Picked With Passion

These healthy Baked Chicken and Bean Taquitos are stuffed with chicken, refried beans, cheese, and salsa for a meal you will make again and again. Made with just 5 ingredients, these crispy baked taquitos are a family friendly meal with less than 300 calories and 6 Weight Watchers SmartPoints for three!

Baked Chicken and Bean Taquitos for the dinner win! I can’t say enough good things about these crunchy, delicious little baked tacos. I made them on a whim last week instead of traditional tacos and couldn’t believe how good they turned out. After loading them up with salsa, avocado, lettuce, and cheese – it was as good as the fried version but so much better for you and surprisingly easy to make.

It really couldn’t be simpler to make these baked taquitos. All you have to do is combine cooked chicken breast, a can of refried beans, salsa, and cheese. To keeps things really easy, I used shredded rotisserie chicken breasts without the skin. Then you just mix the chicken with fat free refried beans, your favorite salsa, and cheese. Roll it up into some corn or flour tortillas and bake. Simple.

Now there are some tricks to making sure these get nice and crispy. First of all, cooking spray is your friend in this recipe. You want to really coat the taquitos with cooking spray so they crisp up in the oven. You could also brush them with olive oil or canola oil. Next you want to make sure your filling isn’t too wet. If your filling is wet, it will make the tacos soggy.

Lastly, it’s important to make sure your tortillas are nice and pliable before stuffing them so they don’t break. I find the best way to do this is to wrap the tortillas in moist paper towels and then microwave them for 20-40 seconds until they are nice and soft. Then keep them in the warm paper towels, pulling them out individually as you roll each taco.

How to Make Baked Chicken and Bean Taquitos

• Choose your protein: To keep things quick and easy, I usually use shredded rotisserie chicken breast for this recipe. Any cooked chicken will work, but I like to keep in smaller pieces since I find they come out better that way. You could also use shredded chicken thighs or beef, just make sure the filling isn’t too wet. Cooked ground turkey or beef is another great option or vegetarian crumbles for a non meat version.
• Add the beans: One problem people have when making taquitos is that the filling falls out. I find that using refried beans prevents that since they hold everything together. If you don’t have refried beans, I recommend mashing the beans lightly with a fork before mixing in the other fillings. If you don’t like beans, you can skip them entirely. However you may want to use less salsa so the filling doesn’t become too wet and make for soggy taquitos.
• Pick a salsa: You can really use any salsa for this, so just choose something that your family loves – pico de gallo, spicy salsa taquera, chipotle salsa, or canned enchilada sauce. Personally, I love a nice spicy, green salsa so that is usually my first choice.
• Add cheese: In my opinion you can never go wrong with cheese, so I always throw in some shredded cheese. You could also melt this on top at the end instead, which is also delicious and makes for a killer presentation.
• Toppings: Add shredded lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, avocado, onions, cilantro, sour cream, extra salsa, you name it! I like to set up a bunch of options and let everyone top their baked taquitos with their favorites.

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