Adobo Chicken Tacos | Sweet Tea + Thyme (2024)

Your taco tuesday is in need of smoky, spicy, flavor-packed chicken adobo tacos. Juicy chicken thighs seasoned and marinated in spicy adobo sauce, grilled, and served up with all our fave toppings. This is possibly the easiest dinner you'll make this summer!

If your whole family are fans of delicious tacos like our family, try my steak fajita tacos, braised al pastor tacos, or juicy chicken quesabirria tacos!

Adobo Chicken Tacos are Fast + Flavorful Weeknight Dinner

We are under a heat dome, y'all. While June is usually in the low eighties, we are in the upper nineties/low hundreds. In the DMV!

So I'm trying to make dinner quick and simple here. I needed the house to stay cool and dinner to be satisfying...which makes for a perfect STAT Grilling Series recipe!

And this dinner is such an easy recipe - no chopping up veg for prepwork or doing a lot of fuss because your blender does all the work.

Pollo Adobada -or Adobo-marinated grilled chicken- is super flavorful and so, so easy to make. You can use a store-bought adobo sauce but we're making it from scratch in this recipe (you know that's how I like to roll), marinate for like 15 to 30 minutes and throw the chicken on the grill. Chop it up, throw into tortillas with some toppings and sides and bam, dinner!

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Ingredients

Full ingredients, measurements, and printable instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of this post.

• Skinless Boneless Chicken Thighs - I prefer thighs to chicken breast, they are harder to over-marinate and overcook and are just juicier and more flavorful!
• Corn Tortillas - I love corn tortillas for tacos! They're too classic (and tasty) to pass up.
• Your Favorite Taco Toppings and Sides- I would recommend a chunky guacamole, salsa verde, or fruity mango pico de gallo to go with this. Though traditional tacos toppings are simply chopped white or red onion and fresh cilantro with salsa on the side.

Homemade Adobo Sauce Marinade

• Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce - these have a spicy kick and smoky flavor, they're smoked red jalapeños so keep that in mind. You can use about half the can for some great heat or just a couple for a kid-friendly marinade.
• Guajillo and Ancho Chiles - you need to remove the stem and seeds, which is really easy. Tear off the stems and the seeds should fall out when held upside down. If they don't roll the chilies between your hands to loosen up the seeds.
• Orange Juice + Apple Cider Vinegar- you can just use the vinegar, which is pretty traditional but we like the orange juice flavor. You can swap in fresh lime juice or add it in for more tartness.
• Garlic Cloves
• Oregano
• Cumin
• Coriander
• Black Peppercorn
• A Clove - just one, trust me. It gives a warm flavorwithout overpowering
• Annatto Seeds -this is what gives achiote paste it's vibrant red red hue and has an earthy flavor. You can find it powdered or whole.
• Kosher Salt and freshly ground Black Pepper

How to Make this Adobo Chicken Taco Recipe

How to Make Homemade Adobo Sauce

Step 1 | Soak and rehydrate the dried chilies in a saucepan of water over medium low heat. Let that soak for about 5-10 minutes, then drain the water.

Step 2 | Blend up all the spices in our adobo sauce if you're using whole spices. Use a high powered blender or a spice grinder so they're perfectly powdered.

Step 3 | Add all the other adobo ingredients into the blender and blend until smooth. We want a thick-ish mixture but not a chunky one.

Step 4 | Marinate the chicken thighs with the adobo sauce in a large bowl. Massage the adobo really well all over each piece of chicken with gloved or clean hands, you want it to coat every nook and cranny. Then cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate. You can marinate it for 15 minutes up to overnight. I say if you are planning this out ahead of time, definitely do it overnight.

Marinate + Cook the Chicken

Step 5 | Prep your grill, oil the grates, and grill the chicken on medium high heat for 10 minutes total, flipping once at 5 minutes. We want some char, so don't be afraid of small flames hitting them!

See Also

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Step 6 | Let the chicken rest for a couple of minutes, then slice and chop the chicken into bite-sized pieces for tacos.

Step 7 | Warm your tortillas, prep your salsa, your sides and toppings, and dig into dinner!

Variations

• If you want a mild version of the adobo instead of spicy, use only 1-3 chipotles in your adobo. While guajillo and ancho chiles aren't spicy, the chipotles are.
• Swap the boneless thighs for chicken breasts, just chop the breasts in half so they cook quicker.
• Use whatever protein you want! Adobo is classic on pork but it's delicious on beef and even marinating tofu.
• Swap the corn tortillas for flour tortillas, if you like.
• Swap the orange juice for pineapple juice and turn this into chicken al pastor tacos!
• You can cook the chicken on a cast iron skillet over medium high heatuntil fully cooked.

​Pro Tips

• You can find achiote paste and adobo sauce at your local big box grocery store in the hispanic aisle. Make your life even easier!
• Oil your grill grates really, really well. Otherwise your chicken will stick and rip apart when you pick it up.
• Freezer Meals - this is a fantastic recipe to have as a freezer meal, ready to thaw, heat, and east when you just don't feel like cooking. Double everything and either freeze the raw marinating chicken to thaw and grill when ready, or grill the marinated chicken, chop it up, bag and freeze for later.

Serving Suggestions

All the classic Mexican sides are perfect for this recipe! Don't forget the Mexican rice, creamy avocado slices, a nice queso fresco or cotija cheese, and lime wedges --a LOT of them!

Storage and Reheating

Store in the fridge: store leftover chicken in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days

Freeze + Thaw: put all the leftover chicken into a freezer safe zip top bag and freeze for up to 6 months

Reheat: rewarm the chicken in a skillet over medium heat until warmed through or in the microwave until hot.

Equipment You Need

• Spice Grinder - optional, if you don't have a high powered blender this will work perfectly for whole spices.
• Cutting Board and Sharp Knife
• High Powered Blender - or just regular blender if you're not going to powder your spices.
• Tongs
• Mixing Bowl
• Plastic Wrap or BeesWax Wrap - to cover the bowl for marinating.
• Grill - I use a gas grill but you can use a charcoal grill with a grill thermometer.

FAQs

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