Super Yummy Chicken Fajita Tacos

Name: 🌮 Yummy Chicken Fajita Tacos
Prep time: 13 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 28 min
Ingredients: 2 cloves garlic (minced); 1/2 Tablespoon salt; 1 teaspoon ground cumin; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon paprika; 1/2 teaspoon chili powder; 6 chicken thighs (boneless and skinless, cut into strips or chunks); 2 to 3 Tablespoon olive oil; 1/2 onion (cut into strips or chunks); 1 green bell pepper (cut into strips or chunks); 1 red bell pepper (cut into strips or chunks); 1 Tablespoon tomato paste; 3 Tablespoon lemon juice; 6 tortillas; avocado; cotija cheese; cilantro; Mexican rice; black beans

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Have you ever had a fajita taco? Allow us to present...our fabulously flavorful Chicken Fajita Tacos! They're packed with juicy, perfectly seasoned chicken, and scrumptious peppers and onions. Best part: no long marinating time or complicated process. This is all doable in one pan and in 28 minutes or less!

soft tacos with fajita chicken, rice and beans

How can you have something that's both a fajita and a taco, you say?! Although fajitas and tacos are different beasts (the history of fajitas vs tacos is actually super fascinating), when you put fajita meat into a tortilla, it becomes a taco!

Note: If you love these chicken fajita tacos, be sure to also check out our Easy Red Chicken Enchiladas!

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👍🏽 Why These Fajita Tacos are the Best!
🛒 Ingredients
👩🏽‍🍳 How to Make These Fajitas
✏️ Expert Tips & Tricks
❓ FAQs
👶🏽 Tips for Picky Eaters
🫑 Do This Cute Craft: Pop-up Paper Peppers
🍴 Other One-Pot/Pan Recipes From Us!
🌮 Yummy Chicken Fajita Tacos

👍🏽 Why These Fajita Tacos are the Best!

One-pan meal! ✔️ Minimal mess, minimal cleanup

Easy and fast! ✔️ Simple process with a short cook time

Flexible, customizable meal! ✔️ Easy to change it up for kids or different dietary needs

Moist meat! ✔️ No marination needed to achieve juicy chicken

Fun with toppings! ✔️ You can put anything you like on your fajita taco

🛒 Ingredients

tortillas, chicken, spices and veggies to make fajita tacos

Notes on ingredients:

Garlic - Instead of fresh cloves, you can also use pre-minced garlic or 1 teaspoon garlic powder instead.

Chicken - We used chicken thighs because they're more flavorful and don't dry out easily, but chicken breasts are fine too. I used frozen thighs and put them in fridge 2 days in advance to thaw.

Lemon juice - Freshly squeezed lemon juice or (like me) bottled lemon juice both work. Could be swapped with lime juice if that's what you have.

Tortillas - we used flour tortillas, but corn tortillas and/or gluten-free tortillas would be great too. You could even buy those small street taco tortillas for mini fajita tacos.

👩🏽‍🍳 How to Make These Fajitas

Prep with Your Kids

The main prep is (1) measuring the spices, and (2) cutting the veggies and chicken.

child cutting red bell pepper on green cutting board

blonde child holding onion and wearing swim goggles

🥄 Kids Step: (1) Your kiddo can measure the spices- just set them up with a bowl (to catch the measuring overflow) and four measuring spoons (T, ½ T, t, ½ t). Teach them to wipe the spoons with a clean cloth in between spices. (2) The kiddos can also manage cutting the veggies. FYI, these awesome kids' knives are great. Fun pro-tip: swimming goggles protect little eyes from tearing up around onions.

Step 1: Combine garlic and seasonings, and coat the chicken.

Step 2: Cook chicken for 5 mins.

🥄 Kids Step: Kids can rock the stirring task!

Step 3: Stir in veggies, lower heat and cover. Cook covered for 3-4 mins.

🥄 Kids Step: This step is easy enough for most kids to manage.

putting lid on pan with chicken and veggies

Step 3: Uncover, add in tomato paste and lemon juice, and cook uncovered for 3 mins.

🥄 Kids Step: For uncovering the pan, we love these Curious Chef kids' size potholders.

adding tomato paste to hot pan of fajita chicken and veggies

adding lemon juice to hot pan of fajita chicken and veggies

Step 4: Scoop fajita mix onto tortillas and add your favorite toppings!

🥄 Kids Step: Set up a fajita taco station for your kiddo and she can put whatever toppings she likes onto her tortilla. This is the fun part!

child putting cheese and tomatoes onto a chicken taco

✏️ Expert Tips & Tricks

✔️ Make sure you're cooking with a large pan. I made the mistake of cooking with a medium pan the first time. The chicken fit inside just fine, but when I added the veggies and stirred, they overflowed and kept falling all over stovetop.

✔️ Spice up your fajitas! If you and your family prefer more zest, increase the amount of chili pepper, add a little bit of cayenne or top with your fave hot sauce.

✔️ These chicken fajita tacos can be gluten-free if you use corn tortillas, gluten-free tortillas or tortillas made from an alternative flour (like rice, cassava, almond or quinoa).

✔️ You can use frozen chicken. Ya know, those giant Costco bags of frozen chicken are pretty economical. Just pull out the chicken you need, put in sealed Ziplock bag and leave in fridge for 1-2 days to thaw.

❓ FAQs

Can you make any of this meal ahead?

Yes! The day before cooking, I sliced the onions and peppers and stored them in same container. And then I cut up the chicken thighs and stored them in separate container. All in fridge. This definitely saved time on the day of cooking.

What can you serve with chicken fajita tacos?

So many things go well with chicken fajita tacos. We served ours with Mexican rice and black beans, but you could also do guacamole, a small salad (like our Three Bean Salad), refried beans, corn or even elote!

What toppings go on chicken fajita tacos?

Hold on to your hats folks, cause the options are endless. Our toppings were avocado slices, cotija cheese, and cilantro. BUT other excellent toppings are: sour cream, shredded cheddar, sliced black olives, squeezed lime, salsa, hot sauces, sliced jalapeños, pico de gallo, sliced baby tomatoes, the list goes on...

How do you store fajitas?

I would store the leftover chicken fajita mix in airtight container in fridge for maybe 3-4 days. The tortillas should be kept separate so they won't get soggy.

👶🏽 Tips for Picky Eaters

✔️ Kids pick the peppers! All bell peppers are delicious in fajitas! Let kids choose which color of peppers they'd like in this meal.

✔️ Turn the fajita mix into a quesadilla! Some of my kids didn't like the peppers, so I scooped some of the chicken onto a tortilla with shredded cheese, folded it over and microwaved it for like 45 seconds. Perfecto!

✔️ Use smaller tortillas (like Mission's street taco tortillas) for kid-sized, mini chicken fajita tacos 🙂

✔️ Add a favorite side dish! Some easy winners: Mexican rice, beans, and chips & guac.

✔️ Make a fajita taco decorating station! If your kids are anything like ours, they love making choices and deciding how their food should look! We set up a toppings station, with small bowls of our kids' favorites.

While you make our chicken fajita tacos, your kiddos can make these adorable Pop-up Paper Peppers! This 3-D craft is easy for kids of all ages. And you probably have all the supplies at home already!