Easy Chicken Nachos are a great weeknight dinner recipe or crowd pleasing appetizer. Quick to make with minimal prep and easy to adapt with your favorite toppings. These baked sheet pan chicken nachos are seriously the best!
Nachos are one of my absolute favorite guilty pleasures. I love the salty crunch mixed with lots of delicious toppings and can never get enough of them!
When Chris and I first started dating in college, we would “cook” together. 9 times out of 10 this included some variation of nachos, tacos or taco salads. It’s an easy, inexpensive, and delicious dinner, perfect for that college lifestyle, but so good we still eat them 16 years later.
Ingredients for Easy Chicken Nachos
- Chicken Breast – Bake the chicken breast in the oven before adding to the nachos. Use free run / organic chicken if you can
- Olive Oil – Brushed on the chicken to seal in moisture.
- Fajita Seasoning – Added to the chicken before it is baked for flavor. If you don’t have fajita seasoning, you can use a mix of cayenne and garlic powder. You can also use my taco seasoning or poultry seasoning.
- Tortilla Chips – I like to use freshly baked chips from the deli, you can also use your favorite brand.
- Queso Blanco – You can make your own Queso Blanco or use store bought.
- Montery Jack – Shred your own cheese if you can. It is so much creamier when it melts!
- Jalapenos, Red Onion, Green Onion, Tomato and Cilantro – For freshness, color, texture and flavor. Use whatever you have on hand!
- Black Beans – Use canned black beans and be sure to drain and rinse them before adding.
- Sour Cream – Sour cream balances out the nachos perfectly. If you want to take it a step further, mix ranch and sour cream together, make lime crema.
- Salt – Finish the nachos with freshly cracked sea salt, it really makes all the difference!
- Salsa Guacaomle – Not shown, but another delicious addition!
How To Make Easy Chicken Nachos
- Prep – Pre heat the oven and brush the chicken with olive oil and add seasoning.
- Bake – Bake the chicken until cooked through and allow to rest before slicing or dicing.
- Make – Add the tortilla chips to a sheet pan and drizzle with the queso blanco. Add your other toppings, including the chicken.
- Bake – Place the sheet pan in the oven and cook until the cheese has melted and everything is heated through.
- Serve – Add the tomato, sour cream and salt and serve to the table.
Tips
- Use the freshest ingredients you can. If you can get freshly baked tortillas, definitely do!
- Layer all of the toppings evenly across the chips. No one likes getting a plain chip when they dig in!
- These nachos are best served straight away, but you can prep and build the nachos slightly ahead of time and keep them covered in the fridge.
- Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container and reheated in the oven.
Make It Your Own!
You can adapt Chicken Nachos to your preference – some of my favorite topping suggestions are:
- queso
- beans
- cheese
- jalapeños
- corn
- pico de gallo
- black beans
- chipotle corn salsa
- ranch or sour cream – bonus points if you mix the two!
- lime crema
What’s The Best Chicken To Use?
I tend to make baked chicken breast in large quantities to enjoy throughout the week in salads, nachos, wraps and more, but you can make it just for this Chicken Nachos recipe. Either way, you can make these nachos start to finish in less than 30 minutes.
If you are in a pinch you can use store bought pre-cooked chicken or even shredded rotisserie chicken.
Sheet Pan Nachos
Baking the chicken nachos on a sheet pan is the easiest and quickest way to prepare them. It ensures that each chip is covered with the toppings and they don’t take long to heat through. You can serve them straight from the sheet too! This is the perfect way to feed a crowd.
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Chicken Nachos
Ingredients
- 1 large chicken breast
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 – 2 teaspoon fajita seasoning
- 18 ounces bag of tortilla chips
- 8 ounces queso blanco
- 4 ounces Monterey Jack shredded
- jalapeños
- 1/2 cup chopped red onion
- 1/8 cup green onion chopped
- 1/8 cup cilantro chopped
- 1/2 can black beans drained
- 1 tomato chopped
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- sea salt
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
- In a baking dish, brush both sides of chicken breast with olive oil and sprinkle on seasoning. Bake 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350 degrees.
- Remove from oven allow to set for 10 minutes and slice or dice.
- Meanwhile, cover large sheet pan with tortilla chips.
- Drizzle with queso blanco.
- Add toppings.
- Bake 10 minutes.
- Remove from oven and add tomato, sour cream and a few cracks of sea salt.
Notes
Secrets to making the best nachos:
- fresh cracked sea salt
- freshly shredded cheese
- use the freshest ingredients you can
- layer all of the toppings evenly across the chips
- serve immediately
To Store
- Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container and reheated in the oven.
Substitutions
Make them whatcha got-chos – use what you have on hand!- Queso – Make your own or store bought
- Chicken – Make my juicy chicken breast as listed in the recipe, use rotisserie chicken or frozen.
- Chips – Make your own with chips in the deli section of your grocer or restaurant style chips, baked
- Sour Cream – Use sour cream or crema, mix in ranch seasoning to make ranch sour cream or make a lime crema
Yum! Nachos are my weakness!! They are the best, crowd pleasing appetizer! So delicious!
I’ve been looking for a yummy nacho recipe for the Super Bowl party I’m hosting. Can’t wait to try this one out!
Chicken and Nachos were made for each other. So stinking good!
I am all about easy dinners this year! Adding this to my meal plan rotation my kiddos will be more than thrilled!
This is one of the few meals that my entire family will eat!
Hi Julie! Thank you for posting such beautiful and useful tips, tricks and recipes! It’s a great day for chicken nachos out on the patio. Thanks again for sharing 🙂
Thanks, Angela! I hope you enjoy a beautiful weekend!
Julie, I just love your blog! I get such inspiration from your writing and your amazing photography. I started a blog as well, and it is so challenging. Thank you for sharing your amazing life.