Oven baked tacos come together so quick and easy. And they are easy to eat, too. Not a lot of mess with taco meat falling out with every bite. They are literally the easiest way to make and serve tacos. Our kids often get so frustrated when they take a bite of their taco, the shell breaks, and taco filling is falling out. These are so easy for little hands to hold.
With oven baked tacos, the meat stays put. The shell slightly softens when cooked. We love using the taco shells with a flat bottom. They can stand up on their own, and that helps holds in the taco meat so well.These tacos are great on their own without any extra toppings. That’s how our kids like to eat them.
Recipe Ingredient Notes
To make our oven baked beef tacos, you need the following ingredients:
- Ground beef
- Onion
- Garlic
- Black beans
- Taco seasoning
- Chunky salsa
- Hard taco shells
- Shredded cheddar cheese
- Tomatoes
- Lettuce
- Canned olives
- Sour cream
Equipment Needed
For this recipe, you only need a few simple kitchen tools. We recommend using the following equipment:
How to Make Our Oven Baked Beef Tacos
- Preheat oven to 400℉.
- In a large skillet, brown you hamburger along with the chopped onion and garlic. Cook until meat is brown, drain grease well.
- Add black beans, taco seasoning, and salsa. Mix well and let cook for a couple of minutes so that the flavors can meld and the mixture can thicken.
- In a large 9 x 13 inch baking dish, line up all the taco shells. Fill each one with a couple of scoops of the beef mixture and pack down into the shell. Repeat until all the shells are filled. Top each taco with shredded cheese.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes (or until all the cheese is melted).
- Serve with your favorite taco toppings (tomatoes, lettuce, olives, sour cream, guacamole, hot sauce, or whatever you like).
Recipe Notes
You can switch beef for healthier options such as ground turkey or ground chicken. Shredded beef would also be tasty in these oven baked tacos. If you had a lot of leftovers after a big Sunday pot roast, just shred the beef and add it to the recipe.
Toppings for these tacos are endless. They are great way to individualize each taco, and you can create a taco bar with sour cream, pico de gallo, shredded lettuce, sliced olives, diced tomatoes, and taco sauce.
Serving Suggestions
We recommend serving this recipe with our Mexican Street Corn Salad, Instant Pot Cilantro Lime Rice, and Slow Cooker Refried Beans. You can find more Mexican-inspired recipes here.
Enjoy More Beef Main Dishes
The possibilities for delicious beef main dishes are endless, from cuts of meat like steak or roast, to family-friendly ground beef dishes, explore our comprehensive collection of beef recipes.
Oven Baked Beef Tacos Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 teaspoon minced garlic
- 1 (15 ounce) can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 (1 ounce) packet taco seasoning
- 1 cup chunky salsa
- 12 hard taco shells
- 1½ cups shredded cheddar cheese
- 2 tomatoes, diced (optional topping)
- 1 cup lettuce, shredded (optional topping)
- 6 ounces canned olives, sliced (optional topping)
- 1 cup sour cream, (optional topping)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400℉.
- In a large skillet, brown you hamburger along with the chopped onion and garlic. Cook until meat is brown, drain grease well.
- Add black beans, taco seasoning, and salsa. Mix well and let cook for a couple of minutes so that the flavors can meld and the mixture can thicken.
- In a large 9 x 13 inch baking dish, line up all the taco shells. Fill each one with a couple of scoops of the beef mixture and pack down into the shell. Repeat until all the shells are filled. Top each taco with shredded cheese.
- Bake for 8-10 minutes (or until all the cheese is melted).
- Serve with your favorite taco toppings (tomatoes, lettuce, olives, sour cream, guacamole, hot sauce, or whatever you like).
Notes
Nutrition
Video
Did You Make This Recipe?We’d love to hear your thoughts! Leave a review or a question in the comment section below the post.
These look so delicious! My 9 year old just saw the picture and wants me to make them now!
Thank you! This looks fantastic! It’s on my list to make this week. I think my kiddos will love this – makes it much easier it seems!
We have made these for years. We put a layer of cheese in the bottom of the shells and heat to melt the cheese. This helps to keep the meat mixture from soaking through the shell and the shells falling apart. Such an easy way to serve tacos.
These look delicious and I’m gonna have to try them. My 6 yr old granddaughter likes tacos (and she is the pickiest eater I know) but she doesn’t like that they break and fall apart. Thanks for this great idea.
These look great!!! Oven baked tacos are so versatile, you can do so many things with them. I really like the idea of adding the black beans. Now if I can only convince my daughter to eat them :)…she has a pickier palate!!
This looks amazing!!! Can’t wait to give them a try.
Maggie @ The Love Nerds
This is just a fancier version of the other baked tacos floating around the internet. Those are just the meat, refried beans and salsa mixed together, stuffed and topped with cheese. My kids love them! They aren’t bad with soft taco shells either!!
I made these tacos tonight and everyone loved them! Thanks for sharing the recipe!
We made these last night with ground turkey (and about 3.5 – 4 tablespoons of homemade taco seasoning) and they were delicious!! I couldn’t believe how much flavor they had and it was so easy – we will definitely make these again and again. Thanks for sharing!
The verdict is in–they love them! 🙂 My boys inhaled them and there is not a crumb left. My 7-year old said after the first, I think that these are as good as Taco Bells. Then after the second, these are better AND they don’t break! 🙂 Hooray! From a hard taco loving mom (daddy prefers soft) thank you…since they always complained when I fixed hard tacos because they always break! YUM! These were delicious AND worth using my oven on a hot summer day (well, I do have AC so I guess that I cheated!) But…delicious!!!
These tacos were a hit with my family of 5! Thank you for sharing the recipe 🙂
This recipe looks so tasty and yummy. I ll try for once sure .
Had these last night (with boca instead of beef) – so happy with the results! Will totally make these again. Thanks!!!
We are a family of FIve. Would this make enough for everyone to have two tacos? thanks
Will this make enough for a family of five to have two tacos a piece? Thank you.
The flavor was great but I couldn’t get the tacos to stand up in the pan. Any suggestions? Thanks!
Yes, we used 12 taco shells with this recipe!
Yes, we used 12 taco shells with this recipe!
I made these tacos lady night. Everyone loved them. Great way to make tacos for a party.
About to serve this to a house with 3 Bachelors! Primo! I have 1.2 lbs of ground beef and 10 taco shells. All will be eaten! Your photo is awesome! I have only one sister and then my mother was done. That’s just the way it is.
We love these! But since we hate black beans, what I do is stir in some of my homemade refried beans into the meat mixture 🙂
I made these tonight and everyone in my family loved them!! This is definitely a keeper.
Try using the flat bottomed hard shells!
THANK YOU! Made my own beans and look forward to having these tonight…what caught my eye especially was your little boy finding them easier to eat!!!!! BRILLIANT. THANK YOU.
We love these! This recipe is a keeper.
All I have on hand are soft corn tortilla’s. How can I use them for this?
You can cook corn tortillas in the oven and turn them into taco shells. Here is the link – http://realmomkitchen.com/12296/crispy-baked-taco-shells/
Nice and easy. Thank you.
Has anyone tried these with shredded chicken?
I made these again and my husband said, these are the best tacos you’ve ever made! 🙂 These will now be the only tacos we fix! YUM!
Shredded chicken would work great too!
I just wanted ti say we love this idea and recipe! We’ve had several times over the past few months and even for company. Everyone loves it. One tip that I’ve used recently is lining the pan with tinfoil and using the tin foil to prop up the tacos in between each taco – they sometimes tended to fall and make a mess. This makes clean-up even easier and the tacos stand up perfectly! Just wanted to share! 🙂
Oh and I use this with Pioneer Woman’s salsa all the time – it’s so good!
I made these tonight and were they a hit! To quote my husband…”You nailed it!” Super simple and tasted awesome! Will definitely make them again.
These are always a hit at our house. There are only three of us, so we eat half a batch at a time. The filling freezes wonderfully, pressed flat in a ziploc bag, and it makes for an even easier dinner the second night!
I was wondering if these can be assembled and then frozen (before or after baking) and reheated later? I’d love to hear if anyone has tried it how their results turned out!!
Thank you!
These were wonderful! Easy to make and very delicious. Love how all the flavors come together and meld into a scrumptious taco. Yummy.
Thank you so much for this recipe, it’s in my top 10 of all time! Thank you for all the time and energy you put into this blog for people you may never meet. Bless you!! – Allie 🙂
Made these last night, used ground chicken. Hubby and I really enjoyed them, they were a little to spicy for the kids. Used the homemade taco seasoning. I’ll not use as much pepper/red pepper flakes next time.
Absolutely delicious ! TFS
Does this filling freeze well? I think it’s going to be too much for hubby and I plus toddlers.
This taco filling will freeze great in an airtight container or freezer bag.
We loved the flavor of these but the mixture completely broke through the bottom of the shells. Did anyone else have this problem? Not sure how to remedy that!
I’ve just made this tonight for my crew and they love it! And it was so easy to make. I’m not making beef tacos any other way now. Thank you!
Hi Danni! These are so much easier! It’s always a bonus when the family loves it! Have a great weekend.
Probably a silly question but did you not drain the ground beef?
We drained the ground beef.
These were great! Made 15 tacos – served with lettuce, cherry tomatoes and avocado ceviche- yum!
Forgot to say that I used ground turkey instead of ground beef
As other commenter mentioned, put a little shredddd cheese in shell before placing meat and bean mixture- worked great!
I have made these several times. They are a favorite but I have not figured out a way for them not to break or get soggy. They always break before I can get them on the plate and I always drain the meat. Any ideas?
Anyone else have any suggestions on how to not make these soggy? Mine always break?
I loved the recipe, but the shells started to split on the bottom. Any suggestions?
We haven’t had that problem. Were they splitting because they were soggy? We haven’t had a soggy issue either. We fill them and bake them.
When I was in high school, my mom used this recipe. I have always loved it and now make it for my family. Easy and so yummy!