Shredded Beef Taquitos {Easy, Healthier, Baked Taquitos}

• Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Once hot, add the onions and cook about 2 minutes.

• Next, add the shredded beef, green chiles, and salt. Cook about 7-10 minutes, or until most of the liquid has evaporated. 

• Remove the pan from the heat, and set aside to let cool. Once cooled a bit, stir in the shredded cheese. 

• Preheat oven to 400ºF. Line an extra large baking sheet with foil. Generously spray the foil with cooking spray (or brush with oil).
• Place 12 tortillas in one layer onto the baking sheet. (If using regular sized baking sheets, you can fit 8 at a time). Spray the tops of each tortilla with a layer of cooking spray (or brush the tops with oil). Bake for 4 minutes to soften the tortillas.

• Remove from the oven, and stack the tortillas on top of each other into one pile. Then, flip the stack so you have the sprayed tops down. (Stacking keeps them from drying out while filling.)

• Line up about 2 heaping tablespoons of shredded beef mixture towards the bottom third of the tortilla. (I use a cookie scoop for measuring out mixture, and easy scooping.).

• Tightly roll up the tortilla, and place back on the baking sheet, seam side down.

• Leave a little space between the rolled taquitos when placing on the sheet pan. 

• Bake 15 minutes, (you can add an extra little spritz of cooking spray before putting in the oven the first time, if it looks a bit dry.) 

• Remove the tray from oven, and flip the taquitos. Bake an additional 10 minutes, or until lightly browned and crisp. 

• Repeat this process with remaining tortillas/filling to make the rest of the taquitos. Or, you can bake them all at the same time if you heat the rest of your tortillas while you are rolling the first batch of taquitos! 

Dip the taquitos in some homemade guacamole, or Hot Sauce!

Or, serve with toppings! I topped ours with these layers:

• Guacamole
• shredded lettuce
• shredded cheese
• diced tomato
• Healthy Mexican Crema

And served with a side of our hot sauces! So good! 🙂

If you are in a hurry, you can skip the step of cooking the beef filling. However, the taquitos will come out with more breakage, due to the extra moisture inside! Here is a photo of taquitos with the "dehydrated" meat mixture, and the uncooked meat mixture for comparison:

But, if you want to skip cooking the meat mixture, use these steps to help dry out the mixture a bit:

• Drain the can of green chiles, and add them to a large mixing bowl along with drained Mexican Shredded Beef. Then, pat down the beef and chiles with a couple of paper towels to dry up some of the moisture.
• Add in the onions, cheese and salt, and stir to combine. 

Tortillas: