5 Easy Beef Taco Recipes You’ll Make Again and Again | Allrecipes

Craving tacos but tired of the same old Tuesday routine? In this video, Nicole shares five easy, flavor-packed beef taco recipes—plus her go-to taco seasoning mix and a foolproof method for making perfectly saucy, small-crumble taco meat. Whether you love your tacos crispy, smashed, cheesy, or loaded with birria-style beef, there’s something here for everyone.

Nicole walks through each recipe step-by-step, starting with crispy beef tacos and moving through viral-inspired Big Mac tacos, juicy birria tacos, and easy sheet pan tacos that make weeknight dinners a breeze. She also throws in a fun twist at the end: an Italian cherry margarita that’s as bold and refreshing as your taco lineup.

Whether you’re meal prepping, feeding a crowd, or just looking for new taco night ideas, these easy beef taco recipes will quickly become your new favorites.

Timestamps:
0:00 – Making Tacos at Home
0:50 – Homemade Taco Seasoning
1:45 – How to Make Taco Meat
3:16 – Crispy Beef Tacos
5:17 – Smashed Big Mac Tacos
7:49 – Casa Birria Tacos
11:48 – Sheet Pan Beef Tacos
13:59 – Rotel Tacos
16:06 – Italian Cherry Margaritas

Get the recipes here:

Homemade Taco Seasoning: https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/46653/taco-seasoning-i/
Crispy Beef Tacos: https://www.allrecipes.com/the-best-ground-beef-taco-meat-recipe-11781080
Smashed Big Mac Tacos
Casa Birria Tacos
Sheet Pan Beef Tacos: https://www.allrecipes.com/easiest-sheet-pan-tacos-recipe-11700898
Rotel Tacos: https://www.allrecipes.com/rotel-tacos-recipe-7853525
Italian Cherry Margaritas:
https://www.allrecipes.com/italian-cherry-margarita-recipe-11775821

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I wish every day was Taco Tuesday because tacos happen to be in my top five favorite foods of all time. And today I’m giving you five of the best easy beef taco recipes. Let’s go. Before we can really get into the tacos, I think you want to know how to make taco seasoning and the best taco meat because once you have that, you have the arsenal to make the best tacos ever. No packets today. Aren’t you proud? Because here’s the deal. Let me show you the ingredients that are on the back of this uh taco seasoning packet. It starts with wheat flour. Then it’s just salt, garlic, chili peppers, fine. Spice, onions, paprika, sugar. Great. But then maltodextrin, silicone dioxide, natural flavor, yeast extract, soybean oil, malic acid. We don’t we don’t need all that. We have the perfect recipe for taco seasoning at all recipes. And I’m going to take that recipe and multiply it by 10. Okay, this way you can just keep this on hand in a jar and grab what you need. So, I’m doing half a cup plus a couple tablespoons of chili powder and then five tablespoons of ground cumin. Now, this next part you can adjust how you like it. I’m doing like 3 and 1/2 tablespoon of salt and it’s the same amount of pepper. Paprika’s next. This is going to give it that color that you like, you know, like that’s reminiscent of taco seasoning. All right. And then just shy of a tablespoon of garlic powder and onion powder. Same amount of crushed red pepper. You can go up or down on this to your liking. Last, a little oregano. And I’m going to give it a little crush in my hands cuz I like to make it like finely ground. That’s it. And then you can always just start with this and adjust it, you know, to your liking. Got our taco seasoning. Now we make the taco meat. When I say taco meat, everybody knows what I’m talking about. You know, it’s saucy. It’s like small crumbled beef. You don’t want like big chunky taco meat. At least I don’t. I like it to be like kind of finely ground and super saucy. So, whenever I cook my taco meat, I put a little onion in there for flavor. So, we’re going to do about a half a cup of finely chopped onion. Now, I want it like really finely chopped and soft in the taco meat cuz you just want it to add flavor. And then that’s all you do. That and our taco seasoning and a little something else. Come on. So, get your skillet going and then go in with your beef. All right. I like to get the beef going and once some of that fat renders out, I’ll add in the onion. Potato masher is a great way to get those like small crumbles. When it’s crumbled, this is when I go in with the onion cuz you can see that fat that’s kind of rendered out. That cooks this. I’m going to let this soften for about 3 minutes and then I’ll go in with my taco seasoning. I’m going to do three tablespoons. Cook that for about a minute. Let those spices kind of like toast up a little bit, become aromatic. Now, we want to make it salty. So, I’m going in with a couple tablespoons of tomato paste in with some water. Scrape up any flavor. And then turn the heat down and just let it simmer for about 5 minutes. And that is your taco meat. See how flavorful that looks? Now, we make tacos. All right, buckle up cuz these are about to be the best simple beef tacos you’ve ever had. We are doing crispy fried beef tacos. This is indulgent, but it is 1,000% worth it. Okay. All right. Just go ahead and heat up a skillet. I like using a large deep skillet for this. Even though you’re we’re not deep frying, it just I don’t know, gives me a little safety. And then you’re just going to put a very thin layer of oil at the bottom. Lay a tortilla down. Once it starts to bubble and start to brown, we’ll flip it and then we’ll top it. So, now that it’s kind of gotten bubbles on this first side, we’re gonna flip it back in and then we’re going to start topping it. Cheese all over and then your taco meat just on half of it. Okay. Then you’re going to use your tongs and flip. Once they’re browned, they will be crispy. Then you just keep going and they stay they hold their integrity. They stay crispy for a while. So, you just keep the keep the train moving and get ready for the best taco maybe that you’ve ever had for the build. They are delicious just like this. But you still want to fill them like you would your other tacos. So, you open it up, add whatever you want. I’ll just do I always like lettuce in mine. Maybe a little cilantro, little salsa, and I’m even going to make a little dip for this. Mexican hot sauce, sour cream, and a little lime. You’re just getting all kinds of bonus recipes, you know. The perfect bite taco right here. [Music] It’s the best taco. It’s the best. That meat and cheese is just like one delicious creamy gooey mixture and then you get the fresh, you know, crunchy veggies in there. Honestly, you could stop watching now, but don’t, but definitely make these. Breaking out the ketchup and mustard for this next taco. We do not need the taco seasoning cuz we are doing smashed Big Mac tacos. This was a viral sensation a couple years ago. I have made them multiple times. This is the great time to bring out your griddle, your cast iron skillet if you’re just doing a few or if you’ve got the Blackstoneone and you need another use of it. This is for that. So, start out with the burger sauce. Also, know before you say anything that ketchup is not in Big Mac sauce, but I really like it in this sauce, so I’m going to add it. Okay, but it starts out with a little mayonnaise. And then just a little bit of ketchup, a little mustard, a little relish. I’m doing a dill relish. Stir it up. And this is our taco sauce for today. Get your pan hot. Then you just take your meat straight from the package on to the griddle. And you want to do like loose sized portions. No more than a quarter pound for each taco. Probably a little less. Like maybe 3 oz is all you need. Season it. A little salt and pepper. Then flour tortillas. For this one, instead of a burger bun, this is your bun. Take your tortilla and smash your burger. Now, you want to work it to where it kind of stretches all the way to the edges of your tortilla. Okay. It’s so thin that it does not take about a couple minutes to cook. You want it to get really like brown on that flat side. And then we’re going to flip it over. It’s like a smash burger. You know, the best part of a smash burger, all those like crusty bits. Like the whole thing is that. Okay. Top them with a slice of cheese. And when the cheese melts, it’s done. I’m going to go ahead and top it. Little sauce, little iceberg, and a little red onion. Then take it off the heat, fold it over, smash burger tacos. And then why not serve it up with a side that you like with your burgers? You know, instead of our tortilla chips and salsa, how about some potato chips? That was easy. The Big Mac smashed taco. Shall we taste? You really satisfy your burger craving with this. I I feel like even more than a taco craving. But the way that shell gets a little toasty on the outside cuz once you flip it, it cooks in that burger grease a little bit. So there’s just flavor all around. Tastes like a burger in a taco package. Make it. I’m breaking out the crock pot for this next one because I promised easy. We’re making quesa viria tacos. These are one of the greatest inventions in the modern years. I know they’re not new, but they became new to us via Tik Tok a few years ago. I’m having a hard time believing that this bira bomb is supposed to season a whole entire piece of meat. And I crave them. They are so good. They are not hard, but they they’re quite involved. But my goal is to make this easy for you today. So, I’m breaking out the burrito bombs. I have just wanted an excuse to try these. These were like the viral sensation on Tik Tok a year or so ago, and I have yet to try them. So, today’s the day. This is going to eliminate like a ton of ingredients because they come in this like bomb, like a bath bomb. So, this starts with a boneless chuck roast. You still want it in kind of big pieces so that you can shred it at the end. All right. So, I’m just going to place these directly in. And then the package just suggests onion and cilantro going in. So, that’s what I’m going to do. See, it’s like a bath bomb, but for food. Who’ have thunk it? And it’s packed with some flavor. All right. So, I’m dropping the bomb in. And then four cups of water. Trusting the process here. See you in 6 hours. The time has come. The meat is tender. I cannot wait to see what the bitty bomb has done. But look in here. It’s the bomb. Look at all that rich flavor. Oh my gosh. Color equals flavor. If you’ve heard me say it once, you’ve heard me say it a million times. Oh my god. Look how tender. The fact that I didn’t even add salt and pepper to this is like blowing my mind. I need to taste it. It’s not that I thought everyone that I’ve seen on TikTok make this like I didn’t think they were lying, but I was like, “Surely you had to add a little something.” I really can’t believe how much flavor is concentrated into that little bomb. Literally just falling apart. I mean, this looks better than when I made it from scratch. All right, beef is shredded. Now, we go to the stove and we make turn it into quesabidia. All right, here’s the technique. Take your corn tortilla, dip it in the cooking liquid, then into your skillet, take your cheese, then the delicious meat, let it get toasted up, fold it over, and that’s it. So, this is why it’s called quesa beauty tacos is that you are similarly making a quesadilla. What we’re looking for is golden and lightly toasted. This is not your like crunchy kind of taco. This is your like most dippable taco situation ever. You want some of the cheese to scatter around the outside so that it creates a little crust. Golden, brown, and delicious are key words in the kitchen. These are that mission accomplished. You have to serve it with the zu. We also call this liquid gold. I don’t even think it needs anything else. So, I just go straight in. A little dip and a bite. In the top 10 perfect bites of all time. Of all time. This is my bowl, so I can double dip other than I’m speechless. I don’t really know what to say. The meat is mouthwatering. There is so much flavor. Whether you make this from scratch or use the shortcut with the those bombs, the crispy slash chewiness you get in this. It’s the absolute perfect bite. I even want to say if you don’t make anything else from this video, make this. But I also kind of want you to make everything from this video. This recipe is easy beef sheetpan tacos. Sheetpan is the solution and the answer to how you make a lot of things at one time. You just need a pound. And then green chilies. Some finely chopped onion. And then it calls for chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. But I’m just going to use a little more of our taco seasoning because why not? All right. So, just get everything incorporated. So, now we have a delicious seasoned beef mixture. Take a little oil and oil your sheetpan. This is going to help them get crispy. Then, you’re going to take corn tortillas. If they’re not pliable, wrap them in a damp paper towel and put them in the microwave for about 30 seconds. You want these to be really, you know, moist so they don’t dry out. Take your heated moistened corn tortilla and you’re going to spread this beef mixture on half in a thin layer. Little reffried beans on the other half. I like a beef and bean situation. Little beef, little bean, and then just some pre-shredded cheese. And then we’re just going to keep building. So easy. As long as you’ve got everything prepared, it just goes like a little assembly line. Similar to like those Jack in the Box style um tacos where they just put raw meat and but they fry them. And you want to be sure each side, you know, has oil on it. That’s it. Now these go into the oven 425° for about 30 to 35 minutes. You’re going to want to flip them about halfway through. You want to be sure both sides get golden and crispy. [Applause] crispy sheet pan beef tacos. But look at that. See how the cheese like helps create like a toasty edge on the taco shell. So you could dip them or top them. The crunchy edges are the best part. Some of the cheese when it, you know, kind of melts out on that sheetpan, it crisps up and it creates like a two-layered taco shell. These are perfection. They’re going to be a hit. They’ll fly off the table. So, maybe make double. This next one is so easy. It should almost be illegal. But to me, this is the solution. If you are having a bunch of people over, Rotel tacos is the answer. Rotel tacos are the creamy beefy tomato mixture that we all know and love just in a crunchy taco shell with whatever toppings you want on it. So start by cooking up your taco meat the same way we did earlier. I’m going to add my onion in a little bit early so that it all just cooks together at the same time. And then once that’s all browned, I’ll go in with my Rotel and the good stuff. Now we turn it in to the Rotel. So in goes your can of Rotel. I just keep the juices in and the cheese. It’s just got to be this when you’re making Rotel. All right. So then you just cook this for a few minutes until the cheese is all melted, the whole mixture is creamy, and that’s all you have to do. Meanwhile, heat up those taco shells. You got to go crispy here. You got to go crunchy shells. I know you’re thinking, I can do whatever I want, but for this one, just go crunchy. Just go crunchy. Creamy, cheesy, delicious. Okay, let’s make tacos. I just think this is the perfect recipe for a party because you could just keep this in the crock pot and then all you really need is a stack of shells and a little shredded lettuce and goes the cheesy beef mixture. Also, this is the perfect time for these kind of shells. Not sponsored, but the stand up taco shells stand and stuff. That is just a genius idea. Who ever thought of that? A little hot, cold, creamy, and crunchy. This is how I like to make it. The famous Rotel taco. Shouldn’t be that good. I want y’all to think I don’t eat trashy stuff like this, but I do, and I love it. We ended on a bang. Now, let’s make that margarita. What kind of service would I be giving you by doing five taco recipes and not giving you a margarita? I don’t think I’d be doing you any good. So, this is one of my favorite things. It is an Italian cherry margarita. So, not not our typical margarita, but it’s one of the best things that you will drink. Fresh cherries are best, especially when they’re in season. You only need a few. I just kind of break them in half and drop them in your shaker. The juice of about half a lime Haven’t seen me do that in a while. You can use just a spoon or whatever, but you want to kind of muddle those cherries. Kind of like, you know, break them up a little bit. All right. Ice in the shaker, [Applause] shot of tequila, and then what makes it Italian? Amorda. You wouldn’t think about this combination, but it is so good. So, you’re going to use about half the amount of amordo as you did tequila. So, like half a shot. No mixer here, guys. [Applause] Look how pretty this is. Cheers. I don’t know whether it be Italian or not, but it’s so good. No more boring tacos. Elevate your taco Tuesday with one of these five taco recipes. And don’t forget about the special taco meat and homemade taco seasoning. Don’t let me catch you buying those packets again. Let me know what you think. Cheers. Talk about being full. That’s me. But I am thirsty.