The best Ground Chicken Tacos with juicy, flavorful taco meat and toppings cooked in one skillet, in 30 minutes. Perfect for busy weeknights!
Whether it’s buffalo chicken tacos, chicken street tacos or Instant Pot shredded chicken tacos, we love chicken in tacos!
Table of Contents
These ground chicken tacos are one of the easiest healthy taco recipes we have on iFoodReal!
To make the taco meat healthy, I used only 1 pound of lean ground chicken breast, loaded it with over 1 pound of veggies and made it all in one humongous size skillet.
Taco Tuesday was a real thing in only 30 minutes and now this ground chicken taco recipe is one of my favorite healthy chicken recipes to turn to on a busy weeknight!
Why You Will Love This Recipe
- One pan meal: No need to prepare toppings separately, they all cook together in one skillet!
- Quick: It’s a true 30 minute meal!
- Healthier: Chicken is a lean source of protein. Bell peppers are high in vitamin C, and radishes are a great source of calcium and potassium. Also dairy-free and gluten-free.
- Balanced: A complete meal with protein, fiber, fats and complex carbohydrates.
Ingredients for Ground Chicken Tacos
You will need just a few simple ingredients to make these ground chicken tacos.
- Ground chicken: You can use store-bought ground chicken which is usually a combination of white and dark meat. Or you can grind your own chicken breasts or chicken thighs in a food processor, that’s what I did.
- Bell peppers: I like to use a combination of green and red bell peppers for flavor but you can use only sweet pepper if you are not a fan of bitter green pepper. Any other color works.
- Aromatics: Onion and garlic.
- Corn: Canned, fresh or frozen corn for more “veggie factor”, sweetness and extra crunch.
- Radishes: Strengthen the “veggie factor”, and “sauciness”, extra crunch and peppery zest to the taco meat. You can use less or let everyone add at the table.
- Tomato sauce: To make dry chicken meat more juicy.
- Spices: Homemade taco seasoning, smoked paprika and salt are all you need for this taco recipe.
- For serving: Corn tortillas, lime, cotija or feta cheese, cilantro, sour cream and any other favorite taco toppings.
How to Make Ground Chicken Tacos
Here is a quick overview how to make ground chicken tacos. You can also find full recipe card below.
- Sauté the vegetables: First pan fry the garlic and onion, then bell peppers. This allows their taste to be absorbed by other ingredients.
- Add ground chicken and spices: Sauteing spices in oil is a quick way to deepen their flavor. Ground chicken cooks really fast, just make sure to break it into pieces with spatula.
- Add tomato sauce and corn: Sauce will “marry” taco meat filling together and add the “sauciness” factor.
- Last add radishes, cilantro and salt: Radishes at the end will retain crunch and zest, cilantro adds a fresh taste and salt strengthens all other flavors.
Tips for Best Results
- Don’t overcook the veggies: Follow the recipe and cook vegetables just enough to soften them or become flavorful.
- If you would like to use other meat: Use ground turkey if you do not have ground chicken. Ground beef or ground pork could be used as well, but make sure to drain the fat after sauteing.
- Other vegetables: Skip radishes or use shredded jicama or turnips instead. Cauliflower rice is an obvious choice!
- To warm up tortillas: If you have gas stove, warm up tortilla right on the burner to char the edges. Or make a crispy tostada shell if you have air fryer!
- If you are not a fan of cilantro: Use parsley or skip altogether and add a pinch of ground coriander with other spices.
Variations
- Add some heat: Feel free to add some heat with chopped jalapeno peppers, minced chipotle in adobo sauce, cayenne pepper or any hot sauce.
- Additional seasonings: Add cumin or chili powder with other spices.
- Add beans: You can add canned or cooked black beans (I like Instant Pot black beans) with the sauce to add additional protein.
- Different sauce: I like the simple ingredients of a plain tomato sauce, some readers have used picante taco sauce instead with great results.
- Make low carb: Skip tortillas and serve over lettuce, similar to low carb enchiladas. Or transform this into ground chicken taco bowl with cilantro lime cauliflower rice.
Toppings Ideas and How to Serve
For serving tacos later, I placed taco filling in small slow cooker and turned on “keep warm”. This is a great option for both busy weeknights or game day parties!
The only fix-ins I had to prepare were limes, crumbled feta cheese and Greek yogurt. But here are a few more ideas:
- Shredded lettuce
- Shredded Mexican cheese
- Pickled red onion
- Diced avocado
- Sliced black olives
- Diced white onion
- Greek yogurt guacamole
- Salsa guacamole
- Pico de gallo
How to Store and Make Ahead
Store: Refrigerate leftovers for up to 5 days in an airtight container. Since filling is saucy and radishes are sturdy, there is not much to get soggy in this ground chicken taco meat. Reheat on a skillet with a splash of chicken broth on low heat. That’s it!
To make ahead and cook later: You can chop garlic, onion and bell pepper and refrigerate for up to 3 days. You can also slice radishes. That is when meal prep containers with 2 sections come in handy.
Then just cook when ready. Makes a weeknight healthy dinner a breeze.
FAQs
To cook ground chicken without making it dry, don’t overcook it. Also you don’t have to worry about dry chicken in this recipe because we add tomato sauce and plenty of juicy vegetables to make the filling moist.
I love both! Chicken is more lean than beef, however I believe in everything in moderation and if you drain fat after cooking extra lean ground beef, it becomes one of wholesome dinner options.
I recommend to use large skillet with tall walls because we cook meat and add toppings to the same skillet. You will be able to stir all ingredients comfortably.
I like to use ceramic non-stick skillet. If you have regular stainless steel skillet, you will just need to use more oil. You can also use cast iron skillet, just keep an eye on things as once it gets hot, cast iron starts to cook ingredients more quickly.
Yes. You can use previously cooked Instant Pot shredded chicken or leftover rotisserie chicken. Just stir it in with the sauce, which makes this recipe even quicker, ready in about 25 minutes.
More Taco Recipes to Try
- Fish tacos recipe
- Carne asada tacos
- Ground turkey tacos
- Shrimp tacos
- Bang bang shrimp tacos
- Ground beef tacos
- Baked tacos
More Quick Dinner Recipes
- Taco skillet
- Tex Mex chicken and zucchini
- Chicken tostadas
- Easy chicken quesadillas
- Ground chicken chili
- Ground chicken burgers
- Ground chicken stuffed peppers
Ground Chicken Tacos
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 large garlic cloves minced
- 1 large onion finely chopped
- 2 large bell peppers finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon oil for frying
- 1 pound ground chicken
- 1 tablespoon taco seasoning low sodium
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 cup tomato sauce low sodium
- 1 1/2 cups corn fresh, frozen (thawed) or 1 can (drained)
- 1/2 cup cilantro chopped
- 1 bunch radishes sliced
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 10 corn tortillas or flour tortillas
- Lime, cheese and Greek yogurt for serving
Instructions
- Preheat large ceramic non-stick skillet on medium heat and swirl oil to coat. Add garlic and onion, sauté for 2 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add bell pepper and sauté for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Add chicken, taco seasoning, smoked paprika and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally and breaking chicken into pieces.
- Decrease heat to low, add tomato sauce and corn, and cook uncovered for 10 minutes.
- Add cilantro, radishes and salt; stir.
- Serve hot over corn tortillas with lime, crumbled feta or shredded Monterey Jack cheese and Greek yogurt.
Video
Notes
- Store: Refrigerate filling leftovers up to 5 days in an airtight container. Since filling is saucy and radishes are sturdy, there is nothing to get soggy. Reheat on a skillet with a splash of water or chicken broth on low heat.
- Make ahead: Chop garlic, onion and bell pepper and refrigerate for up to 3 days. You can also slice radishes. Then just cook when ready.
- For serving cooked tacos later, I placed taco filling in small slow cooker and turned on “keep warm”.
- Warm tortillas: If you have gas stove, warm up tortilla right on the burner to char the edges or in the microwave.
- Other vegetables: Skip radishes or use shredded jicama or turnip instead. Cauliflower rice is an obvious choice!
Delicious! Made it with ground turkey as this is what I had, looking forward to eat the leftovers!!!
Love that we don’t need all the various fixings, almost everything is already in👍
Made your ground turkey taco recipe few times in the past and they were also delish.
So happy to hear of the taco success!
Hi Olena, you said to use a non-stick ceramic skillet. I only have a regular stainless steel skillet. Do you think it would work?
Carol
Yes, you will just have to use more oil – the only difference.
These were absolutely delicious! The whole thing was super flavorful and filling, but I managed to eat 3 fully loaded tacos + a side of rice and black beans. 10/10 would recommend!
Yay! Love hearing this Natalie 🙂
I normally enjoy steak tacos a lot, I have a really good recipe for them; however, I bought some ground chicken and wanted to try something different. These are the best tacos I’ve ever made! I substituted the green peppers for some jalapeños since I enjoy spicy tacos. I will definitely be making more!
Wow! I am so happy you liked my ground chicken taco recipes that much!
Very good will be making this again. I did add some sliced olives and instead of tomato sauce I used Chunky Picante Sauce. Great flavor. We had some leftovers (There is only 2 of us) so I am going to cook a little bit of rice and combine for more of a cassorole type.
That’s great Judy! Thanks for sharing your variations and great idea to make a casserole with the leftovers 🙂
I’m going to try your Recipe. I bought some Ground Chicken the other day for something different. Sounds Yummy..I’ll let you know..
Please do Rebecca!
Wow! Delicious! No leftovers from this recipe although I’m sure they would have made for great leftovers. ?
Does this recipe call for green bell peppers or red, orange, yellow??
The recipe calls for two large bell peppers…you can pick whichever colour you like!
Great flavor!!
Do you have an instant pot recipe for those in case I have frozen ground chicken?
You can defrost it using this recipe.