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Our Favorite Chicken Fajitas

Name: Our Favorite Chicken Fajitas
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 1 h 15 min
Total time: 2 h
Cuisine: Tex-Mex
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon fajita seasoning; 2 tablespoons water; 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breast cutlets; 1/4 cup olive oil; 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lime juice; 2 tablespoons peanut oil; 2 medium yellow onions, sliced 1/4-inch thick; 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided; 1 tablespoon unsalted butter; 3 bell peppers, seeded and sliced 1/4-inch thick; 2-3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 tablespoon tomato paste; 3/4 teaspoon low sodium soy sauce (optional)*; Flour tortillas, warmed; Greek yogurt or sour cream; Lime wedges

Published: June 22, 2018 / Updated: April 14, 2022 / 53 Comments

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Grab your cast iron skillet – these chicken fajitas are a one pan meal that are so good they’ll outshine your favorite Tex-Mex restaurant!

I’m not saying that these chicken fajitas are the reason I married my husband… but I will say that every time he makes them, I’m reminded all over again of what a catch he is.

And ever since we started using my homemade fajita seasoning blend, they’re even better!

Chicken fajitas were always my go-to dinner order whenever we’d go out to a Tex-Mex restaurant. Even as a kid, my mom and I would order a platter of sizzling hot fajitas and go to town making our own perfectly stuffed tortillas.

There’s just something about the perfect ratio of chicken to peppers and onions, piled atop a tortilla slathered with a healthy dose of sour cream that makes my heart sing.

But once a local restaurant started going downhill with their fajita quality, my husband made it his mission to perfect this dish for me.

And I couldn’t be more pleased with the results!

Chicken Fajita Recipe Tips

A few fajita tips from my husband:

For timing purposes, I like to cut the onions while the skillet preheats, and then cut the peppers while the onions are cooking.
It’s worth the extra time to really caramelize the onions, but if you’re short on time, just put them in with the peppers.
You want the peppers to caramelize and blister while you’re cooking them – make sure to scrape the bottom of the skillet while you’re stirring to ensure even cooking without burning.
The acid from tomatoes can be rough on cast iron, so that’s why I add the tomato paste at the end.
Be sure to clean your cast iron skillet well! Ashley got The Ringer for me one Christmas and it’s a great tool for removing stuck on gunk from the bottom of the pan. We also use scrapers like these.

My additional tips would be to serve these up with some tortilla chips and homemade guacamole (the recipe for our current favorite is coming soon!) and a margarita or 3.

I also have been using whole milk plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream for the past several years. It started because I’m the only person at home who can tolerate lactose, but yogurt is OK for everyone.

I got so used to it that I actually prefer it to sour cream for things like fajitas and tacos now. The contrast of the cool yogurt or sour cream to the piping hot fajita meat and veggies is one of the things I love most about this meal.

How to Get Restaurant Quality Fajitas at Home

A few small things really make these fajitas taste like they came straight from a restaurant (and are even better, in my opinion!).

If at all possible, use a large cast iron skillet. The seasoning on the skillet and the way it retains heat and chars the ingredients isn’t something that’s easily done on a standard skillet.

A wok would work, too, but cast iron is just perfect here. There are plenty of reasons to add a cast iron skillet to your kitchen arsenal, and fajitas are a prime example!

Take the time to really caramelize your onions. Many recipes claim to yield caramelized onions in like… 20 minutes. NOPE. This is a labor of love, mostly unattended, but it’ll take a good 45 minutes to an hour to really caramelize them well.

The flavor you get from caramelized onions is so much richer than rushing them, but if you’re short on time you can just add them in when you add the peppers to get a nice char.

If you want to get that nice smoking sizzle that restaurant fajitas are known for, add a little soy sauce right at the end and march ’em on out to the dinner table.

These are seriously one of my all-time favorite dishes. We tend to alternate between chicken and steak fajitas, based on our mood and what type of meat is on sale.

The only problem with this recipe is that my family loves them so much that there isn’t often a ton of leftovers! These are absolutely delicious reheated for lunches, but my 6-year-old can sometimes take out 3 in one sitting.

He’s definitely mine!

Some of our favorite cast iron recipes:

Recipe for Our Favorite Chicken Fajitas