Mini Taco Cups — Fast, easy, and accidentally healthy! Your favorite taco fixings in individually-portioned taco cups!! Make these for your next game day party, holiday gathering, or July 4th barbecue!
Table of Contents
Mini Taco Cups Recipe
Everything just tastes better when it’s baked in individual portions. The cute factor makes it hard to resist devouring the whole batch of these taco tortilla cups.
Whip up the taco cups for a fast and easy dinner option on busy weeknights. Extras can be easily tossed into lunches for the next day. Or they’re perfect as an easy party appetizer that tastes more complicated than it really is!
The cumin-dusted beans, the gooey cheese, the juicy tomatoes, and the slight heat from the salsa with the cooling sour cream and creamy avocado made these an automatic hit with my family.
I just loved them because they literally have all my favorite savory ingredients in every bite. I could never get sick of these.
Ingredients in Mini Taco Cups
The mini taco cups are ready in 30 minutes with ingredients you likely already have on hand:
- Tortillas
- Canned black beans
- Tomatoes
- Shredded cheese
- Sour cream
- Salsa
- Avocado
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
Ingredient Tip
You can bump it up to eight layers if you want to throw in some canned black olives or canned jalepeño peppers.
How to Make Baked Taco Cups
I love how quick and easy these crunchy taco tortilla cups are to prepare! Here’s an overview of the recipe:
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a 12-cup regular muffin pan with cooking spray or grease the pan; set aside.
- Add 6 tortillas to prepared pan, pressing them down lightly.
- Add about 2 tablespoons beans to each cup.
- Optionally, add a few olives and jalepeno peppers to each cup, to taste.
- Sprinkle each cup with a generous pinch of cumin.
- Add about 2 tablespoons tomatoes to each cup.
- Add about 3 tablespoons cheese to each cup.
- Bake until the cheese has melted and the tortilla shells are lightly golden browned around the edges.
- Garnish each cup with salsa, sour cream, and / or avocado!
Recipe Tips
Recipe yield: As written, the recipe yields 6 baked taco cups rather than 12. I stagger the cups in the pan to allow each to have a bit more overhang room.
Removing the taco cups: Allow the crunchy taco cups to cool in the pan for about 5 minutes before removing; this helps them set up so they’re less prone to tearing or breaking.
When removing cups, even though you can lift them up and out with your fingers, use a spoon to lift them out because it gives support to the base so the bottoms don’t give way and break.
Recipe Variations to Try
These crunchy taco cups are easy to customize based on your personal preferences and what you have in the fridge. Here are some variations of the taco tortilla cups you can try:
- Make them vegan by using vegan cheese and vegan sour cream.
- Add shredded chicken or ground beef instead of (or in addition to) the beans.
- Use canned refried beans instead of black beans.
- Use wonton wrappers instead of corn tortillas.
- Add sauteed veggies to the taco filling.
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Easy Six-Layer Baked Taco Cups
Ingredients
- six 5-inch tortillas, I used white corn tortillas
- one 15-ounce can black beans, drained and rinsed
- one 3.8-ounce can sliced black olives, optional
- one 4-ounce can sliced jalepeno peppers, optional
- cumin, for sprinkling
- 1 medium ripe tomato, diced (Roma or vine-ripened)
- about 1 cup shredded cheese, Mexican blend, Monterrey Jack, Pepper Jack, queso fresco, etc.
- salsa, for garnishing
- sour cream, for garnishing
- 1 medium ripe avocado, peeled and diced for garnishing
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350F. Spray a Non-Stick 12-Cup Regular Muffin Pan with cooking spray or grease the pan; set aside. Tip – Recipe as written yields 6 cups rather than 12 so I stagger the cups in the pan to allow each to have a bit more overhang room.
- Add 6 tortillas to prepared pan, pressing them down lightly. The edges will naturally fold in.
- Add about 2 tablespoons beans to each cup. (You’ll have a small amount of beans left over; save for a future use).
- Optionally, add a few olives and jalepeno peppers to each cup, to taste.
- Sprinkle each cup with a generous pinch of cumin.
- Add about 2 tablespoons tomatoes to each cup.
- Add about 3 tablespoons cheese to each cup.
- Bake for about 25 minutes, or until cheese has melted and tortilla shells are lightly golden browned around the edges.
- Allow cups to cool in pan for about 5 minutes before removing; this helps them set up so they’re less prone to tearing or breaking. Important tip – When removing cups, even though you can lift them up and out with your fingers, use a spoon to lift them out because it gives support to the base so the bottoms don’t give way and break.
- Garnish each cup with salsa, sour cream, and avocado as desired. Serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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More Mexican Appetizers:
Layered Beef Taco Dip — A FAST and EASY layered dip with taco-seasoned cream cheese, sour cream, ground beef, black beans, cheese, tomatoes, and more!! Perfect for your next FIESTA and a guaranteed WINNER with everyone!!
Baked Corn Tortilla Chips — Making tortilla chips at home is FAST and EASY! Ready in just 20 minutes. These are BAKED not fried so they’re healthier, too!
Mexican Shrimp Cocktail — Chilled shrimp, tomatoes, cucumber, onion, jalapeno, creamy avocado, and more are combined in a tomato-based sauce, along with a bit of Mexican hot sauce for some kick!
Cheesy Baked Mexican Corn Dip — A hot corn dip reminiscent of Mexican street corn!! Creamy, cheesy, spiked with lime juice, chili powder, and a serrano chile or jalapeno for a touch of heat!
Do-It-Yourself Guacamole Bar – Make your own guacamole bar and have fun taste-testing the options! Great party idea that everyone loves!
Easy Restaurant-Style Blender Salsa — Make your own salsa in minutes! Fast, easy, goofproof and tastes 1000x better than anything you’d buy!
Beef Queso Dip — Caramelized onions, ground beef, taco seasoning, and CHEESE in this EASY queso dip everyone loves!! Great for game days, PARTIES, holidays, and events!!
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Albertsons. The opinions and text are all mine.
I could pop about a dozen of these right now!
And thanks for pinning :)
Love everything about this…individual sized…vegetarian…customizable so you can make even the pickiest eater happy. Yum!!!
individual sized…vegetarian…customizable = YES!! :)
Averie love this idea!!! So cute!!
Aww they’re so cute! Love that there are so many amazing flavors packed into such a small bite. Good things come in small packages ;)
My name is Julie and I’m a tacoholic. I’d totally eat ALL of these little taco gems, Averie!
So cute and colorful!! Yum!!
I wish I had these for lunch today!!
I was just at Fash Valley and went to Anthro, Sur La, W-S, and thought of you the whole time! I didn’t actually buy anything from any of those stores b/c the Anthro sale stuff wasn’t for me and well, Sur and W-S don’t have ‘sales’ but I wish :)
oh that is so cute and festive. Perfect for the spread at Game Day!
Superbowl here we come! These are perfect for this month! Pinned!
Thanks for pinning and I almost forgot it IS Superbowl month isn’t it!
I love these!! So adorable and delicious…Plus, they’re gluten free, which is awesome for my fam! Gotta add these to the Superbowl party menu! :)
One of those accidentally GF meals and glad they’ll work for your fam!
I so have to do this. Portion control at it’s finest…unless I eat 6. :) Pinned!!
Things like white choc pretzels and little individually-portioned things like these, yeah, self control, I know :)
Mexican food is always a hit at our house. And I like that these are customizable for each person’s individual taste. Yum!
customizable for each person’s individual taste = Exactly! So that way there’s no complainers or picky eater situations :)
Everything is cute about these, except for me when I shove 10 of them in my mouth in record time ;)
Ahhh, that’s kind of how I felt after making them :)
Is it bad that I want these cups for breakfast?! Such a fun idea, Averie! I would totally be snackin’ on these cuties all day long. Pinned!
Thanks for pinning!
Tacos in a cup–a fun idea for a meal at home or to take to a party. These would be so much easier to transport than regular tacos!
So much easier! I made a double batch for my daughter’s lunches and they worked out great!
Okay, we’re just loving these taco cups. I’m going to pin these for my wife to make, we love bite sized portions here. (She does the cooking and I do all the shopping and now we are both happy with this arrangement…..a happy wife = a happy life)
And there nutritious which helps with you know, those New Year’s Resolutions.
a happy wife = a happy life <--- You've got that right! :) Hope you guys enjoy these!