The Best Ground Beef or Turkey Tacos {20-Minute Meal}
Made with a from-scratch taco seasoning that will revolutionize your family taco night, these simple skillet ground beef tacos are perfect!
Tacos are a family favorite around here.
But, much to my family’s dismay, good ol’ classic ground beef tacos don’t appear as often as they would like.
I can always tell when I’ve been experimenting with too many new recipes. My family will turn their long, sad faces toward me and ask: “can we please have tacos…or spaghetti tonight??”
Ugh. Fine.
I can take the hint that we need to go back to the basics every once in a while.
And to be honest, I’m usually happier for it, too, even though I grumble just to make a point.
Homemade Taco Seasoning
How can you complain about a simple weeknight meal, like these perfect ground beef tacos (can totally use ground turkey, too!) that are made from scratch and still on the table in less than 30 minutes.
These homemade tacos really are the best-ever.
They are the only ground beef tacos I’ve made over the last, probably, ten years, because…well, why change a good thing?
You can even feel good about ditching the prepackaged taco seasoning, because a) you can always come back to it later, and b) these tacos are just as fast and easy (and dare I say, more delicious).
As we all know, the great thing about ground beef tacos is that the sky’s the limit as far as how you serve them and what you serve them with.
We are in the camp of crunchy taco shells all the way.
When I feel like it (and think my family won’t revolt), I change up this already simple taco meal and use the meat over a giant taco salad (similar to this chopped taco salad – that homemade dressing is so delicious, it makes me weep).
And one of our favorite rebellious taco moves is to make taco quesadillas instead of the so-last-summer tacos my kids love.
It’s as simple as it sounds – slap a tortilla on a griddle or in a hot skillet, cover it with taco meat, cheese, and another tortilla, and cook until golden and that cheese is all melty.
Once the taco quesadilla is cut into slices, we pile all adornments (lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream, avocados…you know) right on top and dig in with a fork.
Super yummy.
So clearly, the options are endless with this classic ground beef taco recipe! It’s a favorite, favorite. Hope you love it, too!
What To Serve With This:
Fresh fruit, or this Honey Lime Fruit Salad
Mexican Rice
The Best Ground Beef (or Ground Turkey) Tacos
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef or ground turkey
- ½ to ¾ cup chopped white or yellow onion
- 1 to 3 garlic cloves, finely minced, or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 2 teaspoons ground cumin
- 2 teaspoons ground coriander
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ to ½ teaspoon black pepper
- 1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce
- 1 jalapeño, seeded and finely minced (optional)
- Taco shells
- Taco toppings of choice
Instructions
- In a large skillet over medium heat, add the ground beef or turkey, onion, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Cook, stirring often and breaking the meat into small pieces, until the meat is cooked through, 5-7 minutes.
- Off the heat, drain any excess grease, if needed.
- Return the skillet to the heat and stir in the garlic, chili powder, cumin, coriander, salt and pepper. Cook for about 30 seconds until the mixture smells fragrant.
- Add the tomato sauce and minced jalapeños, if using. Simmer the mixture for about 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Season to taste with additional salt and pepper, if needed.
- Serve in taco shells with your choice of toppings (makes great taco salad, too!).
Recommended Products
Recipe Source: adapted from the Joy of Cooking
Recipe originally published April 2008; updated with new photos, commentary and recipe notes.
231 Comments on “The Best Ground Beef or Turkey Tacos {20-Minute Meal}”
Thank you for this simple but awesome recipe. I finally found out what’s lacking in my dull, dry boring beef taco. I’m a follower now.
I’ve been making this recipe for our family since late 2019, and it is amazing. We make it at least once a month (the kids start harassing me if I’ve gone too long without making it). I omit the jalapenos for the kids, but a good hot sauce helps to add heat for the adults. I’ve also found that we often use more than 8 ounces of tomato sauce, since we like to let it simmer longer to help the flavors deepen even more. We top with diced tomatoes, avocado, cheese, and cream cheese (and hot suace), and it’s a winner every time.
We’ve been loving this for years! It’s ALWAYS a dinnertime success. I bought a giant 7-lb pack of hamburger from Costco and made it all into taco meat, divided them into dinnertime servings, and tossed them in the freezer for easy taco nights. I also just finished writing out the recipe (giving you credit!) for a bridal shower with recipe requests! Thanks so much for this deliciousness.
The best hamburger taco recipe. Im. Always looking for the best recipe of anything. I found this 3 months ago and yummy 5 plus stars
Made tacos I gave it a 10 rating. A lot better than using prepackaged seasoning. Was impressed with the recipe. Going to try her Lasagna. Would highly recommend her recipes.
These are so good! I have wanted to make our tacos healthier by using spices instead of a package and this was perfect! The flavor is so fresh and I love how moist they are. I add rotel, corn and black beans to my tacos to stretch the meat and add healthy ingredients and that worked for this recipe too – I didn’t have to make any adjustments. Thank you Mel! This is a new favorite.
I am curious…It doesn’t look like you used your homemade taco seasoning in this. If you didn’t, why not? Also, if using your homemade taco seasoning, how much do you use?
You could use about 2 tablespoons if using taco seasoning (homemade or not).
Out of the 8 of us only 3 liked the meat. 🙁 We love tacos and eat them a lot. Just didn’t work for my kids. My husband loved the flavor and wants them again. I may try it without the tomato sauce and see if the kids will eat it that way. I love this site and we use it all the time. This one just didn’t quite work for all of us.
this is the most awful stuff i have ever tried to eat. Folks do not add tomato sauce to taco meat. It turns it into ill flavored spaghetti sauce.
Maybe something was off with your tomato sauce?? This is far and away the best taco meat we’ve ever had! I’ve had people rave about it when I’ve made it. Doesn’t taste anything like spaghetti sauce to us….
After making this again last night, I am wondering if you need to double check the freshness/quality of your spices?
Or, did you add pasta sauce instead of just plain, non flavored tomato sauce?
To make this meal stretch further, I double the spices (except the chili powder…we are spice wimps) and tomato sauce, and add in a 15-oz can of drained pinto beans to the meat after it’s done cooking. Once the beans are heated through, I mash the whole thing with a potato masher. You seriously can’t tell that there are beans in there and no one but my husband and I are the wiser. Our family of 6 used to go through this recipe in one sitting, but now with adding the beans and extra sauce, it is enough for us to split it in half and have it for two meals. Which is awesome.
Thanks for this tip! I had a crowd tonight so I doubled the original recipe, added an extra 8oz can of tomato sauce and 2 cans of pinto beans (added after meat was cooked) and mashed liked you suggested. Super tasty and a great way to stretch the meat.
MY MISTAKE!! I just posted saying the dish came out too sauce-y, too tomato-y… but it’s my fault. I just checked the 2 cans I used and they each contained 15 ounces (!). Duh! In doubling the recipe, I used 2 lbs beef, etc. One can of sauce would have been just fine. Apologies!!!
Just made this tonight. Overall, a definite success. Next time I make it, I will definitely use only half the amount of tomato sauce because it was just too saucy/wet/tomato-y tasting. But outside of that personal preference, ohh BOY were these great!
Thanks for sharing your recipe, Mel!
I will try this recipe next week when we go down to the shore.
Becky B.
Seriously so yummy and easy to make excellent weeknight meal
This is my go-to recipe and has been for YEARS. Thank you for this. It’s been in heavy rotation for Tuesdays!
Made this today to have with low carb tortillas and they were a big hit! Everyone loved it (I was deliberately heavy handed with the spices so it was warm) and I’ll definitely be making this again soon.
I made these tacos tonight with spaghetti sauce left over from last night (per the recipe). Instead of coriander, I used cilantro. I chose turkey meat for the taco shells. I also omitted the jalapeños – Intold my boys they could add Tapatila instead, if needed. Salsa was also available for a topping. These tacos came out amazing! Something new!
This is hands down the best beef taco recipe. I make it at least once a month. A winner with much kids too!
I made this just tonight. I used Chipotle chili powder and we found it to be a bit warm. We both had a couple of saltine crackers after the taco’s to take some of the heat away.
Will make it again and reduce the amount of chili powder as the fragrance and flavor were excellent.
These tacos are the best!!! We make them at least once a month. This recipe is how I discovered your site. I love it. Thank you!!!!
It was delicious, the spice combination were perfect including coriander, chilly, and cumin. Its always good to mix coriander when using chilly, blends nicely. Thank you!
This is one of my favorite recipes, but I wanted to share something funny that happened while I was making it last night! I was making it for a crowd, so I sextupled it (yes, that’s a word! 6x). I was running late, of course, and wasn’t paying much attention and put 6 tablespoons of cayenne pepper instead of chili powder!!!!! I tried to salvage it because I couldn’t just throw six pounds of ground beef away! So we had a semi hot batch, and a super spicy batch!! My brother in law from Honduras loved it, and both the missionaries ate the spicy meat. One of them was about 3 shades of red the whole time and was sweating profusely, but they loved it. We had a good laugh, but make sure you read the labels! HA!!
Oh my goodness, Natasha! 6 tablespoons of cayenne! My mouth is burning just thinking about it!
Tried this recipe. It was not all that great. Coriander ruined it for me, even though I like coriander. Fresh squeezed like kind of countered some of it, but don’t be making it again.
It wasn’t bad by any means, just not the flavor profile I was looking for. Odd that any negative reviews get thoroughly bashed on here.
Lime, not like
I made the taco meat for my family. It was very good. I doubled it. I think next time I will reduce the tomato sauce by half tho. I used hard shells and put them in the oven with the cheese and meat in them. Then we added avocado tomatoes and lettuce.
I made this recipe last night and it was absolutely DELICIOUS!! I usually prefer chicken tacos over ground beef but this was so good. My husband and I ate darn near the whole thing. My husband is usually the cook and I am jut starting to try cooking myself and I find all your recipes delicious and easy to follow.
Thank you for sharing these great recipes! =)