Here at Our Best bites we specialize in practical, delicious ideas to help you get dinner on the table for your families. We share a LOT of different types of recipes and content around here, but we know you especially love family friendly dinners so I have a REALLY good one for you today. These Sheet Pan Fajitas are ridiculously easy to make. With just a few minutes prep time, you can pop them in the oven and have just enough time to set the table and gather all the fixings, and then they’re ready! Dinner in under 30 minutes. Thousands of you have made these and loved these and ranked them as our top recipe of the year!
Looking for more fantastic meal ideas? Sign up for our weekly newsletter!
Types of Fajita Recipes
We’ve got a couple other fajita recipes here on Our Best Bites, and they all have their place. For the grill, you cannot beat our Classic Fajita recipe. It requires a long marinade and its tangy, smoky flavor profile is beloved by readers around the world as one of our all-time most popular recipes! For those times where you need to just dump everything in a slow cooker, we have my easy Slow Cooker Steak Fajitas. Super tender steak and so easy and delicious. Set it and forget it.
These days the recipe I tend to make the most are these Sheet Pan Fajitas. You cannot beat the convenience of a one-pan meal and a simple yet flavorful dry rub gives these fajitas out0-of-this-world flavor without drowning everything on a pan like a marinade would.
Making the Dry Rub
I’m using seasonings that most of you probably have in your pantries already: Kosher salt, black pepper, chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, oregano, garlic powder, and if you have any- True Lime. I buy this crystallized fresh lime in a large shaker bottle on Amazon and use it on evvvverything. If you don’t have it, no worries. We’ll give these a squeeze of fresh lime.
As I mentioned before, we’re using all dry seasonings because there’s plenty of moisture in the chicken and vegetables and we want these to caramelize and roast (not simmer!)
Chicken Choice
You can certainly try this recipe with boneless skinless chicken breast, but I prefer thighs for some very specific reasons. Aside from the fact that chicken thighs are so much more flavorful in a recipe like this, they are also much easier to cook. Chicken breasts need to be cooked to a certain temperature and as soon as they pass that, they’re suddenly dry and chewy. It’s hard to mess up chicken thighs. You can overcook them and they’re still juicy and tender. On a sheet pan meal, you’re cooking several different things on the same pan and it’s really nice to have some flexibility in case everything isn’t done at the exact same time. Did I mention they taste so much better in this recipe? Buy boneless skinless ones and then use a sharp pair of clean scissors or kitchen shears to trim excess fat if you like.
Add the Seasoning Mix
I slice up my chicken and vegetables and then use plastic gloves so I can just toss everything together with my hands! Drizzle with a few tablespoons oil (our Lime Olive Oil is my personal favorite, here) and that seasoning mix. I use an extra large sheet pan (I get them here, they’re fantastic and so useful. I pretty much use this size for everything!) and this just gets tossed in the oven.
Cook the Sheet Pan Fajitas
If your oven has a convection setting, use it. Convection will circulate hot air and help get everything kind of toasty brown like a grill would. If not, you can always broil quickly at the end if you like.
I toss on a handful of chopped cilantro at the end and a big squeeze of fresh lime juice. These are DIVINE.
Now you can obviously serve these traditionally in tortillas with all the fixings.
But some other ways we love eating these, depending on nutrition preferences, are:
-Over shredded iceberg or mixed greens
-Over a bed of cauliflower rice
-In a bowl of rice and beans (use the quick steam rice bags and canned beans for a fast meal!)
-Simply in a bowl with avocado and sour cream
Any way you do it, I think you’ll love this one! Let me know what you think!
Sheet Pan Fajitas
Ingredients
- 1.5 - 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and sliced (see note)
- 1 large onion sliced
- 2 large bell peppers or 3 small/med ones, sliced
- 3-4 tablespoons olive oil or other oil of your choice I prefer our Lime Olive Oil
- 2 teaspoons kosher or sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2-3 teaspoons True Lime optional
- handful of cilantro
- 1 lime
- optional for serving: sour cream guacamole/avocado, tortillas, rice and beans, etc.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Have a large sheet pan ready (cover with foil or parchment for easy clean-up).
- Place sliced chicken, onions, and peppers in an extra large mixing bowl. Drizzle on oil and all seasonings. Toss to coat. (Tip: I keep Nitrile gloves in my kitchen and use them for things like this- tossing with your hands is much easier!)
- Spread chicken and pepper mixture out evenly on baking sheet and place in oven. Bake for 20-30 minutes (closer to 20 with convection) until chicken is cooked through and vegetables are tender. If desired, place under broiler for a quick minute to brown.
- Remove from oven and if desired, sprinkle cilantro over everything and give it a big squeeze of fresh lime juice (you might not need fresh lime if you used True Lime, but I say never enough lime.)
- Serve with tortillas and traditional fixings, or over a bed of salad or veggies or rice and beans, etc.
