Easy Ground Beef Tacos are a go-to, quick, weeknight dinner. Tasty Tex-Mex taco meat recipe with homemade taco seasoning ready in 15 minutes!
The next time you are in the mood for Mexican Food, ditch the pre-packaged stuff and make our Homemade Taco Seasoning. It’s delicious, easy, and made from ingredients you already have on hand!
Sabrina’s Ground Beef Tacos
From Cheesy Taco Pasta to Easy Taco Soup, we are always coming up with fun, creative Dinner Ideas to reinvent a beef taco. Sometimes you just want the real deal though, so here it is – our easy classic taco recipe. The easiest kid-friendly meal for busy weeknights, weekends, or your next Taco Tuesday!
Recipe Card
Ingredients
Taco Seasoning:
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 cup water
Tacos:
- 1 pound ground beef (85/15)
- 6 taco shells
- 1 cup lettuce , shredded
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 cup cheddar cheese , finely shredded
- 1 tomato , diced
- 1/2 cup black olives , sliced
Instructions
- Add the Taco Seasoning ingredients to the water and stir well.
- Add ground beef to a large skillet on medium-high heat and break it apart as it cooks, 6-8 minutes until no longer pink.
- Pour the taco seasoning water mixture into the pan and stir well.
- Let cook until almost all the water has evaporated.
- To Serve: Add taco meat to taco shells, then top with lettuce, sour cream, cheddar cheese, tomatoes, and olives.
Nutrition
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Sabrina’s Tips
The homemade taco seasoning and beef combo is flavorful on it’s own but you can absolutely take it to the next level in simple ways. Add deeper savory flavor by using 1 cup of beef broth instead of water with the spices. You can also add fresh minced garlic and jalapeños to take the heat up a bit. See more ideas in my Variations section!
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About this Recipe
Ground Beef Tacos are a great recipe to double or triple the next time you need to feed a crowd. Making a big batch of Ground Beef Taco Meat gets even easier in an Instant Pot, plus you can cook it from frozen. This is perfect for those nights when you get home and realize you forgot to defrost your ground beef! Check out the Instant Pot instructions for my tacos below.
More Serving Ideas
- The best part of serving tacos is letting the whole family build them how they like. If you want to save on a bunch of dishes, try this hack: Serve your taco toppings in a 6-12 cup muffin tin! Fill up the muffin cups with toppings and voila! One pan to wash instead of multiple bowls. Plus it’s easy to pass around and you can cover it with plastic wrap if there’s left-overs.
- The tasty filling in my tacos isn’t limited to crunchy, hard taco shells! Grab soft flour tortillas and use this easy taco meat recipe in Beef Burritos, soft tacos, or quesadillas. Top corn tortilla chips with your taco meat for nachos or make Taco Salad. If you want a mess-free Taco Tuesday, fill standing hard taco shells with this ground beef mixture for Baked Beef Tacos!
How to Store
- Serve: Serve the Taco Meat immediately to prevent from drying out. The tacos can be at room temperature for up to 2 hours before they need to be stored.
- Store: Store Ground Beef Taco filling separately from toppings and tortillas. Keep taco meat in an airtight container for up to 3 days. Reheat in a skillet over medium heat with a splash of beef broth.
- Freeze: Once cooled, freeze taco meat in a sealed container for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before simmering in broth over medium-low heat to reheat.
Instant Pot Taco Meat
- In an Instant Pot, add water (or beef broth) and whisk in 1 tablespoon cornstarch.
- Add taco seasonings to water mixture and whisk until combined.
- Add frozen ground beef (1-2 pounds).
- Secure lid, seal pressure valve, and cook on Manual High Pressure for 20 minutes.
- Quick release pressure and remove lid when safe to do so.
- Turn Instant Pot to Sauté Function. Cook meat and sauce until sauce is thickened and reduced, about 5 minutes.
- Serve with taco shells and favorite toppings.
Variations
- Meat: You can use any ground meat like ground pork, ground turkey, or ground chicken with this taco seasoning. If you use a lean ground meat, sauté a diced yellow onion in 1 tablespoon oil before adding the ground meat to add moisture.
- Taco Seasoning: If you want to use store bought taco seasoning, use 1 packet in this recipe. You can also add a can of tomato sauce to the taco meat, simmering for 5 minutes longer to reduce by half.
- Vegetarian Option: Use corn and beans instead of ground beef in the tacos for a vegetarian dinner.
- Toppings: The options for toppings are limited only by your own tastebuds. Some popular options to try are cilantro, diced onions, radish, salsa, guacamole, or pico de gallo.
Related Recipes
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My favorite kind of tacos!! These are incredibly delicious! YUM!
I’m glad you enjoyed them, Katerina.
Very tasty mix of spices! I adore how easy this is to put together. And the meat is so great to make ahead and keep in the freezer! I can even just keep single serve portions on hand for my kids’ lunches. So perfect.
It really makes it so easy. Thanks for the 5 stars, Betsy.
This is definitely an easy dinner recipe for the family! Also, something that everyone approved of and I love that I could make my own taco seasoning. I threw leftovers into a salad too when I ran out of tortilla!
Such a great way to use up leftovers!