If there’s one thing on my website that I can convince you to make, I hope it can be this recipe. These tacos are out of this world delicious, but don’t let the recipe intimidate you. It looks like a lot of ingredients and some complicated steps but really you’re just throwing a bunch of things into the food processor and blending them up into a paste, I know you can do it!
One of my friends that I used to cook with made something similar to this for me as a sauce and ever since it hit my taste buds, I crave it all the time! The sauce that I created is used both as a taco sauce and as the marinade for your chicken. It starts out with a few base ingredients that you should be able to find at your local Hispanic market or, you can click the links. If you’ve never used dried peppers before then you’re in for a treat, they are so delicious and easy to store since they’re dried. For this recipe we use two kinds of dried peppers. First is the Guajillo Chiles, these are long chili pods that are a beautiful dark red color, the other is a dried Ancho Chiles, when these peppers are fresh they’re also known as poblanos. Sometimes when you use dried peppers in a recipe it calls for rehydrating them but for this one we’re actually going to toast them in a pan to bring out some of the oils that are trapped inside of those dried peppers. You can use a pan to toast your peppers and your spices or you can toast your peppers directly over the flame, you just need to be careful to not let them burn or get too dark. Basically all we’re doing is warming up the chili so that the oils are more available when it’s blended. Warm up your peppers whole until they’re nice and soft and pliable then go ahead and remove the stem and some of the seeds those can be thrown away. Place your toasted peppers and all other ingredients into your Food Processor or high powered blender. Blend until a paste is formed you will most likely need to scrape down the sides a few times to make sure everything is evenly incorporated. Blend in the Crema at the end until everything is evenly mixed and there are no more clumps left it should be a beautiful brick red color at this point. I like to save about 1/3 of the mixture to use on the tacos as a sauce and use the rest as a marinade.
For this marinade I’ve use both chicken thighs and chicken breast and they both work beautifully. I think I prefer the boneless skinless chicken thighs over the breast just a little bit because the fat content makes it so delicious but you can’t go wrong with chicken breast either. If you’re going to use boneless skinless thighs use about eight pieces if you’re going to use chicken breast you’ll use four large breasts cut long ways into eight pieces. Cover your chicken in the sauce and marinate in the refrigerator overnight up to 24 hours. When you’re ready to cook your chicken, turn your grill on to medium high and let it heat up. Make sure to oil your grill grates so that nothing sticks and grill your chicken on medium high until it is cooked through and reaches an internal temperature of 165°F. Let your cooked chicken rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing in.
I like to top my tacos with the chicken, creamer, the reserved sauce, and pickled red onions. You can also add fresh cilantro Pico to Gallo and cabbage if you’re looking for something a little more hearty. This chicken also works really well the next day on salads or even on sandwiches with a little Hispanic flair. I hope you get this recipe a try, it is so good and I know you’ll love it!
Try it with these other delicious recipes!
Guajillo Chicken Tacos
Ingredients
- 3 Dried Guajillo Chilis
- 1 Dried Ancho Chili
- 4 clove Garlic
- ½ bunch Cilantro
- ¾ tsp Coriander Seed
- ½ tsp Cumin Seed
- ½ medium Yellow Onion
- 2 tsp Salt
- ⅓ cup Crema
- 1 Lime Juiced
- 8 Boneless Skinless Chicken Thighs
OR
- 4 Chicken Breasts
Instructions
- Gather all of your ingredients then heat up a pan on medium high heat.
- Toast your peppers in the pan until they are warm and pliable. remove from the heat and remove the stem and seeds. Place your peppers in your blender or food processor.
- Using the same pan, toast your spices until they are fragrant, about 30 seconds, stirring constantly. Once your spices are toasted, put them into the blender or food processor.
- Put the rest of your ingredients into your blender or food processor minus the crema. Blend until a paste is formed, you will need to scrape down the sides a few times.
- Once the paste is formed, add in your crema and blend to combine.
- Reserve about 1/3 of the sauce to use on your tacos. Use the remaining sauce to marinate your chicken thighs or breast. If you are using chicken breast, cut them in half long ways so you get 8 thin cutlets.
- Refrigerate and leave in the marinade overnight or at least 8 hours.
- After the chicken has marinated and you are ready to cook, turn on your grill to medium heat. Cook the marinated chicken until it is cooked through to an internal temperature of 165°F
- Let the chicken rest for ten minutes while you gather your favorite taco toppings!
- I like to use corn tortillas, the chicken, pickled red onion, crema and more guajillo sauce, cilantro and cotija.
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