Homemade Chicken Fajitas
Yay, chicken fajitas! So easy to make, and so quick. A little bit of back story. The word “fajita” means “little belt” from “faja” for strip or belt, and the diminutive “ita”. It describes a skirt steak, and fajitas were traditionally made with grilled skirt steak, though now they can be made with chicken, shrimp, you name it.
The method is to quickly sear the meat on a griddle or grill, slice and serve with quickly seared peppers and onions and flour tortillas.
Now with a skirt steak (when making steak fajitas) it makes a lot of sense to quickly sear the meat and cut it against the grain to serve. You want the steak to be rare in the middle.
But with chicken? Not so much. Rare is not good for chicken. A way to get around this is to either cut the chicken in strips to begin with or to start with thinner pieces of chicken.
We prefer to start with a thinner piece of chicken, that way it’s less likely to dry out. Rather than thinning the meat with a meat pounder, we slice the chicken breasts horizontally.
The cutlets are then marinated (min 30 minutes, best an hour or longer) in a spicy marinade with chili powder, cilantro, and jalapeño. To cook, you sear the cutlets on a hot cast iron pan (you could also easily use a hot grill), and after letting them rest a few minutes, slice them across the grain of the meat. Cook the peppers and onions in the same pan while the meat is resting.
How To Make Chicken Fajitas
Chicken Fajitas Recipe
PrintSave time by marinating the chicken while you prep the onions and peppers.
Ingredients
- 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 pounds skinless, boneless chicken breasts
- Salt
- 2 Tbsp canola, safflower, peanut, or extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large onion, sliced lengthwise (root to tip) into 1/4-inch strips
- 3 bell peppers of various colors, sliced into 1/4-inch strips
Marinade
- 2 Tbsp lime juice
- 3 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 jalapeño, seeded and minced
- 1/4 cup chopped cilantro
Extras
- 8-12 flour tortillas
- Salsa
- Sliced avocado
- Sour cream
- Thinly sliced iceberg lettuce dressed lightly with salt and cider vinegar
Method
1 Cut thick chicken breasts in half, horizontally: Chicken breasts come in different sizes. If you have chicken breasts that are around a half pound each or more, you will want to slice them in half horizontally, so that the center thickness is around 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick.
(We do not recommend pounding the chicken breasts, doing so will not result in the right texture/consistency for fajitas.)
2 Marinate chicken: Mix all the marinade ingredients together in a glass or plastic container. Add the chicken, mix well, cover and let marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes or up to 8 hours in the fridge.
3 Wipe off most marinade, sprinkle chicken with salt: Remove the chicken from the marinade. Wipe off most of the marinade and sprinkle the chicken pieces with salt.
4 Sear chicken on high heat: Heat a large cast iron frying pan on high heat for 1 to 2 minutes. Add a tablespoon of oil to the pan.
As soon as the oil begins to smoke, lay the chicken breast pieces in the pan. Depending on the size of the pan, and if you have had to cut the chicken breasts, you may have to work in batches.
Let the chicken cook undisturbed for 2-3 minutes, until you have a good sear. Once seared well on one side, turn the pieces over and cook for another 2-3 minutes until well seared on the second side.
5 Stack seared breasts, cover with foil and let rest: Once seared on the second side, remove to a cutting board and cover with aluminum foil to rest for 5 minutes.
Here's a tip: Stack the seared chicken breasts and then cover them in foil. Together they will retain heat better as you cook the peppers and onions.
If you want to test for doneness, cut into one piece with the tip of a sharp knife. It should be just done, if not, you can put it back in the hot pan for a minute or two.
6 Sauté peppers and onions: While the chicken is resting, cook the onions and peppers. Add another tablespoon of oil to the frying pan. Heat on high. As soon as the oil is hot, add the onions and peppers to the pan.
Use a metal spatula to scrape up some of the browned bits from the chicken and stir to coat the onions and peppers with the oil and brown bits. Spread the onions and peppers in an even layer in the pan.
Let them cook undisturbed for 2 minutes. You want them to sear with some blackening. Stir the vegetables and continue to cook for another 2 minutes.
7 Slice the chicken and serve: Slice the chicken across the grain into strips. Serve at once with the peppers and onions, some warm tortillas, and sides of shredded cheese, salsa, guacamole, and/or thinly sliced iceberg lettuce dressed with vinegar and salt.
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Links:
Chicken Fajitas - from Homesick Texan
Chipotle Chicken Fajitas with Creamy Black Beans - from The Kitchn
Tequila Lime Chicken Fajitas - from Andrea Meyers
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Elise Bauer is the founder of Simply Recipes. Elise launched Simply Recipes in 2003 as a way to keep track of her family's recipes, and along the way grew it into one of the most popular cooking websites in the world. Elise is dedicated to helping home cooks be successful in the kitchen. Elise is a graduate of Stanford University, and lives in Sacramento, California.
Chicken Fajitas
Something went terribly wrong………… I cooked the chicken, took it out my cast iron to rest, added another tablespoon of canola oil to the pan before the veggies, and grease fire broke out! Almost burned down my entire apartment complex. Not sure where I went wrong. Had the stove on high heat as directed (in between 8 and 9 on the dial). So scary – really thought I had this one in the bag.
xxxxxyyyyy
Hi McKenna, having had a grease fire myself I know they can be scary! Sounds like your pan was extremely hot. You do want high heat, and it really helps to use a cast iron pan. That said, ranges vary in the amount of BTUs (heat) they put out. For a good sear, you want the pan to be hot enough so that you can hold your hand one in above it for 1 second. If you can’t do that, it’s too hot. If the pan starts to smoke too much and there is no food in the pan that would cool it down, remove it from the burner. This is less of an issue with this particular recipe than with learning how to gauge the heat of your particular range/sauté pan set up.
Terrible about the pan fire–happened to us once and instead of grabbing the salt cellar and pouring salt onto the flames I nabbed the kitchen fire extinguisher and sprayed the entire stove top , adjacent counter area and obviously the flaming pan. Overkill. What a mess. But I wouldn’t give the recipe one star for the disaster! I’m to blame =/
I’m sorry but why would you give her 1 star based on something that had nothing to do with her recipe?
The cooking time for the chicken just doesn’t seem right at all…but it looks like it might just be me
I followed the recipe exactly except I didn’t wipe off the marinade before searing the chicken. These were THE BEST fajitas ever — just as good as what you get in a restaurant. Easy, delicious, the whole family devoured them and went back for seconds.
xxxxxyyyyy
Very good flavor. Everyone liked it. In the future, I’d personally cut back on the Cumin.
xxxxxyyyyy
Has anyone made without cilantro? We are that family who doesn’t like it. ;)
Hi Nicole, you can easily skip the cilantro if you don’t like it.