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Creamy Chicken Taquitos

Crispy and crunchy on the outside with melted cheese and seasoned chicken, these creamy chicken taquitos will be a hit at your next fiesta!
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 2 minutes
Total Time 17 minutes
Servings: 12
Cuisine: Chinese
Calories: 120

Ingredients
  

Filling Ingredients
  • 6 ounces full-fat brick style cream cheese, very well softened
  • 0.25 cup full-fat sour cream
  • 0.25 cup red salsa any brand, any spicy level, not super chunky
  • 2 cups cooked shredded chicken
  • 1 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend or your favorite shredded cheese
  • 1 teaspoon cumin
  • 1 teaspoon chili powder or to taste
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder or to taste
  • 0.5 teaspoon salt or to taste
  • 0.5 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper or to taste
Tortillas and Frying
  • 12 flour tortillas about 6-inches in diameter
  • Vegetable oil for frying (if frying; if baking or air frying see notes below)

Method
 

Preparation Steps
  1. To a large bowl, add the cream cheese, sour cream, and salsa. Stir to combine. Tip - Make sure the cream cheese is very well softened to room temp or this is unnecessarily difficult.
  2. Add the cooked chicken, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Stir to combine.
  3. Add about 2 tablespoons of filling in a vertical strip at the edge of each tortilla and roll up tightly. Tips - Don't overfill. Flour tortillas are easier to work with, more pliable, and don't rip as easily. If you're using corn tortillas, add a stack to the microwave, cover with a damp paper towel, and heat for about 15 seconds to 'steam' the corn tortillas just a bit which will make them easier to work with and roll without ripping.
  4. To a heavy-bottomed skillet with a bit of depth (cast iron is preferred; don't use a nonstick skillet that's intended to make scrambled eggs!) add enough oil so that it comes up to about 1 to 2-inches high.
  5. Heat the oil until it's 350F as measured with a thermometer. Tips - I strongly recommend not guessing and using a thermometer. However, if you don't have one and you are going to guess, likely the oil is hot enough when it's bubbling and you can add a small piece of tortilla to the oil and it cooks instantly, but that it's not so hot that the tortilla just burns.
  6. Add about 2 or 3 rolled taquitos to the oil, and fry for about 2 minutes total, flipping midway through. The exterior should be golden browned but not burnt when done. Tips - Don't crowd the pan because the taquitos will not cook properly because the overall temp of the oil will drop too low and/or there isn't enough oil freely flowing and circulating around the taquitos to cook them.
  7. Place cooked taquitos on a plate lined with paper towels to cool briefly while you repeat the frying process with all remaining taquitos. Discard fry oil safely after you're done.
  8. Serve immediately. Taquitos are best served hot and fresh. Leftovers will keep airtight in the fridge for up to 4-5 days however there is no way to replicate the crispiness of freshly cooked taquitos after they've been refrigerated. I warm my leftovers if I have any in the microwave for about 30 seconds. I don't recommend freezing taquitos because the texture after thawing won't be very good.

Notes

For best taste and texture, the sooner you indulge and enjoy the freshly cooked, warm taquitos the better they'll be! Anything fried or baked to a crispy texture is always best served right away. This isn't a great recipe to try to make in advance if I am being totally transparent.
If you're feeling like ground beef, follow my recipe for Cheesy Beef Taquitos. Leftover pork? Make my Pulled Pork Tacos and then wrap some of it up into the taquito filling mixture. Like the flavor of buffalo sauce? Use 1/4 cup buffalo sauce rather than the red salsa in the filling mixture for buffalo chicken taquitos. Or add a teaspoon chili powder to the filling mixture in addition to the cumin. Love cumin or onion powder, consider increasing to more than a teaspoon cumin or teaspoon garlic powder. A teaspoon onion powder is a nice touch, too.