Buffalo Chicken Tacos

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Buffalo Chicken Tacos are the perfect twist on traditional tacos for spicy food lovers. This easy recipe uses leftover chicken, or you can cook the chicken from scratch in the instant pot or air fryer. Make these for a taco night, game day gathering, or weeknight dinner. Enjoy these as is or with your favorite chicken side dish.

Why Make Spicy Chicken Tacos

There are a lot of reasons to add these to your menu. Here are my top three reasons:

• It uses leftover or freshly cooked chicken: You can cook the meat from scratch or use this recipe to repurpose your leftover buffalo chicken.
• Easy recipe: This dish is your perfect fix whenever you need something simple and delicious for an easy weeknight dinner, game day, or taco night.
• Give an extra kick to traditional tacos: Buffalo chicken gives traditional tacos a spicy kick that spicy food lovers cannot resist.

Ingredients Needed

These easy buffalo chicken tacos don’t require much. Here’s what you’ll need to gather: 

Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken

• Chicken breasts: I’m using boneless skinless chicken breasts. But you can also use chicken tenders (like I do in air fryer buffalo chicken tenders), and chicken thighs (air fryer buffalo chicken thighs).
• Natural ancient sea salt: Optional
• Black pepper
• Smoked paprika
• Garlic powder
• Onion powder
• Oil: I use avocado oil or olive oil

Buffalo Sauce

• Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
• Butter: Unsalted

Taco Ingredients

• Flour taco tortillas: I used one 6-pack. You can also use corn tortillas (or hard taco shells)
• Shredded romaine lettuce: you can also use iceberg lettuce or shredded kale
• Homemade blue cheese dressing: I used my own recipe. You can also use your favorite blue cheese dressing from the grocery store.
• Avocado oil spray: For browning the tortillas, You can also use olive oil.

Be sure to check out the recipe card at the bottom of the post for the full recipe, including the exact ingredient amounts and step-by-step instructions.

How To Make Air Fryer Buffalo Chicken Tacos

1. Air fry the chicken breasts at 400 for 6-8 minutes per side (depending on how large they are). 
2. Toss the cooked chicken in the sauce and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Cut the breast or tenders into thin slices and return it to the sauce.
3. Heat a large cast iron pan for 2-3 minutes, add the taco shells 2-3 at a time, and heat for 30-45 seconds per side. The goal is to heat and brown them a little.
4. For each taco, add 1-2 large spoonfuls of blue cheese dressing, chicken with some hot sauce, a generous amount of lettuce, more blue cheese, and cilantro.

Recipe Tips & FAQs

• Use leftover chicken or cook chicken from scratch: I make chicken from scratch for my buffalo chicken tacos recipe, but you can reuse leftover chicken meat. If using shredded rotisserie chicken, be sure to simply toss it in the homemade buffalo sauce.
• To make low-carb tacos: Use your favorite low-carb tortilla.
• Alternative for flour tortillas: You can use corn tortillas or hard taco shells.

Suggestions For Toppings & Garnishes

Here are some ideas for how to customize your tacos:

• A small bowl of blue cheese dressing and leftover hot sauce
• Blue cheese crumbles
• Pico de gallo
• Celery sticks
• Fresh cilantro
• Green onions
• Sour cream
• Bacon

Storage & Leftovers

Store your leftover buffalo chicken tacos in an airtight container for next time. I prefer to store the components in separate bowls. This way, they still taste like they do the first time every time that I make them. 

Variations

There are lots of ways to cook chicken for amazing taco results. Below are simple variations for this chicken taco recipe:

• Instant pot buffalo chicken tacos: Use my shredded buffalo chicken recipe to cook chicken breasts or chicken thighs in your pressure cooker for your tacos.
• Air fryer chicken for tacos: You can use air fryer buffalo chicken tenders, buffalo chicken thighs, buffalo chicken bites, or air fryer buffalo chicken breasts to make air-fried chicken tacos.
• Easy crispy buffalo chicken tacos: Add the homemade buffalo sauce to these air fryer frozen chicken tenders right before serving
• Buffalo chicken tacos with coleslaw: Swap the lettuce in this recipe for my low-carb coleslaw – this easy recipe uses coleslaw mix from the store and a sugar substitute (but you can use whatever sweetener you prefer).
• Mini buffalo chicken tacos: Use mini tortillas or tortillas for street tacos.
• Buffalo ranch chicken tacos: Substitute regular buffalo chicken for buffalo ranch chicken by using Greek yogurt ranch dip or homemade ranch dressing instead of blue cheese. Or, simply add ranch seasoning mix to taste to the homemade buffalo sauce.

FAQs

More Buffalo Chicken Recipes

Here are more delicious spicy chicken recipes:

• Buffalo Chicken Pasta
• Buffalo Chicken Thighs
• Buffalo Chicken Bites
• Honey Buffalo Chicken Wings
• Buffalo Chicken Meatballs
• Instant Pot Buffalo Shredded Chicken