This super simple Crockpot Taco Meat is the easiest way to make your taco meat! Just set it and forget it. Easily freezable and the flavor is perfect! Enjoy this delicious taco meat in a crockpot for your next Taco Tuesday!
Easy Crockpot Taco Meat
When those weeknights get super busy, our family loves an easy set-it-and-forget-it meal and this one is a regular at our house! We love making this simple taco recipe with our homemade taco seasoning that is packed with great flavors, but you can also grab your favorite store bought taco seasoning. This is a great way to prep your taco meat for a taco bar, hard shell tacos, soft shell tacos, or an amazing taco salad! And don’t forget to check out our Classic Ground Beef Tacos!
What You Will Need
- lean ground beef – if you stick with LEAN ground beef your end result will be less greasy
- homemade taco seasoning or your favorite store-bought seasoning
- tomato sauce (optional) – this just adds a little extra tomato sauciness to the taco meat, but we have tested it without too and it turns out just fine!
Recipe FAQs and Tips
- Tomato Sauce: this is a personal preference! Some people love a little tomato sauce in their taco meat and others don’t. The recipe will still turn out great if you don’t use the tomato sauce.
- Leftovers: you can store cooked taco meat in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days and up to 6 months in the freezer.
- Meal prep: this is such a great option for meal prep! You can easily set the taco meat to cook on Sunday (or any day) and then separate it into a variety of dishes for lunches during the week.
- Shells: this crockpot taco meat is great for homemade tacos and you could use it with soft or hard taco shells!
- Thawing ground beef: If you have any questions about properly thawing ground beef before cooking checkout this helpful information from the USDA.
- Can I use chicken instead of ground beef? Yes, you can! Simply put your chicken breasts, taco seasoning, and 1/2 cup chicken broth in the slow cooker on high for 3 hours or low for 6-8 hours or until the internal temp reaches 165 degrees.
How to Make Crockpot Taco Meat
Place the fully thawed lean ground beef in your crockpot or slow cooker.
Add taco seasoning and the optional tomato sauce, if you are choosing to use it.
Taco Seasoning
You have to checkout our homemade taco seasoning!! It is so easy to toss together and you probably already have all the ingredients sitting in your spice cabinet. We love to make a few batches at a time and then store it in the cabinet for easy use when we need it. Otherwise, if homemade taco seasoning isn’t your thing we love this store-bought taco seasoning too!
Cook on the low setting for 6-8 hours or high setting for 3-4 hours.
Give it a stir and enjoy any way you want!
Utilizing the Freezer
Cooked taco meat can be kept in the freezer for up to 6 months. This can be leftovers or an entire batch in order to have taco meat ready to go for quick meals in the future. If you have a batch of taco meat in the freezer you can easily thaw it in the fridge and use it for taco soup, enchiladas, taco salad, taco stuffed peppers, or just regular ol’ tacos!
Short on Time
If you are short on time and only have frozen ground beef on hand we would recommend that you use an Instant Pot to cook it – see this post for instructions. It is typically not recommended to put frozen ground beef in a crockpot.
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Other Taco Recipes You Might Like
Healthy Taco Salad
Easy Taco Stuffed Peppers
Healthy Breakfast Tacos
Easy Jackfruit Tacos
Crockpot Taco Meat
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 8 hours
- Total Time: 8 hours 10 minutes
- Yield: 8 servings 1x
- Category: Beef
- Method: Slow Cooker
- Cuisine: American
Description
Crockpot Taco Meat – the easiest way to make your taco meat! Just set it and forget it! Easily freezable and the flavor is perfect!
Ingredients
- 2 lbs lean ground beef
- 2 batches homemade taco seasoning*
- 1/2 cup tomato sauce (optional)*
Instructions
- Add ingredients to slow cooker; stir to combine.
- Cover and cook on LOW 6-8 hours or on HIGH 3-4 hours.
- Drain off excess grease.
- Stir and add any additional seasoning, tomato sauce or salsa, as desired.
Notes
- Taco Seasoning: of course, feel free to use any taco seasoning you want! We also love this store-bought one!
- Tomato Sauce: If tomato sauce in your taco meat isn’t your thing, you can omit this and it will still turn out just fine.
- Lean Taco Meat: You can use any kind of ground beef you want, but we recommend using a leaner ground beef so there is less grease to drain off at the end.
- Storage: leftovers can be kept in an airtight container for 3-4 days in the fridge.
- Freezing: cooked taco meat can be kept in the freezer for up to 6 months! This could be a small amount of leftovers or an entire batch to be used at a later date.
Kora says
Super easy and fast! Staple in our whole 30. Our 1.5 year old loves it too!
Erin says
So happy to hear that!