How to Fry Corn Tortillas for Tasty Soft Tacos
Are you a lover of Mexican food, and looking for how to fry a corn tortilla? Watch these easy tips on how to fry corn tortillas for tasty soft tacos.
Everyone loves tacos and tacos don’t have to be fancy! So this post shows you how to fry a corn tortilla!
Tortillas for Tasty Soft Tacos
How to Fry Corn Tortillas for Tasty Soft Tacos goes hand in hand with adding your favorite toppings.
Serve these tortillas on my Taco Tuesday Epic Fish Taco Board, Easy Pork Carnitas Taco Board, or this MOST POPULAR Easy Taco Recipe Dinner Board!
If you have chicken lovers, try this Taco Tuesday Chicken Taco Bowl Board where guests make their own chicken taco bowls! Perfect!
Tacos work just fine on the menu for weeknight planning, or even when last-minute company drops in.
Ingredients needed:
- Corn Tortillas
- Light olive oil or corn oil
How to serve corn tortillas (with Mexican food)
Did you know that you can buy a bag of 100 corn tortillas at Costco for $3.65? I usually divide the bag up into thirds and FREEZE what I don’t use.
We like to serve them this way: Enchiladas, tacos, cook a little longer for a tostada. Set out Best Homemade Guacamole Recipe and Cowboy Caviar Pineapple Dip, for a delicious Mexican feast.
Toppings or corn tortillas
- Meat
- Beans (kidney, black, pinto)
- Shredded cheese
- Chopped lettuce or cabbage
- Sour cream
- Olives
- Fresh tomatoes
- Salsa, or hot sauce
- Cilantro
- Lime
They are also delicious served on the side with this Chicken Quinoa Black Bean Bake recipe!
Or in this Crunchy Black Bean Mozzarella Tacos recipe!
How to Fry Corn Tortillas for Tasty Soft Tacos
- Heat a heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add 1/2 cup light olive oil or corn oil (you may need to add more, depending on how many you fry).
- Sprinkle a drop of water into the pan and when it pops, the oil is hot enough to start cooking the tortillas.
- Fry the tortilla for about 10-30 seconds on each side, until browned and cooked. The tortilla should be soft and pliable, not crispy.
- Fold a paper towel in half, and lay it on a plate. On the left side, place the hot, cooked tortilla. Fold the remaining right side of the paper towel over the top of the cooked tortilla (to absorb any grease). Place a new cooked tortilla down on top. Start with a new paper towel, folded in half, and place on top of the hot tortilla (again, to absorb any grease). Continue the process by adding a fresh paper towel every 2 tortillas. You will have one stack of hot tortillas.
Growing up eating tacos
Growing up, tacos were a staple in my home. And on week-long camping trips with family friends (sometimes there’d be 20 in our group), my mom and her friends would cook tacos for the gang.
They must have fried up well over 100 taco shells. So Clara Mae, Avis, and my mom taught us how to fry corn tortillas for tasty soft tacos when we were out camping!
I seemed to always get the job of taking my little hands, tearing off the paper towels, folding them in half, and standing by the cook who was frying up the tortillas.
It was a boring job, but the outcome was very good: Delicious tacos that for some reason tasted a whole lot better in the outdoors.
Last week was an incredibly busy week for me, and although we don’t usually do much entertaining on weekdays, we invited our friends over anyway because it was the only day that worked for both families.
My slow cooker was full of Mango Chicken, which is perfect for tacos, enchiladas, taco salad, or burritos. These tortillas are also yummy served with my Crock Pot Salsa Chicken on Brown Rice, or on the side with this Smoked Turkey Mango Chili recipe.
Set out good condiments
We set the table and chopped up all of the condiments. And then my daughter took over the “tortilla job,” this time, frying the tortillas, and placing them on folded paper towels to absorb the oil.
Tacos are actually a very easy dish to serve to guests if you don’t mind serving a buffet dinner, because you can cook the tortillas up in advance and place them in the oven to stay warm.
You can pre-chop all of the condiments and pull them out of the fridge right before serving. There’s not a lot of stress involved in serving a taco meal!
It’s perfect for the “reluctant entertainer.”
Get the Recipe:
How to Fry Corn Tortillas for Tasty Soft Tacos
Ingredients
- Corn Tortillas
- Light olive oil or corn oil
Toppings
- Beans, shredded cheese, chopped lettuce, cabbage, sour cream, olives, tomatoes, salsa, or hot sauce, and always cilantro and slices of lime.
Instructions
- Heat a heavy skillet over medium-high heat.
- Add 1/2 cup light olive oil or corn oil (you may need to add more, depending on how many you fry)
- Sprinkle a drop of water into the pan and when it pops, the oil is hot enough to start cooking the tortillas
- Fry the tortilla for about 10-30 seconds on each side, until browned and cooked. The tortilla should be soft and pliable, not crispy.
- Fold a paper towel in half, and lay it on a plate. On the left side, place the hot, cooked tortilla. Fold the remaining right side of the paper towel over the top of the cooked tortilla (to absorb any grease). Place a new cooked tortilla down on top. Start with a new paper towel, folded in half, and place on top of the hot tortilla (again, to absorb any grease). Continue the process by adding a fresh paper towel every 2 tortillas. You will have one stack of tortillas.
- Delicious served with meat, beans, shredded cheese, chopped lettuce, cabbage, sour cream, olives, tomatoes, salsa, or hot sauce, and always cilantro and slices of lime.
I absolutley LOVE my Le Creuset iron skillet, perfect for so many applications!
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I’m really loving the theme/design of your web site. Do you ever run into any internet browser compatibility problems? A few of my blog audience have complained about my site not operating correctly in Explorer but looks great in Safari. Do you have any recommendations to help fix this issue?
Tacos are one of our favorites, too! I love them for a crowd, because they are so customizable for meat eaters/vegetarians/picky toddlers.
Our favorite is probably griled skirt steak, but we also like refried beans/hamburger meat, pulled pork, and lentils/rice, too. Any taco is a good taco! I’ve even used fish sticks inside.
I don’t fry the tortillas in oil, though, just heat them in a dry cast iron skillet (or on the gas burner). Yum.
Love to eat a taco meal, always a crowd pleaser (yours looks yum!).
but I do NOT find it quick:
Time consuming pre-prep,
multiple serving bowls that crowd the buffet,
dropped bits of cheese, lettuce, tomato all over the buffet surface and
lots of bowls and spoons to wash afterward.
I have presented all the components on one long platter before, though. That cut down on the bowls, but it was still messy.
deb meyers
I love tacos! BBQ Carnes Asada is our family favorite to make.
Do you have any tips for freezing the corn tortillas? We have some from Costco that I’ve been wanting to freeze, but I have been unsure of just putting them in the freezer without putting them in a special bag or something.
One of our staple dinners too!!
Love corn tortillas!!
My son got married on Cinco De Mayo last year and I did a taco bar for 100 in my backyard. It was great fun! We had a chopping party the day before, talk about getting everybody involved :o)
Yum!! I am def. going to try the mango salsa with the chicken…I never use corn tortillas because they always seem so dry to me, but maybe doing them this way will cause them to be moister.
We love having tacos in our home, and I’m glad to hear that someone else likes to fry the tortillas! That’s how my Dad always cooked them when I was growing up, but here in the southwest, most don’t use oil but just cook briefly in the pan over heat. :(
Thanks for the great tip on cooking in large batches, and I have to smile when I read “recipe in my book” because I have your book now and can just look it up!
Our Mom’s must have been friends… my family had tacos every single week. Easy to make, inexpensive and great for large, hungry families! Mom taught me to fry tortillas exactly the way you describe it here. Still do it Mom’s way, in fact!