Easy Ground Beef Tacos are a go-to, quick family-friendly 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!
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!
This Ground Beef Taco recipe with homemade taco seasoning is a dinner you can feel good about making every week. They’re budget-friendly, using ingredients you have on hand so you know exactly what is your taco meat and you can make them however you want. You can adjust the taco filling to the spice level you like, use hard or soft tortillas, or pile on every topping your heart desires. The possibilities are endless!
The tasty filling in our Ground Beef 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 Taco Salad. If you want a mess-free Taco Tuesday, fill standing hard taco shells with this ground beef mixture for Baked Beef Tacos!
WHAT TO SERVE WITH GROUND BEEF TACOS
Easy Refried Beans
Spanish Rice (Mexican Rice)
Chipotle Black Beans (Copycat)
Elote (Mexican Grilled Street Corn)
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 a perfect those nights when you get home and realize you forgot to defrost your ground beef! Check out the Instant Pot instructions for Ground Beef Tacos below.
The best part of serving Ground Beef 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.
Speaking of toppings, the list is almost endless! We’ve got some traditional topping suggestions (and out of the box ideas) in our variations section but we’d love to hear about your favorite toppings too. Share your topping ideas and other recipes you’d like to see using ground beef taco filling in the comments!
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VARIATIONS ON GROUND BEEF TACOS
- Meat: 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 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.
- More Topping Ideas: Try traditional taco bar toppings like lime juice, cilantro, and diced red onions or white onions. Prepare toppings ahead of time like Salsa, Guacamole or Pico de Gallo that can double as dips for a side of tortilla chips!
- Even More Topping Ideas: For an extra fresh crunch, try sliced jicama or radishes as toppings. Use rinsed canned black beans or corn kernels for a Tex-Mex topping. You could use the corn and beans instead of ground beef in the seasoning for a vegetarian taco.
EASY HOMEMADE TOPPINGS FOR GROUND BEEF TACOS!
Chipotle Guacamole (Copycat)
Restaurant Style Salsa
Chipotle Corn Salsa (Copycat)
Best Homemade & QUICK Enchilada Sauce (Top 10 Ways to Use It!)
Instant Pot Ground Beef Tacos (For Frozen Ground Beef)
- 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.
HOW TO STORE GROUND BEEF TACOS
- Serve: Serve the Taco Meat immediately to prevent from drying out. Ground Beef 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 for Ground Beef Tacos in a sealed container for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before simmering in broth over medium-low heat to reheat.
Ingredients
Taco Seasoning:
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/4 teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 teaspoon cayenne powder
- 1 cup water
Tacos:
- 1 pound ground beef , (80/20)
- 6 taco shells
- 1 cup lettuce , shredded
- 1 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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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!