Dinner Hacks
Two of my favorite dinner hacks are rotisserie chicken and tacos. I think the rotisserie chicken speaks for itself. It’s already made, can be eaten as is, or used as an ingredient to create a recipe. Tacos are also a great dinner hack because all you need are toppings and protein. Taco toppings require little to no prep besides slicing or dicing. Then the protein filling can be as simple as ground meat with spices or as elaborate as slow cooked barbacoa. The added bonus with tacos is that they can be a DIY set up, so you’re only responsible for preparing the components and people can assemble their tacos themselves. Today, we have a heat-packed combination of the two with these Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos.
Bring On The Heat
If you like spicy food, you’re going to love these Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos. We have corn tortillas fried in a pan so that they get crispy. Then they’re filled with cheese, pickled jalapeños, and buffalo chicken. To be honest, I don’t cook with buffalo sauce too often, so I forget how spicy it can actually taste — especially paired with the pickled jalapenos. These tacos are no joke when it comes to heat, but to cool them down, I served them with a Homemade Bleu Cheese Dipping Sauce. When it comes to buffalo chicken, I’m a bleu cheese girl through and through. I used to hate bleu cheese, but now it’s become one of my favorites! Even though buffalo sauce and bleu cheese both have potent flavors, the heat and dairy combination work together to balance out the flavors.
Creamy is Key
First, we can prepare the Bleu Cheese Dipping Sauce. We have bleu cheese crumbles, sour cream, lemon juice, garlic, green onion, salt, and pepper. It’s as simple as adding everything into a food processor and blending it together until it’s smooth. I love a thick and creamy dipping sauce, so I’m good to go with our sauce at this point. If you prefer a thinner sauce, start by mixing in a half tablespoon of water into the sauce. Check the consistency and continue adding in a half tablespoon of water until you get the desired thinness. Set the bleu cheese sauce aside in the fridge while we prepare the tacos.
It’s Getting Hot In Here…
As I’ve already mentioned, I love using rotisserie chicken for dinner. It really simplifies a recipe and makes it so easy to incorporate protein into your meal in a variety of ways. For these Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos, we’re going to start with dicing our chicken. You should get about 5 cups of diced chicken from 1 rotisserie chicken.
Melt a few tablespoons of butter into a pan. Then add in the diced chicken. Cook it for 3-4 minutes until the chicken is heated through then mix in the sliced green onions and buffalo sauce. I love the subtle onion and garlic flavor that the green onions add to the buffalo chicken mixture. Cook it for another minute or two until the sauce starts to bubble. Remove the buffalo chicken mixture from the pan and set it aside.
Wipe out the pan with paper towels so that it’s mostly clean. Lower the heat to medium then add in some vegetable oil. Working in batches, add a few corn tortillas into the pan. Allow them to warm up for a minute. Then sprinkle some of the cheddar cheese onto each tortilla. Add a few rings of pickled jalapeños to one half of the tortilla. You can use as little or as much as you want depending on your spice tolerance. I, personally, find that 2-3 jalapeños provides the perfect level of spice and flavor! Top that half with some of the buffalo chicken then fold the tortilla over in half. Cook the tacos on each side for another minute until the outsides are crispy and golden brown.
When cooking crispy and cheesy foods, I like to keep them warm in the oven while I cook the remaining batches of food. You can have a lined baking sheet inside a 200°F oven and place the finished tacos onto the baking sheet while you prepare the remaining tacos. This way, all of the tacos will be hot, crispy, and filled with melted cheese!
The Best Leftovers
I love these Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos because they’re such an easy yet fun recipe you can whip up for dinner. Even though rotisserie is great on its own, I love how this recipe reinvents it and turns it into such a flavor-packed meal. I’m a sauce girl, so I loved pairing every bite with the Homemade Bleu Cheese Dip. If you aren’t a bleu cheese fan, you can totally buy your favorite dipping sauce and serve it up with these tacos instead! Another great thing about this recipe is that they reheat amazingly in the air-fryer and oven. The tortilla gets crispy and the cheese melts into the chicken — it makes for the best leftovers that you’re actually excited to eat. So turn up the heat for dinner and get started on these Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos!
Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos
Ingredients
For the Bleu Cheese Dipping Sauce:
- 5 oz. Bleu Cheese Crumbles
- ¾ cup Sour Cream
- 2 Tbsp Lemon Juice
- 1 Garlic Clove (roughly chopped)
- 1 Green Onion (sliced)
- ¼ tsp Kosher Salt
- Pinch of Black Pepper
- 1 Tbsp Water (optional to thin out the sauce)
For the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos:
- 2 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
- 5 cups Diced Rotisserie Chicken
- 2 Green Onions (sliced)
- ¾ cup Buffalo Sauce
- 16 Soft Corn Tortillas
- 3 cups Grated Cheddar Cheese
- 1 (12 oz.) Jar Pickled Jalapeños
- Vegetable Oil (for cooking)
- Additional Sliced Green Onions (for garnish)
Instructions
For the Bleu Cheese Dipping Sauce:
- Add all of the ingredients except for the water into a food processor. Blend until smooth and taste for seasoning. If you want a thinner sauce, mix in ½-1 tablespoon of water until you get the desired consistency. Set aside.
For the Spicy Buffalo Chicken Tacos:
- Heat a large pan over medium high heat. Place the butter into the pan and allow it to melt. Add in the diced rotisserie chicken and cook for 3-4 minutes until warmed through. Mix in the green onions and buffalo sauce. Cook for another 1-2 minutes. Remove the buffalo chicken from the pan and wipe the pan clean with paper towels.
- Reduce the heat to medium. Working in batches, pour a ½ tablespoon of vegetable oil into the pan. Add a few of the corn tortillas into the pan. Allow them to warm up for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Sprinkle cheddar cheese onto each tortilla. Add 2-3 pickled jalapeño rings to one half of the tortilla. Then add a portion of the buffalo chicken on top. Fold the tortilla over in half to form a taco and cook for about 1 minute on each side until golden brown and crispy. Repeat this process to cook the remaining tacos.
- Garnish the tacos with additional sliced green onions and serve with the bleu cheese sauce. Enjoy!
