I Made the Ultimate Weight Loss Chicken Tacos!

Get ready for these spicy lime chicken tacos. They are a blend of spice and zest wrapped in a warm tortilla. These aren't your ordinary tacos. They're low calorie, but they do not skimp out on the taste. Topped with a creamy cotija sauce and paired with seasoned charred corn, this dish promises to be a flavor explosion in every bite. So whether you're counting your calories or just in the mood for some delicious tacos, these are sure to hit the spot. For the full ingredient list, check the description box below, but enough talking, let's get cooking. So the first thing we gotta do is we gotta marinate our chicken. So for this recipe, we're gonna choose boneless, skinless chicken breast. If you wanted to add a little bit more flavor, you could use the chicken thighs, but I'm keeping this recipe low calorie, so we're going chicken breast, which is mainly protein, very, very little fat. And because we're gonna shred this chicken, I'm not gonna trim it up like I would if we were serving it like a whole chicken breast. It's all gonna get shredded together, so there's no reason to trim it, but I will check the pieces for little bone parts. See, and as I said that, they have this big, thick ligament in this piece right here. So, oh, and it even has a bone. I'm glad I said that. So I'm just gonna trim that right off. Rest of the piece looks fine. So now to the chicken, we're gonna add a little olive oil on top to act as a binder for all the spices. Leading off is gonna be some of my base seasoning. This is a blend of garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper, some chili powder. This is a second chili powder. This is ancho chili powder, some smoked paprika, and some cumin. I'm just putting a little bit because I don't want the flavor of the cumin to overpower the chilies. Those are gonna be the main players in this flavor. And now for our heat and some additional flavor, we're gonna put some of these canned chipotle peppers. So I'm just gonna put one pepper in with the sauce, but the spicier you want it, the more peppers and the more sauce you can put in. This is a great ingredient that adds really deep flavors, and it also has a really nice kick to it. And these chipotle peppers come whole, which are just like smoked jalapeno peppers, and they have this beautiful adobo sauce on them. So we're just gonna chop up this pepper, seeds and all, and throw that right in there. I'm only putting one in there because that's what my digestive system can handle, but if you want spicier, add two, three, or add the whole can if you want. Now we're gonna add our limes. We're gonna add the zest and the juice. So we're gonna zest these first, and then we're gonna put the juice in. The zest and the juice both have a deep lime flavor, so putting both in is gonna make it nice and limey, pair up with all those chilies and that spice. And once I see the white, I'll stop. So I'm just gonna keep going around until this lime is cleaned up. So now I'm gonna cut the lime and use our citrus juicer to get the juice in there. And right now, I actually think there's enough zest in there. I don't wanna over zest it. So I just put about a zest from one and a half of them in there, but the juice from both. And the last thing that's gonna go in here is gonna be a little bit of a tomato sauce. This is gonna add a nice red color, a little bit of sweetness, and it's also gonna be a nice binder for all the spices in the sauce. Tomato sauce doesn't have a lot of calories in it. And now we're gonna give this a mix. Once all the spices and the other ingredients are well incorporated, we're gonna set this aside and let this marinate. You could do this a couple hours before or the night before best, but if it's just gotta sit for a little bit so the flavors come together and penetrate into the chicken. Let's go preheat our oven and make the other components of these tacos. So I'm gonna put the convection bake setting on on 400. Now let's make our yogurt sauce. So this is a great way to get that cheesy, creamy flavor that's gonna cut the spiciness of the chicken, but at the same time, it's gonna keep the calories really low. So we're gonna start with a base of some 0% Greek yogurt. You can use sour cream too, but I highly suggest to use the Greek yogurt because it's all protein and very little fat and the flavors are indistinguishable from the sour cream. So now we're gonna add some of this cotija cheese. This cheese crumbles really easy. So we're gonna take a couple ounces of this. Whoops. I'm gonna put that right inside the blender. This stuff is super crumbly. So it makes it really easy to use and to blend. So if I can get this out of the plastic and I can just crumble it with my hands and I'll get that big one that fell in there too and I'll give that a crumble. Now to that, we're gonna add the juice of one lime, a pinch of salt and some fresh ground black pepper. And now we might have to add a little more, but I'm gonna put just a little bit of water in there to thin this sauce. We want it in that nice like pory consistency between the cheese and the yogurt right now. This will be pretty thick. So a little splash of some water. So now I'm gonna get this blender going and we're gonna see how much water I gotta add to get this nice and creamy. Make sure we're getting all our cheese chunks in there. We'll just scrape the sides and make sure that they're all going into this sauce. And the creaminess of this sauce actually looks pretty good. Now the consistency of this looks pretty good. It smells wonderful. Let's give it a taste and let's see, do we need to add anything to this? No, this is actually really good. So now this is the perfect time that we're gonna add a little cilantro. So we're just gonna rip off some of the leaves and throw them in there and then blend this again. We don't wanna put this in too early because I don't want the cilantro leaves super blended. Instead of putting the stems in at all, I'm gonna pick off a couple of leaves and put them in there because we don't need much. So now this sauce is thin enough that we can just pour this right inside of our squeeze bottle. You know what? I actually forgot to put an ingredient in here. So we're gonna put this actually back in the blender because I wanna put one more thing in there that I forgot but really needs to go in. A lot of times with making these videos, when we forget stuff, we get all flustered and we figure out that it's probably just best to be honest with you and just show you that, hey, we all make mistakes. So I'm gonna go back one step and I'm gonna get that ingredient and put it in the bottle. And that's sometimes what you gotta do with cooking. So let's put that sauce back inside the blender. And the ingredient that we went back for was this garlic paste. I cannot leave any garlic behind. So as soon as I figured out that this is what I forgot, it's gotta go in. So let's put a little bit of that in there and then re-blend this and then put it back inside the bottle. And this is a paste, so it's not gonna need a whole lot of extra blending. That should be good. Mistakes happen when you're cooking, even if you're making a cooking YouTube video. So don't be afraid to go back one step to right your wrong. I knew when I tasted it, it was missing something. Now I can smell that garlicky and cheese goodness. So now let's put the cover on and now let's put this in the fridge. We'll let the flavors come together. So now that our sauce is made and our chicken's been marinating, let's get the chicken inside this baking dish and then cook it so we can shred it. So I'm just gonna place these marinated chicken thighs inside this baking dish. And any of that leftover marinade, we gotta no flavors left behind policy. So we're gonna scrape that all up from this bowl and put that on top of the chicken. So now this is gonna go in our oven for anywhere between 25 to 40 minutes until the chicken reads an internal temperature about like 160, 165, and then we're gonna let it cool before we shred it. So for the next component of these tacos, we're gonna saute this corn. So I got some of this canned corn. It's not quite fresh corn season yet here. So the canned corn is gonna have to do, but if it was fresh, I would use it. And some of this Tahin seasoning. So this is a chili lime seasoning. It's already got some salt in it. So it's a complete seasoning. Let's head over to the stove and saute this corn up real quick. So now we're gonna get this pan hot over a medium high heat and char this corn. So to this hot pan, I'm gonna add a little bit of olive oil and now we're gonna add in our corn. Remember canned corn, it's already fully cooked. So this, I just got to get a little bit of a char on the outside. So once I spread this out in a pan, I'm gonna leave it untouched and not move it around. So hopefully we can get some color on some of the corn. Let's check on that chicken. It's doing pretty good. So once these kernels have got a little bit of color on them, I'm gonna season them with the Tahin. I really love this seasoning and it's so awesome with taco stuff. Once I can start to smell the seasoning because we don't want it to burn, I'm gonna shut off the heat and this corn is done. So now our chicken is beautifully cooked. We're gonna let it cool for just a little bit before we shred it. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna put this inside the bowl and then we're gonna use our stand mixer with a paddle on to shred the chicken. Once I saw this trick, I could never unsee it and I'll never shred chicken without it. So let's put these chicken breasts inside the bowl. And you can see that this is a lot of chicken because this is a great recipe for meal prep. I can never have too much readily available protein on hand. I can make these tacos for days. And now don't throw that juice out. We're gonna come back to that. So now I'm gonna push the paddle mixer right inside the chicken. We're gonna give this a lock. The hardest part is starting it without the chicken flying out of the bowl. So I like to pulse it a little bit until it's just a little shredded. Every once in a while, we'll just push everything back into the bowl. But you can see that this thing shreds in seconds. Once this is all decently shredded, I will open this up and I'll look for any big chunks and I'll see if it needs a little bit more shredding. And this looks like it does. So let's give this another pulse or two. And you can totally shred it with there or you could just go in and just pull apart the big pieces. But the machine did a lot of the work and this saves so much time than doing this with a fork. Now we're gonna take our shredded chicken and we're gonna dump it back inside the baking tray with all that beautiful juice in there. Because you've been told before, but we have a strictly no flavors left behind policy and this juice got to get back in this chicken. I'm gonna dump that right inside the dish. And you can see how awesomely this chicken was pulled by the paddle mixer. I can't believe I've ever shredded chicken by hand after doing that. Like, yeah, you gotta clean the bowl, but it saves so much time. So now we're gonna mix the shredded chicken with all the juice that's left over in there. This chicken smells unbelievable. I can't wait to build these tacos. Now that we've incorporated that juice back into the shredded chicken, let's make these delicious tacos. So now I'm gonna warm up these flour tortillas right on the burner. Now over a low-ish heat, I'm gonna put the tortilla right on top of the burner. And once I've gotten a little color on that, we're gonna put these right on the plate. And it's probably a smarter idea to use the tongs, but I'm just gonna use my hand. And please don't turn your back on these tortillas. They will burn in seconds. Do not leave the stove. Let's add a little bit of greens. So we're gonna chop up some of this lettuce. I never found a lot of success with the pre-shredded lettuce in the bag. It's really expensive and it's always got that pinkish tint to it. So if that's your thing, you can use that, but I'm gonna cut some fresh lettuce. I guess it's really easy and it takes seconds. So a little bit of this shredded lettuce in each one of these. The delicious shredded chicken. So now a little bit of that cilantro creamy cotija sauce that we made with the yogurt and a little bit of that charred corn on top. A few leaves of some fresh cilantro on top of each one. And let's not forget some fresh lime to squeeze on top right before we eat it. And now how amazing do these healthy tacos look? Loaded with protein, low in calorie, but enough talking about how they're healthy. Let's see if they're actually delicious. Let's grab this one on the end. In fact, let's do lime juice on all of them first. So I'm just gonna squeeze this lime just right over the top of all of these. I love lime juice. It really brings out the flavor of whatever it is that you're eating. So before I bite into this thing, look how amazing this taco looks. It's absolutely loaded, but I'm not talking about it. Let's eat it. I think tacos are just like pizza. Like they really like can't be bad. This is so good and I can't believe it's low calorie. You know, these are the kind of meals I like to eat when I'm trying to tighten things up, lose a few pounds. So you gotta cut some calories, but you can't cut the flavor otherwise you never stick to the diet. These are so good. And maybe your diet approach is low carb and you don't wanna use the flour tortillas. You could make a bowl of this. You could put this inside of a lettuce leaf or a cabbage leaf. These are so good. The spiciness of the chicken is just where I want it. And again, if you want it spicier, you can always add more of those chipotle peppers, but this is perfect. And I'm not gonna be regretting eating this later, if you know what I mean. The key is when eating these, you put the leftovers away before you start eating because these are so good. You're gonna wanna make some more, but if you just set yourself up on one plate, you eat one, two, three tacos, whatever you want to, and then that's it. You're not gonna go back for seconds because that really is what adds to excess calories. Even healthy food, you can eat in excess. I don't even know why I'm trying to sell this as healthy. This is just delicious all by itself. While I'm finishing up these tacos, you can check out my carnitas taco recipe. I'll throw that right there. See you there. Thanks.