Chicken Taco Seasoning

This is the BEST homemade chicken taco seasoning. It is so easy to make and so delicious. Use this seasoning on chicken for tacos, burritos, enchiladas, or fajitas. You can even double or triple the recipe and store it in your pantry. I use this for all my Chicken Tacos and even to season the chicken in my homemade Chicken Quesadilla recipe.

How to Make Chicken Taco Seasoning

If there was ever a perfect food it would be tacos. There was a span of time where every Tuesday we would go to a friends house to celebrate “Taco Tuesday”. As much as I love pizza, I never did that with pizza. Tacos are special. They are so customizable and portable and they truly feel like a complete meal. A delicious tortilla (either flour or corn [gluten free]) is filled up with flavorful meat and then topped with anything you are currently craving.

My favorite toppings are either guacamole with lime juice or cheese and a spicy sauce. I just recently made this cheesy crispy chicken tacos, and they were SO good. I used this exact seasoning blend on my chicken breast, and then I grilled the chicken in a pan on each side. Chicken breast, depending on the thickness takes about 6-7 minutes per side, and then you should let it rest.

Growing up, my mom rarely used taco seasoning packets when she made tacos. She almost always used a blend of her favorite seasonings and it always absolutely SLAPPED! Learning how to season chicken is easy. It requires different spices than beef to make it flavorful due to the fat content in the meat. I think the perfect chicken taco seasoning is salty, savory, and a little smokey.

Chicken Taco Seasoning Recipe

The perfect chicken taco seasoning recipe should include salt, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, and black pepper. If you have chipotle pepper, you can use that in place of the chili powder and smoked paprika because it is both smokey and spicy. I wanted to make this recipe using chipotle powder but I know more people don’t have that spice laying around. The recipe below is made using spices you most likely already own.

If you want to turn this into a marinade, you can. Add 1 pound of chicken to a container with 2 tbsp of olive oil. Then, add about half of your seasoning to the top of the chicken, turn the chicken over and add the rest of the seasoning to the other side of the chicken.

I like to use these silicone tongs to turn meat. I feel like they have a great grip and are small enough for me to handle them easily in my hands. Once you add all of the seasoning, close the container and store it in your refrigerator. Whenever I marinate meat, I also like to add a little splash of vinegar. Any white vinegar will work here. It just gives the flavor a little added “oomph”. Instead of vinegar, you can add the juice of 1 lime.

Keep the chicken marinating in your refrigerator for a few hours and then take them out of the fridge, add a little bit more oil to the pan, and cook up the chicken.

What type of Chicken is best for Chicken Tacos?

I absolutely love chicken tacos. I feel like they can be customized so easily and they make such a delicious and quick meal. My two favorite types of chicken to use to make tacos are chopped up chicken breast or ground chicken. Ground chicken has its benefits because of how incredible easy it is to cook. Everyone pretty much knows how to cook ground meat because it is very easy to check to see if the meat is done since it is broken up into small pieces.

When I want to make a more elevated taco, I like to season thinly cut chicken breasts with the seasoning blend below, cook them, let them rest so that all the juices stay inside, and then dice them up. This method creates such juicy and delicious meat and because of that it is definitely my favorite way of cooking it for tacos.

INGREDIENTS  

• 3/4 tsp Sea Salt
• 3/4 tsp Cumin
• 1/2 tsp Chili Powder
• 1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1/4 tsp Smoked Paprika
• 1/4 tsp Black Pepper

INSTRUCTIONS 

• Combine ingredients and use on 1lb of Chicken Breast. I also use 2tbsp of olive oil and when I am cooking the chicken breast.

NOTES

This seasoning blend is for 1lb of chicken. Feel free to double or triple the recipe for your individual use.