Ground Chicken Burritos

One bite of these homemade burritos and you’ll be hooked! These ground chicken burritos are absolutely loaded with flavourful ingredients, such as ground chicken, black beans, rice and cheddar cheese. They’re incredibly easy to prepare, super filling and so delicious.

Ingredients

• Olive oil: Use for sautéing the veggies. You can substitute with another cooking oil, such as vegetable oil or avocado oil.
• Veggies: Include onion, jalapeno and garlic.
• Ground chicken: I used an extra lean variety. Ground chicken is pretty lean, especially compared to something like ground beef. Even if you don’t use an extra lean version, that’s perfectly fine.
• Seasoning: Includes salt, black pepper, chili powder, ground chipotle chili pepper, dried oregano, ground cumin and cayenne pepper.
• Black beans: Canned black beans add some heartiness to the burritos. Use a no salt added variety if you want to cut back on the sodium. Whatever you use (regular or a no salt added version), be sure to rinse and drain them.
• Chicken broth: I used a regular chicken broth. Again, use a no salt added variety if desired.
• Diced green chilies: Cans of diced green chilies are usually found in the grocery store alongside jars of salsa. If preferred, you can substitute the diced green chilies for an equal amount of salsa.
• Flour tortillas: I used “burrito” size tortillas, which were about 12 inches in diameter. You can usually find these in the grocery store alongside other sizes of tortillas. If you can’t get your hands on those, you can use a smaller variety (something like a 10-inch tortilla). Just keep in mind that if you do use a smaller tortilla, you may need to use less of the burrito filling for each. A tortilla can only hold so much!
• Guacamole: Either store bought or homemade guacamole is great.
• Cooked rice: I used a flavoured variety of rice just to add another element of flavour to the burritos. Feel free to use a plain variety.
• Cheddar cheese: I used a marble cheddar cheese, which I shredded. You can substitute with another cheese, such as mozzarella or crumbled queso cotija.

How To Make Ground Chicken Burritos

Here is an overview of how to make these ground chicken burritos (full details are in the recipe card below):

Make the ground chicken and veggie filling

1. Sauté the onion and jalapeno until softened.
2. Stir in freshly minced garlic and cook until it’s nice and fragrant (things are starting to smell so good!).
3. Add the ground chicken and seasoning.
4. Cook the chicken until it’s fully cooked through, breaking it up into small pieces as it cooks.
5. Add the black beans, chicken broth and diced green chiles. Give everything a good stir.
6. Cook until the broth is absorbed.

Assemble and pan fry

1. For each burrito, spread some guacamole over the centre of a large flour tortilla.
2. Top the guacamole with cooked rice.
3. Layer on the ground chicken mixture.
4. Top with shredded cheddar cheese.
5. Fold into a burrito.
6. Place each burrito in a greased skillet and pan fry just until the outside gets a little golden brown colour. I find that this not only warms the outside of the burrito but helps seal it, making it a bit easier for eating. There ya have it, easy ground chicken burritos ready to be devoured. Yum!

What To Serve With Burritos

There are so many delicious side dishes to serve with burritos. Some of my favourites are:

• Tortilla chips and salsa (easy and light and probably my top side to serve with burritos)
• Black bean sweet potato soup (makes your meal quite a bit more substantial)
• Rice (I particularly love to serve burritos with Mexican rice)
• Crispy potato wedges
• Mexican street corn
• Garden salad

Tips and Variations

• Flour tortillas: As mentioned, the tortillas used in this ground chicken burritos recipe are about 12 inches in diameter. You can certainly use a smaller tortilla (I probably wouldn’t use anything smaller than a 10-inch tortilla). Just keep in mind, that if you use a smaller tortilla, you may have to use a tad less filling in each.
• Dipping sauce: Even though there is guacamole in the burrito filling, I always love to serve some with the burrito (I love to smear some on each bite). Sour cream or salsa are also great options.
• Beans: Instead of black beans, try canned pinto beans.
• Add some sweetness: For a touch of sweetness and a nice textural component, add some corn kernels to your filling. You can add some freshly grilled corn kernels, drained canned corn or frozen corn to the skillet when you add the black beans.
• Add some freshness: For an extra pop of flavour, add some freshly chopped cilantro leaves to your burrito filling when you are assembling them.
• Add some crunch: For some flavour and a little crunch, before rolling each burrito, add some crushed up tortilla chips or corn chips.
• Add more spice: Before wrapping, drizzle over some of your favourite hot sauce.
• Reduce the spice: If you want to reduce some of the spice in this recipe, it’s easily done. One thing you can do is to remove the seeds and ribs from the jalapeno. To do so, carefully cut the jalapeno in half, scoop out the seeds and ribs (and discard), then chop the jalapeno. You can also omit the cayenne pepper.

More Recipes You May Enjoy

• Buffalo Chicken Quesadillas
• Easy Chicken Fajitas
• Ground Chicken Tacos

If you try this recipe for ground chicken burritos, be sure to leave a comment below!