PW Wednesdays ~ Fried Chicken Tacos
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A few weeks back Julie asked a few of us if we wanted to take part in a special group blogging of The Pioneer Woman’s new cookbook, Food From My Frontier. We’ll be doing bi-weekly posts featuring some of our favorites. This week Julie chose fried tacos for us to make. I’m eager to see and hear what everyone thought of them.
I’m a fan of tacos. I may keep mine pretty basic, but I still love them. In fact, we have tacos pretty regularly here… at least every other week, sometimes every week if I’m not feeling very creative in the kitchen. They’re simple to whip up and really require no thought. I’m not sure why I’d never thought to fry tacos before. I love fried food and then there’s my love for tacos.
I know a lot of people shy away from making fried food because they’re greasy. These really aren’t greasy and they’re pretty simple to make. A bit more work than the average taco but totally worth it. Imagine: seasoned chicken in a flaky fried tortilla, then topped off with cheese, shredded lettuce and your other favorite additions. The cheese becomes hot and melty, it’ll want to ooze out with every bite. Aaah-mazing!
I made reduced quantities from what is shown in Ree’s recipe, since the original states it should feed 8 or make 16 tacos. We didn’t need anywhere near that much.
My notes:
-Don’t overfill your tortilla’s with chicken. Leave a bit of space on the edge because some will want to spill out while frying. If you can, push the chicken back in or just toss it. Whatever floats your boat.
-Do hold onto the top edges of the tortilla while frying. I let go ever so slightly and POOF it bubbled up like crazy. Completely comical but it’s hard to bounce back after that. Thankfully that was my first so I considered it a practice round.
-Use your favorite fillings. If Roma tomatoes don’t suit you, use another variety. I’ve used Roma for tacos in the past when our store was out of every other variety… how on earth does that even happen? The Mr wasn’t crazy about that so I stuck to Hot House. I opted to not use hot sauce at all. I also chose to add chopped pickled jalapeños as a topping instead of mixing in with the chicken.
-Wrap that sucker up good after frying and shake away. It’ll help remove the excess oil so the taco isn’t too greasy. If you want a little bit, don’t shake quite as much. I enjoyed having a slight bit amount of oil in mine. It was beyond perfect.
-After adding your cheese, wrap the taco back up. This will hold in the heat and help melt that cheese so it’s super gooey and awesome. You want that, trust me.
-Do eat these hot.
-Most of all… DO make these! I promise you, they’re incredibly delicious. And maybe even serve them with your favorite lemonade or margarita.
Be sure to check out the other Pioneer Woman Wednesday posts:
My Life as a Mrs
Running to the Kitchen
Wanna be a Country Cleaver
And hop on over to Julie’s for the complete recipe:
Table For Two Blog
If you try these, be sure to let me know! :)
I. Need. This. Now.
yours look GOOD! i love how golden they turned out. i like that you added tips at the bottom of the post, those will really help others if they make this. i guess we were the guinea pigs..and i pray that no one else from our group picks a fried dish again hahaha
Yours came out fab! Perfectly golden all around. I think you may have had the tamest experience out of us all ;)
Oh my word, I want those RIGHT now. I’ve never had tacos fried like that but I’m pretty sure if I made them, I’d never go back :)
Wow, these look incredible. I mean, come on, a whole taco completely deep fried? I’m there! Just be sure to stop me when I eat about 5 of these without blinking.
Yours look amazing, Rachel. Beautiful styling. Looking forward to the next post already!
your tacos looks gorgeous!! :)
Your tacos look absolutely perfect, Rachel! Looks like the flour tortilla was the winner here.
These are perfect!
yours look awesome – i will definitely be giving this recipe a try!
I need to make these soon! We just had Taco’s last night, I love tacos!
These look so darn delicious, Rachel! Love this recipe and will definitely have to try it soon. Thanks for sharing!
I got PW’s book, and I’ve seriously picked it up and flipped through it cover to cover at least 20 times. And these fried tacos are the recipe I always stop on every time to drool over them a little bit. Now I HAVE to make them!
I made fried BBQ chicken tacos the other night. A trick I learned from my mom, keep the top closed with a toothpick, then you won’t have to worry about holding it shut or having it bubble up. I’m definitely going to have to try this variation!
I read someone else say that today too. I’m not sure it would work perfectly for this style where it needs to be flipped and pliable to fill with toppings after being fried. I’m sure it could work for another variety though!
We did flip it and fill it with toppings after. I did use flour tortillas though. Good luck on round two!
I guess I’d need to try it out or see it in action. :) Thanks for the suggestion. It was a fun (and tasty) experiment.
Oh.My.Gosh! You reeled me in with the first photo…then you talked about oozy cheese…fabulous!!
Gosh those look fabulous!!
These look amazing! What a great way to jazz up taco night! :)
Wonderful! Will have to try sometime too. I bet I’d love this.
Fried chicken! How decadent! This must have been quite the taco!
Love, love, love, love, love!
Mmm, you really can’t go wrong with tacos! These look so delicious!
I think I could get addicted to these. Love the contrasting of flavors and textures.
OH my goodness I would love that taco right about now. My sister introduced me to homemade fried tortilla shells and I can still taste how flaky and just plain awesome they are. Seriously, my mouth is watering right now. I think its time to make dinner.:)
Those tacos look heavenly! Will have to try them out one of these days!
MMMMMm…off to collect the recipe :)
who knew the taco could get better? well, you did it! thanks for being so inventive!