These fresh, bright, gluten-free chicken tacos with easy homemade tortillas and mango salsa are seriously to die for!
I came back from an incredible vacation in Puerto Vallarta and just had to keep going with the flavors of sun, sand, and travel! Bright, fresh, vibrant, and alive, it was absolutely necessary to make some healthy and delicious tacos with seared chicken, mango, cucumber, mint, jalapeño, and tons of lime juice! It’s the homemade gluten-free tortillas, though, that make this chicken taco recipe the best taco recipe ever.
One of the most wonderful parts of our vacation was the fact that freshly made tacos were everywhere! Bright and vibrant ingredients with hot chicken, warm octopus, and shrimp, or cool raw fish, every single taco was the best I’d ever had. What made them all special were the freshly made tortillas.
You can find packaged tortillas in local stores, but nearly everywhere I went offered tortillas freshly made while I waited. Not just in grocery stores and shops but even in little shacks and roadside stands. It was such a great reminder that making your own tortillas is almost as easy as buying a package, and it’s infinitely more rewarding! Warm, fresh, fragrant, and delicious, they just couldn’t be easier! Three ingredients and naturally gluten-free, you just need to find a package of Maseca (this link will take you to Amazon, but you can probably find Maseca much cheaper in your local grocery store). Once you have the Maseca, the rest of the ingredients are just water and salt! (Though, as always, you can fancy the recipe up if you want to!) Though you can definitely just buy ready-made tortillas, making your own takes this chicken taco recipe from awesome to completely unbeatable.
I do have a tortilla press that I picked up years ago, and they are so easy to find on sale if you look around a little. Once you have one, you can press the dough directly, put a little plastic wrap in there for easier prep and clean-up, or, what I’ve found to be by far the easiest method, you can cut the sides of a ziplock bag open and then press your tortilla right in there! It’s so much easier than any other method! Don’t have (or want) a tortilla press? You can definitely just press these out with your hands or roll them with a rolling pin. Actually, my dad has a press and just doesn’t like to use it; he swears that pressing them out by hand is far easier than finding his press, hauling it out, and cleaning it when he’s done! Since his tortillas are absolute perfection every time, I wouldn’t dream of arguing with him on this point.
No matter how you make them, warm and fresh soft homemade tortillas will make any recipe, particularly this chicken taco recipe, better than all the rest.
So, without further ado, here are:
Seared chicken tacos with homemade tortillas and mango-cucumber salsa
- For the tortillas (makes 16)
- 2 cups Maseca
- 1 1/3 cup warm water
- 1/2 tsp salt
- For the tacos
- 1 ea chicken breast (makes enough for 6-8 tacos)
- 1/2 mango, peeled and diced
- 1/2 cucumber, peeled and diced
- 1 ea radish, julienned
- 1/2 jalapeno, seeds and membranes removed, finely diced or minced
- 5 leaves mint, sliced thinly
- 1/2 cup red cabbage, shredded
- 1/2 carrot, peeled and julienne or shredded on a grater
- juice of 1 lime
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1/4 tsp chipotle powder or paprika
- salt, pepper
- Garnish (all optional)
- lime wedges, good salt, hot sauce, avocado slices, fresh cilantro
- combine the ingredients and mix well. You want a dough that’s just a little wet, but not too wet, so if you find that your mix is a little dry, add more water 1 Tbs at a time. If it’s a little too wet, sprinkle 1 Tbs Maseca in.
- Form into 16 equal portions and roll into balls. Press each ball into a round,
- Heat a pan on medium-high heat and cook each tortilla on both sides about 50 seconds, until slightly colored in places. You don’t need oil, but you can use it if you find that your tortillas are sticking.
- Remove from the pan and keep warm, covered with a slightly damp towel.
- Heat the oven to 350
- Heat a pan with oil until almost smoking. Season both sides of the chicken breast with salt and pepper. Carefully add the chicken to the pan, and lower the heat to medium-low. Cook until the first side is golden 3-5 minutes. Carefully flip, cook for 2 more minutes, and place in the oven (in an oven-safe pan) for 10-12 minutes, until cooked through. Remove, squeeze a little lime juice over, let cool, and slice thinly against the grain.
- Combine the cabbage and carrots with a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lime juice. Mix really well and let sit for 10 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.
- Combine the mango, cucumber, jalapeno, radish, lime juice, olive oil, chipotle powder, and a pinch of salt. Mix well, taste, and adjust seasoning. Just before serving, gently mix in the mint.
- Place about 1 Tbs cabbage mix on a warm tortilla, top with chicken, and then spoon salsa over. Garnish as desired. Dig in and enjoy!
*This post may contain affiliate links!