These Crispy Chicken Tacos are made by filling corn tortillas with a delicious mixture of ground chicken, chipotles, corn, black beans, and cheese, then baked until crispy. They are a quick and easy weeknight meal and are perfect to make ahead.
Some recipes require quite a bit of planning and testing to perfect. Then there are some recipes that just come together on their own, like they were meant to be. These Crispy Baked Chipotle Chicken Tacos are the latter.
As I started creating this recipe, I had an idea of how I wanted it to turn out. But I honestly wasn’t exactly sure what ingredients I was going to include or how I was going to put them together. So I started off cooking (as I often do), by randomly pulling ingredients from my fridge and pantry, sprawling them out across our large butcher block island. Some ground chicken, corn tortillas, smokey chipotle peppers, sweet corn, black beans, and lots of cheese. As the ingredients started to pile up, I could see these Crispy Chicken Tacos taking shape.
The inspiration for these baked chicken tacos was southwest chicken egg rolls, that are usually loaded up with a flavorful combination of chicken, black beans, corn, and cheese, then fried until crispy and delicious.
My ultimate goal when developing this recipe was to create an easy and healthy, weeknight taco recipe that would be simple enough to make a large batch for a weeknight dinner – a recipe that you can even make ahead and keep in the fridge or freezer. Plus I wanted it to be healthy, yet make sure the taco were still crispy and satisfying. By baking these crispy chipotle chicken tacos in the oven with just a little olive oil spray, I was able to achieve perfectly crispy shells, stuffed with lots of flavorful ingredients.
How Do You Make These Crispy Chipotle Chicken Tacos?
Making these Crispy Chicken Tacos is quick and easy. You just need to follow a couple of steps:
- Prep the Filling: Cook up the ground chicken and some diced onion, seasoned with lots of flavorful spices including chipotle peppers, chili powder, garlic, onion, paprika, cumin, salt, and pepper. When the chicken is cooked through, add in some cooked black beans and corn.
- Assemble the Tacos: After the filling is ready, you will assemble the tacos. To make this simple, I take a couple of shortcuts. Instead of warming each tortilla individually, I just spread out all of the tortillas flat on a couple of sheet pans (sprayed generously with olive oil spray). Scoop 1/4 cup of filling onto half of each tortilla. Add a pile of cheese on each taco, on top of the filling.
- Fold like a Pro (to prevent corn tortillas from cracking): This next step is key to making these Crispy Baked Chicken Tacos a success. Instead of folding the tortillas over now, which can cause cold tortillas to crack or split, I place the sheet pan in the oven for just a couple of minutes first (with the loaded tortillas still open). The tortillas will warm and become more pliable. Then take the pans out of the oven, fold each taco in half to close, pressing gently so that the melting cheese helps seal it closed.
- Bake Until Crispy: Place the chipotle chicken tacos back in the oven, and bake until perfectly golden and crispy – flipping about half way through.
What Toppings Should You Serve with These Crispy Baked Chicken Tacos?
Serve these Baked Chicken Tacos with all of your favorite taco toppings. Some of our favorites include:
- Avocado Ranch or this Tomatillo Ranch Dressing
- Salsa
- Guacamole (I love it with pineapple guacamole!)
- Sour Cream
- Chopped Cilantro
- Crispy Shredded Lettuce
Can I Make These Crispy Baked Chicken Tacos Ahead?
Another thing that is great about these Crispy Chicken Tacos with Chipotle, Corn, and Black Beans (other than the fact that they are amazingly delicious and healthy tacos) is that they can be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen until ready to eat.
If making these baked chicken tacos ahead of time to refrigerate, you can just make the filling and shred the cheese. Then refrigerate each separately. When ready to eat, assemble and bake the tacos according to the standard instructions. This is perfect if you have a busy weeknight or are having company over and want to get some of the prep work done ahead of time.
You can also make these Crispy Chicken Tacos ahead of time and store them in the freezer until ready to eat. This is perfect if you want to be able to pull out a couple of tacos for a quick lunch or dinner or if you don’t plan to eat a full recipe at once. To make these for the freezer, I recommend prepping the tacos through the third stage above (folding them in half and pressing to seal). Then let the tacos cool to room temperature before freezing (make sure to freeze them flat individually so they don’t stick together). When ready to eat, take out as many Crispy Chipotle Chicken Tacos as you need, add them to a baking pan, give an extra spray of oil, and bake directly from frozen according to instructions – you may need to add a couple extra minutes, so just keep an eye on them as they bake.
Looking for More Taco Recipes?
Whether it is these Healthy Crispy Baked Chicken Tacos with Chipotle, Corn, and Black Beans, or tacos loaded up with shredded meat and crisp slaw, I love a good taco any day of the week. Here are some more of my best taco recipes:
- Oven Baked Crispy Beef and Cheese Tacos
- Brussels Sprouts and Ricotta Crispy Tacos
- Chili Lime Shrimp Tacos with Strawberry Avocado Salsa
- Chipotle Orange Brisket Tacos with Jalapeno Lime Slaw
- Pulled Pork Carnitas Tacos with Jalapeno Lime Brussles Sprouts Slaw
If you make this Crispy Baked Chicken Taco recipe don’t forget to comment and rate the recipe below to let me know what you think! You can also share your photos and tag me @NamasteHomeCooking on Facebook or @NamasteHomeCooking on Instagram. I love hearing from everyone!
Crispy Chicken Tacos with Chipotle, Corn, and Black Beans
Ingredients
- 1 lb ground chicken
- 1/2 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1 - 2 chipotle peppers in adobo (chopped)
- 1 small onion (chopped)
- 2 cloves garlic (minced)
- 1 cup corn
- 1 cup canned black beans
- 2 cups shredded monterey jack or pepper jack cheese
- 18 small corn tortillas
- olive oil spray
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°
- In a large skillet over medium heat, sauté onion 2-3 minutes, add garlic and ground chicken. Sprinkle spices over chicken evenly. Add in chipotle peppers and cook until chicken is cooked through, breaking up chicken as it cooks.
- Turn off heat and stir in corn and black beans.
- Spray two sheet pans with olive oil. Spread each tortilla flat on the sheet pan, on one half of each tortilla, layer about 1/4 cup of the chipotle chicken mixture, top with an even layer of cheese.
- Bake about 2 minutes (just long enough to soften the tortillas and start to melt the cheese). Remove sheet pans from oven, and fold each tortilla over in half to form the tacos. Press each half gently to close. Return to oven, and bake 10 minutes.
- Flip tacos over, and bake an additional 5 - 10 minutes until crispy.
- Serve these Crispy Chicken Tacos with any combination of avocado ranch, guacamole (pineapple guacamole is delicious!), salsa, sour cream, lettuce, and chopped fresh cilantro.
My husband and I just ate these for lunch and they were so good! Can’t wait for leftovers in out breakfast burritos tomorrow morning!
Also, your instruction to heat the tacos open-face for a few minutes was genius. My shells didn’t crack at all.
Thanks for the 5 star review!! So glad to hear you both loved them and that my tip helped make this recipe a success.
Using the leftover filling in breakfast burritos is inspired! I will have to try that.