Recipes For Everyone Who Loves Tacos

Tacos make people happy. It's a scientific fact (probably). So why do we tend to relegate tacos to only the rare, special occasion taco night?

Because tacos seem hard, that's why! All the chopping and the marinating required to get a delicious taco can seem so time consuming that we might think we have to plan ahead. Depending on the taco, we might even want to block off a whole afternoon that we can solely dedicate to cooking. All that just have one taco night? It's exhausting just thinking about it — but it doesn't have to be that way!

We've gathered up some fantastic recipes for tacos or taco-like dishes that will satisfy your cravings without requiring more work than they're worth. From traditional tacos to one-pan nachos to a taco-pizza hybrid, if you love tacos, you're going to love the recipes on this list. However your work day went, whatever activities the kids have, however late your Zoom meeting lasts, and however early you have to get up tomorrow, you deserve taco night today. Now, let's get cooking!

These chicken tacos only take 20 minutes total. You read that right: you can go from "I feel like tacos," to "These tacos are great!" in less than half an hour. The trick is to cut your raw chicken breasts into smaller pieces to help them cook faster. That will also give you more flavor because the cut-up chicken will have more surfaces for the taco seasoning to stick to.

This recipe does call for pre-made taco seasoning, but if you don't have any or if you prefer to make your own, it shouldn't add much time to this recipe (here's our own taco seasoning recipe to get you started). Taco seasoning can be made with a few staple seasonings many people have in their cabinets anyway: onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, paprika, salt, and pepper.

Whether you're trying to impress your friends or spoil yourself, these shrimp tacos have some surprising bursts of flavor. Your friends will be convinced that you spent all day making these tasty delights, especially once you tell them the secret ingredients: pickled onions, parmesan-encrusted tortillas, and homemade white sauce.

These special ingredients all sound like they take much longer to prepare than they actually do. The most time consuming is the pickled onions, but even that won't take you hours. Sweat the onions in a pan, then marinate them in a rice wine vinegar and sugar mixture for 20 minutes. While they're marinating, you can cook the shrimp, make the three-ingredient white sauce, and cook the parmesan into the tortillas. Even you'll be surprised how quickly these fancy tacos come together.

Fast food isn't healthy, but sometimes you crave it. This Taco Bell-inspired recipe doesn't try to make the tacos any better for you. It strictly tries to recreate the sinful deliciousness of the Doritos Locos tacos. That's why there's some unexpected ingredients in the recipe, like oats and cocoa powder.

This recipe also has two versions of the spicy Doritos-flavored shell. You can make your own version from scratch or just make a flavored coating to put on pre-made taco shells. Neither version calls for actual Doritos, but both versions will give you a pack of hot, cheesy goodness.

This chicken taco recipe gives new life to that leftover rotisserie chicken. Just because the chicken is already cooked doesn't mean that you can't reheat it and re-season it to make a fantastic taco. With strong flavors like smoked paprika and cumin, no one will realize you didn't start from scratch. The other thing that will give these tacos a burst of flavor is the toppings you choose. You can go traditional, with ingredients like lettuce, cheese, guacamole, and salsa — but if you're feeling daring, you can try some more outside the box toppings like cabbage, mangos, radishes, potatoes, or mushrooms.

Like a true taco-aficionado, you've probably had tacos made with both flour and corn tortillas. But this chalupa recipe will take your tacos to the next level, as a nice homemade chalupa will give your taco a different texture that you're going to love.

Chalupas are essentially, fried bread. The frying takes time and attention, and you have the added challenge of not eating the bread as you make it. But if you can hold out, you can fill these delicious rounds with your favorite taco ingredients to make a great meal. If you have leftovers and don't want to eat tacos too many days in a row, you can fill them with lunchmeat to make a delicious sandwich or use fruit and whip cream to make a dessert taco.

This tortilla soup recipe has all the same great ingredients you would use in a taco, but in soup form. With taco seasoning and salsa stirred right into the mix, this is a broth you will greedily slurp, and with only eight ingredients, you won't have to spend forever prepping this soup, either.

The only downside to this tasty dish is that it's not a slow cooker soup you can prep, then walk away from, returning several hours later to a finished treat. Unless you have pre-cooked, pre-shredded chicken on hand, you're going to start by cooking the chicken in some stock in the slow cooker. After about two hours, the chicken should be cooked and ready to be shredded. Then, everything else goes in the pot, and it all cooks for a couple more hours. Your work will be rewarded, though, with a truly phenomenal taco soup!

If you're looking for easy, look no further than this recipe for sheet pan nachos. You don't have to carefully measure each of the ingredients if you don't want to. How much beef do you want? Feeling extra cheesy today or looking for more spice? Put on however much of the ingredients looks (and tastes) good to you. This is another recipe that unfortunately doesn't last. Because you're heating the ingredients right on top of the chips, those crunchy delights will become soggy if they sit around too long. Solution: just eat them all!

Because why wouldn't you combine two of the greatest foods ever invented? Enter this recipe for a taco pizza. With your favorite pizza crust and some of your favorite taco ingredients, it's the best of both worlds. In place of tomato sauce, you'll be using refried beans and taco sauce, and instead of mozzarella, you'll be using queso (although you could also use a Mexican blend shredded cheese to get that stretchy cheese that's so great on pizza). You can put ground beef on top, though it also tastes great without the meat if you need it to be vegetarian.