Baked Chicken Tacos
Updated Jun 05, 2025
This Baked Chicken Tacos recipe is made with shredded chicken, taco seasoning, and shredded cheese. It's so easy to prepare and heats up in 10 minutes!
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure policy.
Jump to Section
Oven baked chicken tacos!
When I’ve got leftover shredded chicken in the fridge, these baked chicken tacos are one of the first things that come to mind. They’re easy to throw together, and my kids love them (which, let’s be real, isn’t exactly shocking, because what kid doesn’t love a cheesy chicken taco?). I just mix up the chicken filling, stuff the shells, and pop them in the oven until everything’s melty and crisp.
Baked Chicken Taco Ingredients
- Taco shells: If you can find them, I love store-bought taco shells with flat bottoms (stand and stuff) because they’re easy to stuff without toppling over!
- Chicken: Like to use shredded chicken breast for this recipe, but a grocery store rotisserie chicken works well for these tacos, too. You can also swap in cooked ground beef or beans (usually refried or black beans) to make things vegetarian!
- Seasoning: Flavor your chicken with a can of diced green chiles, some fresh lime juice, and any taco seasoning you like (I love to make my own taco seasoning!). For extra veg, I will sometimes add in a can of drained diced tomatoes, or swap salsa in for the green chiles.
- Cheese: Top your tacos with any shredded cheese you have on hand. I like to use a Mexican cheese blend!
- Toppings: Just about any topping is a great addition here! My favorites are sour cream, guacamole, cilantro, and salsa.
How to Make Baked Chicken Tacos
Baked Chicken Taco Recipe
This Baked Chicken Tacos recipe is made with shredded chicken, taco seasoning, and shredded cheese. It's so easy to prepare and heats up in 10 minutes!
Video
Ingredients
- Cooking spray
- 10-12 taco shells
- 3 cups shredded chicken
- 1 (4.5 ounce) can diced green chiles
- 1 lime juiced
- 2 tablespoons taco seasoning
- 2 cups shredded Mexican cheese blend
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- Sour cream for serving
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and spray a 9×13 baking dish with cooking spray. Arrange the taco shells in the pan and bake for 5 minutes.
- In a medium bowl, combine the chicken, diced green chiles, lime juice and taco seasoning until everything is well mixed.
- Spoon the chicken mixture evenly between the taco shells, filling them halfway full, then top with the shredded cheese.
- Bake for 10 minutes or until tacos start to brown and the cheese is melted.
- Serve immediately with chopped cilantro and your favorite taco toppings.
Notes
Storage: Store any leftovers in an airtight container. They will last up to 2 days in the fridge. However, the taco shells will get softer after a couple hours. I recommend eating them immediately after cooking.
Substitutes: For best results, follow the recipe as is. However here are some common substitutes that would work well in this recipe.
- Instead of shredded chicken, you can also use ground beef, ground turkey or even just prepared beans
- You can substitute the diced chiles with salsa or pico de gallo, but make sure there is not too much liquid in the mixture.
- If you don’t have taco seasoning, you can make your own by mixing together chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, onion powder and oregano. The first spices will have greater quantities and you can play around with the ratio as you like.
Nutrition
Serving: 3tacos, Calories: 473kcal, Carbohydrates: 29g, Protein: 40g, Fat: 22g, Saturated Fat: 10g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 3g, Monounsaturated Fat: 6g, Trans Fat: 0.1g, Cholesterol: 107mg, Sodium: 910mg, Potassium: 605mg, Fiber: 4g, Sugar: 1g, Vitamin A: 534IU, Vitamin C: 18mg, Calcium: 703mg, Iron: 2mg
Nutrition information provided is an estimate. It will vary based on cooking method and specific ingredients used.
Did You Make This Recipe?
If you try this Baked Chicken Tacos recipe or any other recipe on Feel Good Foodie, please rate the recipe and leave a comment below! It helps others who are thinking of making the recipe.
Recipe Tips
- Line your shells down the middle of your baking dish before you fill in the sides. To squeeze the most tacos into my baking dish (while leaving a bit of space so they crisp up nicely), I like to line up my taco shells in a row down the center, then fill in the sides with a few tacos shells facing the other direction.
- Bake the shells for 5 minutes before adding the chicken. I learned this tip from The Cookie Rookie, and it really helps the taco shells crisp up!
- Leave room for toppings. Toppings are the best part, right? I try to fill my shells only about halfway with chicken and cheese to leave extra room on top.
Serving Ideas
- Try a taco salad: I love to add this leftover chicken with crumbled taco shell to a big salad of fresh greens and any other seasonal produce I have on hand!
- Make it a quesadilla: When I’m in the mood for a softer, gooey-er meal, I like to heat up this cheesy chicken between two flour tortillas for a quesadilla.
- Serve your chicken over rice: In place of taco shells, I love adding some of this yummy, seasoned baked chicken to a bowl of rice and beans! It’s perfect with my cilantro lime rice.
More Tacos Recipes
More Tex Mex Recipes
This baked chicken tacos recipe was originally published April 29, 2019 and has recently been updated with new photography, tips, and step-by-step collages to better help make the recipe.
Comments
My family loved these and I’m adding them to the rotation. I found crunchy taco shells with flat bottoms at the store – very convenient. To make the meal healthier I used veggies like portobellos and squash instead of chicken for half of them.
Yay, I’m so happy your family loved them!! Portobellos and squash sound so yummy, what a great substitution!
Hello, so this sounds great but I get heartburn very easy. Using the green chili peppers would not be good for me so I looked up a substitute. I found you can use some chili pepper but I would not know how much to put so it wouldn’t be hot for me. I think I would just use mild taco seasoning and put that in the chicken. What do you think?
Hi Linda, I would probably just skip the green chiles! The mild taco seasoning alone should give you plenty of flavor and just a hint of spice. Let me know how it goes!
These were so good and so easy!! i’m so glad i found your page! i meal plan with your blog open! 😬😬😬
Thank you so much! I love that!