This Easy Taco Recipe with ground beef is our SO easy and our favorite Taco Tuesday meal. 5 ingredients and 10 minutes! Made with ground beef, homemade (or store bought) taco seasoning, tomato sauce, and lime juice! Serve with your tortilla of choice.
If you love homemade tacos as much as I do, you’ll also love my: turkey tacos, baked fish tacos, sweet potato tacos, and shredded chicken tacos!
Taco Tuesday is my FAVORITE night of the week. That’s probably why I have more than just a few taco recipes 😉
My Other Taco Recipes
- Turkey Tacos
- Taco Cauliflower Rice Skillet
- Sweet Potato Tacos
- Baked Fish Tacos
- Turkey Taco Chili
- Grilled BBQ Chicken Tacos
- Crockpot Salsa Chicken (to be used for tacos, obvi 😉 )
I almost have all my bases covered, but as I was looking through my extensive taco list, I realized that I didn’t have an easy ground beef taco recipe!!!
Say whaaaat? So today, I’m fixing that.
How do you make taco meat?
Let’s be clear, there’s one thing that makes any taco and that’s the taco meat! It’s super easy to make and only takes ten minutes, so you can wait until you’re about ready to eat to whip it up fresh.
- Heat olive oil in a large non stick sauté pan over medium heat.
- Add in ground beef and taco seasoning.
- Cook, breaking up the meat as you go, until the beef is no longer pink and cooked through. About 5 minutes.
- Stir in tomato sauce.
- Simmer, uncovered, for 3-5 minutes, or until most of the tomato sauce has thickened, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in lime juice.
- Taste and re-season, if necessary and enjoy!
Yeah. That’s like a 10 minute dinner you guys. If you really want to impress, just add a couple of minutes, and make your own taco seasoning.
Homemade Taco Seasoning
Let me start by saying, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using store bought taco seasoning, BUT once you’ve made my Homemade Taco Seasoning, you’ll never go back. You can tailor it to your liking, make it ahead and use it with a bunch of other recipes like my Turkey Tacos and Healthy Taco Stuffed Sweet Potatoes. All you need is:
- Chili powder
- Cumin
- Salt
- Pepper
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Smoked paprika
- Cayenne pepper
- Dried Oregano
What to serve with tacos:
This is where personal tastes come into play. Here are a bunch of options, but choose what you and your family like best and get creative!
- A vessel: soft tortillas, hard taco shells (I suggest heating these up in the oven), chips, rice, or lettuce for a salad!
- Shredded cheese
- Chopped tomatoes, pico de gallo, or fresh salsa
- Sour cream or non fat plain greek yogurt
- Black beans
This is such as easy, classic dinner recipe kicked up a notch with homemade taco seasoning and lime juice.
You can’t go wrong with hearty beef, flavorful taco seasoning, a little tang from fresh lime juice all wrapped in a fluffy tortilla . . .
Enjoy this taco recipe with the whole family for an out of this world Taco Tuesday! Keep it fresh and rotate through my other taco recipes every tuesday!
– Jennifer

Easy Taco Recipe with Ground Beef
Ingredients
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1 pound extra lean ground beef I used 96% lean
- 3 tablespoons homemade taco seasoning or 1 (1.25 oz packet)
- 1 (8 oz) can tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon lime juice
- See serving suggestions below
Instructions
- Heat olive oil in a large non stick sauté pan over medium heat.
- Add in ground beef and taco seasoning.
- Cook, breaking up the meat as you go, until the beef is no longer pink and cooked through, about 5 minutes.
- Stir in tomato sauce.
- Gently simmer, uncovered, for 3-5 minutes, or until most of the tomato sauce has thickened, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking.
- Stir in lime juice.
- Taste and re-season, if necessary and enjoy!
Notes
- Hard shell tacos
- Soft shell tacos (flour or corn)
- Rice (to make a burrito bowl)
- Tortilla chips (to make nachos)
- Lettuce (to make a salad)
- Diced tomatoes
- Shredded lettuce
- Shredded cheese
- Pico de Gallo or salsa
- Sour cream or non fat plain greek yogurt
Nutrition Information
*Note: Nutrition information is estimated and varies based on products used.
Anonymous Chinle, Arizona