One Pot Taco Skillet
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This is the best Taco Skillet dinner recipe. Loaded with ground beef, veggies and rice. It’s an easy one pan, cheesy, healthy dinner! This post is sponsored by my friends at ButcherBox.
If you love easy, healthy meals, you will love this One Pot Cheesy Taco Skillet! This recipe is perfect for busy weeknights or when you just want to whip up something delicious without spending a ton of time in the kitchen!
Plus, it’s made in one pan with only 10 simple ingredients (that you probably already have on hand! One pan meals are the best, right?!
Whether you’re short on time or just want a yummy meal this easy, one pot dinner is about to become your new favorite!
Tips for This Recipe:
- Chop your veggies ahead of time to save time. You can store them in the fridge for up to 48 hours before cooking.
- Customize it: Choose your favorite toppings and add-ons, like extra cheese, guacamole, or salsa, to make it uniquely yours. Check out our favorite ways to serve below!
- Use freshly grated cheddar cheese. It melts so much better.
Ingredients:
Substitutions
Olive Oil: You can substitute avocado oil, butter, or ghee in place of olive oil.
Ground Beef: We like 85/15 ground beef. Feel free to use leaner ground beef depending on what you like. To make vegetarian you can use cooked lentils or ground beef substitute. You’ll need to adjust your cooking time. I haven’t tried making this with ground turkey or ground chicken but I think it would work fine! If you have chicken breasts, try Chicken Taco Skillet.
Broth: Broth and stock are the same thing! You can use any broth or stock interchangeably. Beef Broth, Chicken Broth, or vegetable broth all work interchangeably. I always use low or no salt broth.
Tomato Sauce: You can use your own homemade tomato sauce, but we prefer canned tomato sauce. Note that canned tomato sauce and jarred pasta sauce are very different, jarred pasta sauce is much thicker and usually has seasonings added to it.
White rice: Brown rice should work as a white rice substitute in this recipe, but it will take much longer to cook and you may need more broth. I wouldn’t recommend subbing cauliflower rice because I think it would be very soggy and does not need all that broth.
Cheese: Cheese is optional on top. We always buy a block of cheddar and grate it ourselves because it melts better! Pepperjack or colby jack would also be great in this recipe.
Taco Seasoning: We love making our own taco seasoning. It’s lower in salt and doesn’t have any funky ingredients! We like this brand of taco seasoning if you don’t want to make your own.
Add beans: You can add 1 cup of cooked black beans or pinto beans to the pan.
Add extra flavor: This would also be delicious with diced green chiles added to it!
We used ButcherBox Ground Beef in this recipe. We enjoy their ground beef multiple times a week in healthier dishes like this Taco Pasta, Taco Casserole, and Taco Salad!
ButcherBox is super convenient because they deliver high quality meat right to your door. It arrives completely frozen so you can just defrost & cook as needed!
Their ground beef is 100% grass fed and grass finished. It’s an 85/15 blend which is perfect for burgers, soups, stews, and everything in between!
We have it in our freezer at all times and love to make easy healthy meals with it! Check out: Is Butcher Box a Good Deal
How to make One Pan Taco Skillet
- Brown ground beef in olive oil for 10 minutes until no longer pink. Add onions and garlic and sauté for an additional 5 minutes.
- Stir in the remaining ingredients, except cheese, cover, and bring to a boil.
- Reduce to a simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally until rice is cooked. Top with cheddar cheese, cover until cheese is melted.
- Garnish with sliced avocados and fresh parsley. Enjoy!
Serving Suggestions
This Cheesy Taco Skillet is a complete meal on its own, but would also be delicious in a taco shell, or tortilla, with tortilla chips or on a bed of lettuce as a delicious twist on a taco salad.
Top with a variety of toppings like lettuce, tomatoes, onions, jalapeños, cilantro, black olives, sour cream and extra shredded cheese. You can also serve it alongside:
Storage
Storing: This taco skillet will last in the refrigerator for up to 3 days in an airtight container.
Freezing: You can freeze this cheesy taco skillet recipe for up to 3 months. We like these containers for freezing!
If you need more freezer friendly recipes check out our Fill Your Freezer Ebook with 22 easy freezer meals!
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave or on the stove. If frozen, you can thaw for 12-24 hours in the refrigerator or heat directly from frozen.
Other healthy one pot recipes:
Looking for other easy one pot meals? Check out these 40+ Healthy Dinner Recipes. Click here to grab our free healthy 30 minute dinners cookbook.
Don’t forget! Right now you can get free ground beef. That means you’ll get 2 lbs of ground beef in your first box and $10 off!
One Pot Taco Skillet
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 lb ground beef
- ½ cup onion diced
- 1 tablespoon minced garlic
- 1/2 tablespoon taco seasoning
- 15 oz can tomato sauce NOT pasta sauce. look for low/no salt!
- 1 cup dry white rice
- 2 cup beef broth low or no salt
- 3 cups bell pepper diced
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
- In a large saute pan, heat olive oil. Brown ground beef for 10 minutes until no longer pink. Add onions and garlic and saute for an additional 5 minutes.
- Add taco seasoning, tomato sauce, white rice, beef broth and bell peppers to the pot. Stir together, cover and bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, reduce to a simmer and cook for 20-25 minutes, stirring occasionally until rice is cooked.
- Once rice is cooked, top with cheddar cheese, cover the pan for one minute and let the cheese melt.
Video
Quick, easy, and delicious! I used ground turkey instead of beef. Very flavorful. This will definitely be part of our taco rotation.
Made this tonight and was SOOO good!
We don’t eat white rice do you know a sub for brown?
I haven’t tried this with brown rice, but it typically has a longer cook time and might need more broth. you’ll have to play around with the cook time/watch the broth – you may need to add more. I’m sorry but without trying it I can’t be sure how long it will cook!
Delicious! So quick and easy. Replaced the ground beef with turkey and it was lovely! A pretty inexpensive meal too! I think even picky eaters would enjoy this meal! Great leftovers too!!
If you split the recipe in half how long would you suggest cooking?
I’ve never tried that so I’m not sure how it would affect the cook time. I would not split this recipe in half, I would just make it as is. It freezes very well. If it’s too much for you, portion it out into containers and freeze for another day!
You’d cook the recipe the same amount of time….the rice has to cook through….but like Liz stated freeze portions for another dinner or two….I buy those foil rectangular pans with the paper like lid…writing on the paper side what’s inside…I just did that for the deconstructed stuffed pepper skillet…
I love this one pot taco skillet, very easy to make and delicious!
Made this recipe for dinner on Monday night for my family and they LOVED it! It was so good! We all ate it with different taco shells, tortillas, over rice, etc. Highly reccomend! So flavorful!
We absolutely LOVE this recipe and make it at least once a week! It is a quick weeknight meal as well so more stars for that! Thank you!
Love this one pot meal! So easy and delicious. I make this once a month. I meal prep and always do a double batch and add some black beans and corn to it. Can’t wait for the cookbook to come out!
This is my favorite one pot recipe! It comes out so good every time. I just love it! May be my favorite recipe on the site.
Over the last few weeks I meal-prepped the decontructed cabbage rolls and unstuffed peppers so when I saw this recipe was similar (rice, ground beef, tomato sauce, beef stock, etc.), I just had to try it! It is so easy to make and clean up. I love that it is protein packed and keeps me full for a while. So flavorful, too! Especially when made with the Clean Eating Couple homemade taco seasoning. I added avocado and a spoonful of nonfat plain greek yogurt (in lieu of sour cream per a rec from a friend…highly recommend!). I love that it is easy to meal prep. I made it Monday and am set with dinners for a few days (which is great when you work 2 jobs). Next week will be the buffalo chicken rice bowl which is my fav! Then back to the start of the rotation 🙂
Another delicious one pan meal! I never would have thought to add peppers but they’re great in this recipe! I put this in a tortilla for my toddler and she ate the entire thing! My husband loved it with tortilla chips and I enjoyed it as is! Perfect, easy, weeknight dinner!
So happy you enjoyed it!
This is a tasty, easy meal! My family loved it!
I tried this and it was really good! I did change it up a bit and sautéed the onions and garlic before adding in my meat. I also substituted ground beef for ground chicken instead. My only thing I would do differently is add in some black beans and/or corn for an extra boost! As well as a little more taco seasoning! Really great overall and will make it again!
So glad you liked it! Ground chicken and ground beef taste very different because of the lack of fat in chicken so it might have affected the taste.
Excellent! I shared with my nephew, who said “I could eat 80 pounds of this stuff!”.
Can instant rice be used or does it have to be regular white rice?
Instant rice cooks differently than regular white rice and would likely use less broth, so I wouldn’t recommend that. It might change the cook time/consistency. Sorry I couldn’t be more help but without trying it I can’t say!
Dish was delicious and so easy to make! Will be in our rotation for sure!
Made this yesterday and it was awesome. I added some corn to the dish, just because it seemed to belong.
Do you have thawing instructions?
Freezing: You can freeze this cheesy taco skillet recipe for up to 3 months.
Reheating: You can reheat this recipe in the microwave or on the stove. Defrost for 12-24 hours in the refrigerator or heat directly from frozen.
My husband hates rice. Could you use pasta instead of rice. What are the measurements for the taco seasoning?
I would make this Taco Pasta instead if you want pasta 🙂 The taco seasoning is linked in the blog post but here’s the link again! Healthy Taco Seasoning.
Loved it! Added some zucchini but made no other changes. My teen son gobbled it up!
This recipe was a great fridge cleaner! I had all the ingredients on hand and was so yummy !! Always love your recipes!
no rice in the ingredients list?
there is no rice under the ingredient list??
I saw dry white wine not dry white rice. LOL
I’ve made this 3 times & every time I swear I see wine instead of rice lol
LOL!! Feel free to pair with a glass of dry white wine!
This is easy and delicious! And only 1 pan to wash too. I followed the recipe exactly, including the homemade taco seasoning, and it was so good. I will definitely put this in our dinner rotation. Thanks for the great recipe!