This easy, slow cooker ground beef taco recipe is one you will want to add to your regular rotation. It’s simple ingredients assemble quickly for a great meal - any night of the week.
Taco Tuesday has somehow morphed into Taco every day and it is easy to see why. Just tweak this simple and flavorful meal to fit any palate; spicy, mild, vegetarian, carnivore - no matter what your preference, consider it covered. Toss it in a taco shell and dinner is served.
How To Make Tacos in a Crockpot
Not all slow cooker tacos are created equally and ground beef tacos are one that gets the short end of the stick. Ground beef has to be cooked before it is added to the rest of your taco meat ingredients.
Adding all ingredients in with raw ground beef provides greasy and unpleasant results. Even utilizing extremely lean beef does not make for a great end product.
Fortunately, there is a way to avoid washing the extra pot that would normally come along with browning ground beef. You can cook beef directly in your slow cooker. I generally cook about 6 lbs of ground beef at a time and freeze it in quart-sized containers so that I always have it on hand to use in other recipes.
Once you have fully cooked (and drained all excess fat and liquids from) your beef, this recipe is a breeze. Taco seasoning, tomato paste, garlic salt, and water are all it takes to take your ground beef from basic to extraordinary!
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Mix it all in your slow cooker and let it go!. I suggest a cooking time of about 4 hours to allow flavors to meld together. After that time, switch to warm (or let your automatic slow cooker switch for you) until ready to serve.
Hints and Hacks
- Slow cooker liners are an optional but helpful hack whenever using a slow cooker. They allow you to cook with little to no cleanup. I like to buy mine in bulk for a cheaper per-piece price.
- Make-your-own tacos are an easy way to keep everyone at your meal table happy. Variety and knowing your audience are the keys to success. Some basics to have on hand are:
- soft taco shells
- hard taco shells
- guacamole
- salsa
- sour cream
- shredded cheese
- lime wedges
- shredded lettuce
- diced tomatoes
- rice
- refried beans
- hot sauce
- Packaged taco seasonings work perfectly well. However, making your own will allow you to control exactly what you eat as sell as the heat level. See below for my favorite taco seasoning mix.
- This recipe is for mild tacos. Turn up the heat by adding hot chili peppers into the slow cooker along with the listed ingredients.
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📖 Recipe
Lazy Slow Cooker Ground Beef Tacos
Equipment
- 3.5 qt slow cooker or larger
- Mixing Spoon
Ingredients
- 2 lbs browned ground beef
- ⅓ cup taco seasoning see notes below for homemade taco seasoning recipe
- ⅔ cup water
- ⅓ cup tomato paste
- 1 teaspoon garlic salt
Instructions
- place slow cooker liner in vessel (optional)
- place browned ground beef in slow cooker
- add taco seasoning, water, tomato paste and garlic salt to slow cooker vessel and stir
- cover and cook 4-6 hours on low or 2-3 hours on high
Notes
- 4 tablespoon chili powder
- 1.5 tablespoon cumin
- 1.5 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- 1 teaspoon dried cilantro
Nutrition
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Jenni says
When you cook ground beef in the slow cooker, does it still turn a nice brown color? How long does 6 pounds take to cook?
Susan says
Hi Jenni, The beef does turn brown, but not as much of it will take on the deep browned/fried look it will get in a frying pan. The cooking time for 6 lbs is goign to be somewhere between 2 and 4 hours depending on your slow cooker. Mine is generally finished in about 2 hours. But, the slow cooker I use most often for this purpose tends to run a little on the hot side. You can check out all the details here: https://thelazyslowcooker.com/lazy-browned-ground-beef/
I hope this info helps!