Chicken tacos are one of my go-to, weeknight, need a quick dinner that I still feel good about and is still tasty meals. We discovered this recipe when we were in college. We’d buy chicken when it was on BOGO sales and freeze individual chicken breasts, which made these also an affordable meal. It’s a great way to switch out your standard beef taco with something new.
The real recipe here is the chicken mixture, which is the base of your tacos. They are cooked in a mixture of lemonade, lime juice and Worcestershire along with some seasoning and we chop up the chicken small as it cooks. Served up with some flour tortillas, sour cream, cheese, picante sauce and lettuce and you’ve got a simple but tasty taco.
This is another one of those, I’ve made it for so many years the printed recipe is crinkled, written, spilled and splattered on. And I have no idea where it came from originally. Again, when you take a common recipe title like this (and the title on my print out is ‘Chicken Tacos’) google sort of failed me, so to whomever inspired this recipe that I slightly tweaked, thank you!
Here’s what you need:
I start by mixing together sauce to cook the chicken in a small measuring cup. Start with a half cup of lemonade – because I don’t always have lemonade on hand and don’t want to buy a lot just for this I like to use frozen concentrate, about a tablespoon and a half and then add water to make a half cup (about 6.5 T), keep the rest in the freezer for next time! Then add olive oil, the juice of half a lime, and a couple dashes of Worcestershire.
Next chop the chicken up. I cut it into about ½ inch or smaller pieces.
Add the chicken to a skillet over medium heat and pour in the sauce.
Sprinkle in some garlic and onion powder and drop in a bay leaf.
Bring it up to a simmer. The chicken is going to poach in the sauce as it cooks which keeps it nice and moist.
As the chicken cooks, I like to break it up with a wooden or other stiff spatula. You can certainly skip this step and just periodically stir it if you want bigger pieces of chicken, it’s total personal preference.
When the liquid has mostly evaporated, the chicken should be fully cooked. This will take about 15 minutes, turn down the heat if it’s evaporating too quickly.
Remove bay leaf.
Serve with your favorite fixings. I like to start with a smear of sour cream on the tortilla, cheese, picante sauce, lettuce and tomato.
Enjoy!
- 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into ½ inch or smaller pieces
- 1.5 T frozen lemonade concentrate, plus enough water to make ½ cup
- 1 T olive oil
- ½ lime, juice of
- ¾ t Worcestershire
- ¼ t garlic powder
- ¼ t onion powder
- 1 bay leaf
- To serve:
- 8 inch flour tortillas
- Sour cream
- Cheese
- Picante sauce
- Roma tomatoes, chopped
- Romaine lettuce, shredded
- Mix together in a liquid measuring cup, lemonade and water, olive oil, lime juice and Worcestershire.
- Heat skillet to medium heat. Add chicken, sauce mixture, onion and garlic powders, and bay leaf.
- Bring to a simmer.
- Cook, breaking up with a wooden spatula into small pieces
- Chicken is done when the liquid has evaporated, about 15 minutes. Remove bay leaf before servings.
- Serve chicken with tortillas and toppings.
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