Chicken Fajitas

by Sabrina Snyder

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23 Comments

5 from 10 votes
6 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
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Chicken Fajitas cooked to sizzling perfection in a cast-iron skillet! Packed with bold flavor and ready in just 30 minutes!

I love easy, everyday Mexican Food recipes like Best Homemade Enchilada Sauce, Beef Barbacoa, Carne Asada, and Shrimp Tacos because they’re so much better than the takeout options, and they’re so quick to make.

Sabrina’s Chicken Fajita Recipe

Chicken fajitas are one of my go-to weeknight meals because they’re easy to make in just thirty minutes, and they’re a good way of getting kids to eat a lot of vegetables. I also like to mix the recipe up and serve it with non-traditional options for a more Tex-Mex feel.

Recipe Card

Dinner, then Dessert

Chicken Fajitas Recipe

Chicken Fajitas cooked to sizzling perfection in a cast-iron skillet! Packed with bold flavor and ready in just 30 minutes!
Yield 6 servings
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 30 minutes
Course Dinner
Cuisine Mexican
Author Sabrina Snyder
chicken and vegetable mixture in yellow cast iron skillet
PrintRate

Ingredients
 

  • 1/4 cup vegetable oil , divided
  • 2 teaspoons chili powder
  • 1 teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 teaspoon paprika
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 4 chicken thighs , boneless and skinless
  • 1 red onion , cut into thin strips
  • 1 red bell pepper , cut into thin strips
  • 1 green bell pepper , cut into thin strips
  • 1 yellow bell pepper , cut into thin strips
  • 2 cloves garlic , minced
  • 1 lime , cut into wedges
  • cilantro , chopped as garnish

Instructions

  • Add half the canola oil to a large cast iron skillet or large skillet on medium high heat.
  • Add the chili powder, kosher salt, paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin and chicken in a small bowl and mix well.
  • Add the chicken to the skillet and cook until crisp on the outside and cooked through on the inside (about 3-4 minutes on each side) then remove from the pan.
  • Add the rest of the canola oil and the onions, bell peppers and garlic to the pan and cook for 4-5 minutes.
  • Slice the chicken, add it back into the pan and squeeze half the lime wedges over the pan before serving.

Nutrition

Calories: 275kcal | Carbohydrates: 7g | Protein: 13g | Fat: 22g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Cholesterol: 73mg | Sodium: 460mg | Potassium: 337mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 2g | Vitamin A: 1190IU | Vitamin C: 82.6mg | Calcium: 25mg | Iron: 1.3mg

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About this Recipe

The best way to cook chicken fajitas is on high heat in a grill pan or a griddle. The higher the heat, the better the sear on the chicken and the vegetables, since we’re cooking them for only a few minutes. If you’d prefer to use a pan for a stir-fry style, I recommend using a cast-iron pan as it will give the best sear and flavors. These fajitas can also be prepared with a variety of cooking methods (See Alternative Cooking Techniques below.) I promise you, these are the best fajitas, no matter how they are prepared! With summer coming, this recipe is perfect for grilling. Plus, if you’re like me, any recipes with a short cook time are a winner when the weather starts warming up!

What to Pair With

  • Marinade: I don’t marinate the meat in the recipe, but if you can add a marinade or even just add the seasonings to the chicken the night before.
  • Fresh lime juice: This adds a freshness and brightness to the dish, along with a ton of flavor.
  • Sour Cream: adds a creamy, cool element to the recipe.
  • Guacamole: adds richness and creaminess to the dish and enough flavor to avoid other fats.
  • Cilantro: It isn’t just a garnish; adding chopped cilantro adds a lot of great flavors.
  • Salsa (Pico de Gallo): Fresh salsa is a healthy way to add a lot of extra flavor.
  • Refried Beans: Homemade Refried beans are great for binding a fajita wrap or as a side.
  • Queso: Perfect as a topping/sauce or for a side dish with chips.
  • Mexican Rice: The ultimate easy side dish for all Mexican food.

Ideas to Serve

  • With flour tortillas or corn tortillas as originally intended.
  • In hard taco shells topped with lettuce and tomato, or even a creamy slaw.
  • With a large salad full of romaine, grape tomatoes, avocados, salsa, and sour cream.
  • In a rice bowl, or over cauliflower rice for a low-carb option.
  • Rolled in a warm tortilla with sharp Cheddar Cheese, sour cream, and baked with enchilada sauce.
  • In lettuce cups instead of tortillas.
  • Chopped up leftovers stuffed inside of quesadillas for a perfect, easy leftovers meal.

Alternative Cooking Techniques

Grilled

Add all the ingredients tossed in olive oil and the seasonings to a grill basket and cook on medium-high heat for 8-10 minutes until the chicken is cooked and the vegetables are just starting to char.

Slow Cooker

Add the chicken and seasonings to the slow cooker (do not pre-slice the chicken) and cook the chicken for 4 hours on low heat. Slice the chicken, toss with the vegetables and additional seasonings, and cook on low for an additional two hours. You’d end up with great flavors if you seared it off in a pan before serving, but I get that it defeats the purpose of the slow cooker.

Sheet Pan 

If cooking on a sheet pan, line everything up in as even a layer as possible and roast at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes. If you crowd the pan too much, the food will steam instead of brown at all, and it will taste boiled.

Variations

Meat: In addition to this recipe working well with chicken breasts (make sure you serve them quickly because they will dry out), you can also use lean steak, pork loin

Seafood: You can use any seafood you’d like. The fajita seasoning and the vegetables work great with all proteins, my favorite being shrimp fajitas.

More Fajitas Recipes

One Skillet Chicken Fajitas

These photos were in a previous version of this post

Chicken Fajitas Recipe

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

See more posts by Sabrina

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. Hi Sabrina. Making the sheet pan version of this tonight. Do you recommend leaving the thighs whole and cutting into strips after roasting, as in the stove top method? Or is it better to cut into strips and then roast? Thanks!

    Reply

  2. This was sooo delicious!! This dish never made it to the table……my husband and I stood at the stove, filled our tortillas and gobbled this down like we had not eaten in days.

    Reply

  3. These fajitas were absolutely fabulous! I highly recommend doing a brine to them for about 15 minutes before you start. It lets all those seasonings soak into the chicken…so good! Thank you for sharing!

    Reply

    1. So glad you liked them! And yes, if people have the time, the brine is definitely recommended! Thanks for the review!

      Reply

  4. I love this site and and my family loved these fajitas. Only change was to cut the chicken into slices before adding the seasonings and then cooking in the oil. DELICIOUS!

    Reply

  5. I made this tonight. Just fantastic. I had to stop myself at 3. I told my wife I could finish the pan. Your web site has been a huge blessing to my family. Thank you.

    Reply