Chicken fajita bake turns the classic stovetop fajitas into an easy oven baked meal that cooks up with no fuss no muss in 40 minutes. Just layer the toppings, cheese and seasoning over chicken breasts for a simple weeknight, weekend or meal prep dish.
The oven-baked chicken fajitas are low carb, gluten-free and keto chicken fajitas too. To make this recipe paleo and no dairy, just skip the added cheese and don’t add a sour cream garnish.
A printable recipe card is at the bottom of the post!
Chicken Fajita Bake
Chicken fajitas are one of the most popular recipes in our home and it’s a dish we make regularly. While typically that means skillet fajitas, we wanted to do something different and we turned our family favorite into oven-baked chicken fajitas.
Sometimes you just gotta mix the food rotation up, am I right?
When I created a recipe for chicken fajita bake, both my husband and son were out of town. My daughter LOVED this recipe so much she ended up eating 3 out of 4 of the fajita chicken bake pieces haha. I’m sure she’d be unhappy I just disclosed that to the world 😉
My husband has been following a keto diet for a while and easy fajita chicken bake makes the best keto chicken fajitas too! It’s so easy to skip the tortillas and just serve the low carb meat and vegetables on a plate or with lettuce wraps, which means its’ a simple meal for people who are gluten-free too.
And if you LOVE peppers like we do, you’ll definitely want to make our popular stuffed peppers without rice and our Philly cheesesteak stuffed peppers. SO. GOOD.
Ingredients for Fajita Chicken Bake
The ingredients for easy chicken fajita bake are almost identical to stovetop fajitas, the only difference with this recipe (other than serving the toppings over chicken breasts), is that we added shredded cheese.
Traditional chicken fajitas don’t have cheddar cheese mixed in, but we thought it would be an amazing addition for cheesy chicken fajita bake.
What’ll you’ll need:
- 1.5 lb chicken breasts, cut into 4-6 pieces
- 1 1/2 Tbsp taco seasoning or fajita mix (homemade no-sugar version here)
- 3/4 cup cheddar cheese or 3 cheese blend, shredded
- 1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 red pepper
- 1 green pepper
- 1 red onion
- Optional garnishes- cilantro, sour cream, avocado, salsa
How to Make Baked Chicken Fajitas
Preheat the oven to 375F and put the oven rack in the center position.
Dice the peppers and onion into thin strips and set aside.
For the chicken, you’ll want 4 pieces so the dish can serve 4 servings. Many grocery store chicken pieces are huge and you may need to be cut the chicken breasts in half. For the chicken in our photos, we used two large chicken breasts, cut in half.
Lay the chicken in the bottom of a 2qt+ baking dish. You’ll want to make sure the dish is large enough that the chicken pieces aren’t squished together.
Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp the taco or fajita seasoning. I love to make homemade taco seasoning without sugar, here’s a recipe you can use. Or feel free to use your favorite store-bought brand.
Spread the sliced peppers and onion over the top of the seasoned chicken.
Cut your peppers as thin as possible. We like to have a little bit of crisp crunch to our vegetables, and that’s how the peppers turned out with the width we sliced our vegetables. Try to slice them as thin as 1/8-1/4” for softer peppers.
Sprinkle with the other 1/2 Tbsp of taco seasoning
Drizzle with olive oil, we used about 1 1/2 Tbsp of oil.
Sprinkle with the 3/4-1 cup cheddar cheese or Mexican blend cheese
Bake on 375F for 35-40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked to 165 when tested in the center.
Fajita Chicken Bake Recipe Tips
You’ll want each piece of chicken to be about 6 oz and you may need to cut the chicken breasts in half to get this size. Chicken does not come in a consistent size at the grocery store. I try to focus more on the weight of the chicken package than making sure it has 4 breasts.
You can use any combo of peppers, whether it be green, red, orange, or yellow. Using at least 2 colors makes the dish look extra pretty.
Although we actually have tons of green peppers in our garden right now, I just couldn’t resist buying a red pepper also for the color variety.
We also love to use sweet yellow onions instead of red onions, however, red adds pretty color contrast. Feel free to use any type of onion you prefer.
Can I Freeze Fajita Chicken Bake?
Most definitely! Now that my husband and I are empty-nesters, we don’t want to just cook for two and love to have leftovers. Freezing fajita chicken bake makes it easy to pull some out for lunch or you can even double or triple this batch (using more than one dish) to batch cook the recipe for future meals.
Freezing the already cooked chicken fajita bake will add more liquid to the dish, but it’ll still taste super good. Feel free to add a fresh sprinkle of cheese before baking to freshen up the tasty cheesy chicken fajita bake.
What to Serve with Baked Chicken Fajitas
To be honest, fajita chicken bake is one of those recipes it’s a meal all on its own. With lean protein, lots of vegetables, healthy fat, and even dairy, it might not need a side dish.
Here’s a handful of sidedish ideas:
A simple green salad
Mexican street corn salad (it uses frozen corn!)
Rice or riced cauliflower
Other Mexican Recipes You’ll Love
- Green Chili Chicken Casserole
- Low Carb Taco Pie
- Crockpot Taco Soup
- Mexican Street Corn on the Cob
- One-Pot Chicken Fajita Pasta
Keto Chicken Fajitas
The ketogenic diet has been very popular as a weightloss option as of late, even my husband has been doing keto and lost over 30 pounds. Having dinners like keto chicken fajitas has really made it simple, not only for dinners but also for work lunches and they’re great for meal prep too.
Each serving of the fajita chicken bake recipe has 6.6 net carbs, plus it’s such a great low carb meal because it not only has lean protein and healthy fats, but it includes lots of low carb vegetables too.
You can also increase the cheese or olive oil, or add avocado on top if you want to increase your fat.
Likewise, if the protein seems too high since we considered this 4 servings, you can cut each chicken breast portion in half. The USDA portion for a serving of chicken is only 3.5 oz (100 grams), yet many of us commonly eat 5-6 oz+ as an “American” sized serving. While we used 18 oz of chicken and cut the large chicken breasts into 4 portions, feel free to stretch the recipe into 6-8 servings, depending on your household needs.
Sour cream is a nice garnish as well, just be sure to check the carbs, the low-fat brands and often lower-priced brands might have fillers that increase the carbs.
Are you eating paleo?
If you’re following a paleo diet and are wondering how to adapt the baked chicken fajitas, you can simply skip adding the sprinkle of cheese. Traditional fajitas don’t even add shredded cheese, so this is an item you can most definitely leave out without sacrificing flavor. Of course, you’ll also want to skip the optional sour cream garnish and choose avocado instead.
The taco seasoning is still either paleo or keto as long as you make sugar a sugar free version or use a store-bought kind that doesn’t add sugar. There’s a no-sugar store-bought variety linked in the bottom of the recipe card if you need one.
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Chicken Fajita Bake
Fajita chicken bake is an easy alternative to stovetop fajitas. Layer your vegetables, seasoning, and cheese on top of the chicken breasts and bake!
Ingredients
- 1.5+ lb chicken breasts
- 1 1/2 Tbsp taco seasoning (no-sugar recipe here)
- 3/4 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
- 1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 red pepper
- 1 green pepper
- 1 red onion
- Optional garnishes- cilantro, sour cream, avocado, salsa
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375F and put the oven rack in the center position.
- Thinly slice the peppers and onion into thin strips and set aside.
- For the chicken, you’ll want 4 pieces so the dish can serve 4 servings. In our photos, we used two large chicken breasts, cut in half.
- Lay the chicken in the bottom of a 2qt-3qt baking dish. You’ll want to make sure the dish is large enough that the chicken pieces aren't squished together.
- Sprinkle with 1 Tbsp the taco or fajita seasoning.
- Spread the sliced peppers and onion over the top of the seasoned chicken.
- Sprinkle with the other 1/2 Tbsp of taco seasoning
- Drizzle with olive oil
- Sprinkle with the 3/4-1 cup cheddar cheese or Mexican blend cheese
- Bake on 375F for 35-40 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked to 165 when tested in the center.
Recommended Products
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J.A. HENCKELS INTERNATIONAL 31161-201 CLASSIC Chef's Knife, 8 Inch, Black - Pyrex SYNCHKG055786 Basics 2 Quart Glass Oblong Baking Dish, Clear 11.1 in. x 7.1 in. x 1.7
- Fody Foods Vegan Taco Seasoning | Flavorful Blend | Low FODMAP Certified | Gut Friendly No Onion No Garlic | IBS Friendly Kitchen Staple | Gluten Free Lactose Free Non GMO | 4.02 Ounce
Nutrition Information
Yield 4Amount Per Serving Calories 475Total Fat 17gCarbohydrates 10gNet Carbohydrates 6.6gFiber 3.4gProtein 60g
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