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Made this tonight with chicken breasts, lime/cilantro rice and black beans. SO. GOOD. This one is a keeper. Thanks for the recipe!
Meagan
What is better than saucy, smoky, delicious chicken tinga for tacos and bowls and beyond?
Answer: SHEET PAN chicken tinga that is just maaade for meal prep.
Check Out Our Video For How To Make Chicken Tinga Bowls:
This chicken tinga is juicy and delicious, brain-less, totally hands-off (hello sheet pan), generously saucy, and paired with some buddies like roasty bell peppers and quinoa and black beans to round it out into a meal that tastes like my favorite tacos of all time and yet is practically the same as a salad.
These chicken tinga tacos remain, to this day, one of my favorite taco recipes ever. Which is saying a lot. I love tacos. I dream of tacos. I eat a LOT of tacos.
So this week’s meal prep situation is my solution to the WANTS TO EAT TACOS BUT WANTS TO ALSO BE HEALTHY dilemma.
Here we go.
First, throw the peppers and chicken on a sheet pan. Roast it up.
Yes, you are a meal prep genius, and yes, you need to be grammin’ this.
While it’s roasting, make your sauce, which I don’t have a picture of. Just imagine a sizzling pan of onion, garlic, oil, tomato, chipotle, etc.
And then, because I am lazy (or smart?) I just shred that chicken right on the sheet pan and pour my sauce right on there.
Done! Chicken Tinga Meal Prep. Made on a sheet pan.
You will likely have a little extra sauce which has never, in the history of ever, been a problem for me. I’m confident you can find some extra space in your bowls for that lil spoonful of chipotle goodness.
This is one of those times that I’m getting jealous of my own lunch.
Long live chicken tinga.
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15 Minute Meal Prep: Sheet Pan Chicken Tinga Bowls
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 3-4 1x
Description
These Chicken Tinga Bowls are the BEST! Made in just 15 minutes, all on a sheet pan. My favorite kind of meal prep!
Ingredients
Sheet Pan:
- 1 lbs. boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 3 bell peppers, sliced (I used one of each color)
- 1 teaspoon salt, pepper to taste
- 1–2 tablespoons olive oil
Tinga Sauce:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- half of an onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, chopped
- 1–2 chipotle peppers in adobo sauce, chopped
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 14–ounce can crushed fire-roasted tomatoes
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Chicken and Peppers: Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Arrange chicken and peppers on a baking sheet. Toss with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Roast for 30 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
- Sauce: While the chicken and peppers bake, heat olive oil in a skillet. Add onion, garlic, chipotles, and spices. Saute for about 10 minutes. Add tomatoes and salt. Simmer for another 10 minutes. Transfer to a blender and blend until smooth.
- Finish: Remove sheet pan from the oven. Shred chicken. Toss with the sauce (some, most, all… up to you). Serve chicken and peppers with quinoa, rice, cauliflower rice, beans, tortillas, greens, or just on its own!
Equipment
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Buy Now → Notes
If you combine this with other ingredients like black beans and quinoa, you will easily be able to get 4 servings out of it! If you are serving it alone, or with fewer ingredients, you will probably get closer to 3 servings.
You will probably have a little extra sauce, which is reason to party. This sauce freezes super well! Save it for later, or add a little extra to your bowls when you reheat them for lunch.
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Mexican-Inspired
Keywords: chicken tinga bowls, sheet pan chicken tinga, chicken tinga recipe
One More Thing!
This recipe is part of our best healthy spring recipes page. Check it out!
Just made this last night and it was delicious! I kept everything separate (meat, peppers, rice, sauce) so everyone could make it how they liked. (No sauce, light sauce, etc.) It was spicy for me, so I went light on the sauce, but it was really good! And the roasted peppers were delicious – my kids won’t always eat peppers but in this dish they did!
Something I would absolutely adjust is cooking time for the peppers. I should have gone with my gut and put the peppers and chicken on separate pans. I decided to check the peppers at 22 minutes and they were already WAY too overcooked and soggy. Next time I’ll thrown them in the oven for the last 10 minutes of the chickens cook time. Or pre-perpare chicken in the crock pot.
This recipe was meh. Super easy to follow but I feel like the sauce (and therefore the chicken) lacked flavor.
Hi! I am making this recipe this week and I was just wondering if the nutrition facts were including the rest of the contents of the bowl? or just the chicken?
Family loved this! We added feta as a garnish! They all said to make it again!
Yumm! Cannot wait to make these recipes for lunch at the office!
Great recipe, just made it, but why lie about it taking “just 15 minutes?” You have 20 minutes written out in just cook time for the sauce alone
This is one of my favorite meal preps. Sauce is so flavorful. And I love that I usually have a little extra sauce which I can freeze and save for a super fast small meal – I just dethaw and add to some shredded chicken (I always have this frozen too). I’m actually making this for a work event this week. I’ll quadruple the sauce and toss with some shredded rotisserie chicken breast. Thanks so much for sharing this amazing recipe!
Our family loved this! I made a tray for the vegetarians using some extra firm pressed tofu broken into pieces – worked great as well. We served with some brown cilantro lime basmati rice – great for dinner and take to work lunch the next day!
Yum! Sounds so good!
Absolutely delicious. Threw all the ingredients for the sauce into the slow cooker for two hours, then used my immersion blender before adding to the shredded chicken. I did add a knob of butter to the sauce upon tasting, but that was likely necessary as the onions and garlic hadn’t been sweated in the pan as per the instructions. Will definitely make again!
This recipe was amazing! I made it w/ some kale and black beans on the side and it was excellent.
This sauce is legit the boss. Seriously, everything about this recipe is delicious!! And so incredibly easy.
Hi! This looks fantastic, I can’t wait to make it! Quick question-do you cook the bell peppers or serve them raw with this?
Just made this and it was so easy and delish! I made it as a tostada and highly rec!
Other than the fact that I’m not sure how these could possibly be made in 15 minutes 🙂 these were great. Super tasty and will hold up super well for my lunches this week. Thanks!!
Super easy and mighty delicious! The tinga sauce was AMAZING.
What brand of tomatoes do you use for some reason I am only finding 28oz cans of crushed fire roasted tomatoes…
Great question! Sometimes the smaller cans are hard to find. Red Gold has crushed tomatoes in a smaller can.
Hi! Quick question? In the tinga sauce section of recipe, the second ingredient (after olive oil)it just says 2 cups…..but that’s it. 2 cups of what? Thanks!
Interesting, Karen! I see “half an onion” listed as the next ingredient after olive oil in the tinga sauce section. But, after doing some tinkering, I think you have the recipe set to “2x” the amounts. If that’s the case, you should use a full onion. And we’ll have our tech team take a look at the glitch. Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
WHOAH! Even better than expected! SO many flavors of deliciousness that all work well together! I don’t cook much and I was a little nervous about making my own sauce but I felt so fancy and like a professional chef after making all of this! 🙂 Definitely a keeper! Thanks for sharing!
Will have this recipe on repeat till the end of time!!! SO SO GOOD
Glad to hear it, Maureen!
I hope it isn’t too late to ask questions!
I’m sure this sounds inane, but if you want to add black beans and/or quinoa, would you cook them on the sheet pan? Or separately? Does it make a difference if the beans are canned or dried? I’m guessing you have to cook them separately, but I wasn’t postive.
Yep, cook separately! Canned beans would be the easiest to use because they’re already cooked and just need to be heated.
Oh my gosh! So unbelievably tasty and so so easy to make this vegan too! Just subbed tofu for chicken and it was to die for. Thanks so much for this recipe!!
Great idea to use tofu, Allyssa!
I am so excited to try this and add it to my weekly meal preps. I do have a question tho … why did you bake the chicken than add the sauce? Does the chicken become more flavourful when you cook it once it was marinated w the seasoning/sauces?
This was just our preference, but it could certainly work if you’d like to add the sauce to the chicken before it cooks. 🙂
Made this tonight with chicken breasts, lime/cilantro rice and black beans. SO. GOOD. This one is a keeper. Thanks for the recipe!
So happy to hear you enjoyed these bowls!
hi
love your recipes.
I was wondering — what can i use instead of crushed fire-roasted tomatoes? I don’t like tomatoes and i was just wondering…
thank you so much.
Hi, Anabela! The tomatoes are pretty essential here, so we don’t know of a good alternative unfortunately. You could try these fajitas instead and add chicken if you’d like. https://global-wellness.online/vegan-sheet-pan-fajitas-with-chipotle-queso%3C/a%3E%3C/p%3E