BREAKFAST. TACOS.
Yep, I constantly wonder why they aren’t everywhere here in Boston. We went multiple times to this little food truck called Veracruz All Natural and had the most insane breakfast tacos. I recommend it all the time when I tell people about Austin, and it’s a hit time after time.
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I can’t wait to head back to Veracruz in May, and sort through Trip Advisor to find new restaurants and read reviews so we dine at all the best foodie spots! I love recreating dishes from travel spots we’ve been to. Most weeks after a vacation that’s what we’re eating!
Have you been anywhere that had dishes that you just HAD to recreate?! Post your travel meals and join TripAdvisor on October 28 at 2pm ET for a twitter chat using #TravelToTaste so all can see!
This post is sponsored by Trip Advisor. All opinions are 100% always my own.
Have you been somewhere that’s inspired you to recreate a dish from your travels? I want to hear!
You guys, I am ALL OVER these Crispy Chicken Tacos.
Let’s chat about why…
For starters, since I tried Sir Kensington’s Special Sauce last month I was hooked (and so was Mike). The jar was gone so fast. Burgers, chicken, fish– you name it, we slathered it on.
It’s seriously so good.
Then the obvious:
Crispy chicken + special slaw + mango + homemade grain-free tortillas = the most insane combination ever.
 Take a bite out of THAT!
Secret ingredient 😉
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 This is a sponsored post with Sir Kensington’s and Udi’s Gluten-Free. All opinions are 100% always my own! My sponsors help make Lexi’s Clean Kitchen possible. Sir Kensington’s makes all natural, non-GMO verified, gluten free ketchup, mustard, and mayonnaise that can be purchased at Whole Foods nationally
 GIVEAWAY: Sir Kensington Combo Pack
Simply comment below to enter. One winner will be picked 8/27/2015 at 12pm EST.
Place chicken in the skillet and let fry for 5-8 minutes on each side, depending on thickness
Fry until chicken is crispy and golden, but juicy in the center
While chicken is going, make tortillas as instructed and set aside
Slice avocado and mango, and set aside
Once ready, slice chicken and begin assembling tacos
Add chicken, slaw, lettuce, mango, avocado, and special sauce drizzle
Serve immediately
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There may be affiliate links in this post! By clicking on them, or purchasing recommended items I may receive a small compensation, at no cost to you! However, I only recommend products I absolutely love and use in my own home! Thank you for supporting Lexi's Clean Kitchen when you shop! See my privacy policy for more information about this, the information we save, and more!
Sometimes I make a meal that is raved and raved about, requested as a weekly staple, and talked about non-stop- but it’s certainly not everyday that happens. This is one of them. Hands down a family favorite. Throw it in the crock-pot and come home to the perfect dinner ready to go!
We used these grain-free tortillas for breakfast tacos the next day. I highly recommend this.
Pour marinade over, pour in beef or chicken broth, and set on low for 10 hours.
Make tortillas: In a bowl mix together dry ingredients. Add in wet and mix well. In a skillet heat oil or butter over medium heat Pour batter slowly into the middle** Let cook for 3 minutes or so and flip. Cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, or until tortillas are fully cooked. Continue with remaining batter.
Recipe Notes
*Often you get more flavor with bone-in meat, but either will work perfectly for this dish
**Batter will be pretty thin consistency
This makes roughly 4 tortillas depending on how big you make them
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There may be affiliate links in this post! By clicking on them, or purchasing recommended items I may receive a small compensation, at no cost to you! However, I only recommend products I absolutely love and use in my own home! Thank you for supporting Lexi's Clean Kitchen when you shop! See my privacy policy for more information about this, the information we save, and more!
Easy Chicken Taco Recipe
