Sous vide chicken fajitas are so easy and the best way to ensure your chicken is tender, not tough or rubbery. This recipe can be made with chicken breasts or chicken thighs, and the best part: it can be cooked from frozen!

Sous vide chicken fajitas on white plate on yellow surface.

This recipe is from one of my cookbooks, Sous Vide Meal Prep. Sous vide fajitas are the perfect meal prep recipe because you can make several servings in at once, freeze them in dinner-sized portions, then go straight from freezer to sous vide when you want to cook and serve!

Sous Vide Meal Prep

This cookbook outlines my entire method for keeping your freezer stocked with ready to sous vide meals (and some great recipes to boot!).

Learn More

You might be wondering if sous viding them is worth the extra effort. Considering I included this recipe in my cookbook and now here, I don’t think you’ll be surprised to learn that I think it is! When you cook a protein like chicken really hot and really fast, as you traditionally would with fajitas, the chicken is more likely to be tough, veering towards rubbery. When you sous vide, you’re guaranteeing perfect, tender texture.

Don’t worry: you won’t sacrifice the char! You finish this recipe with a quick, screaming hot sear in a cast iron skillet for that traditional flavor. You’re going to love it!

If after making this you’re ready for more sous vide recipes, don’t worry: I’ve got plenty!

Fajita Marinade

This marinade is really simple and creates more of a “paste” than a traditional liquid marinade, which makes it easier to vacuum seal.

From upper left, counter clockwise: Lime juice, honey, Worcestershire sauce, olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, chili powder, paprika
Whisk all the marinade ingredients together until combined.

How to Slice Bell Peppers

Bell peppers are an essential fajita ingredient. I like to use a mix of red and orange bell peppers. There are lots of tips and tricks for slicing bell peppers. Let me teach you mine!

You can view this as a step-by-step web story here.

Red bell pepper on white cutting board.
Start by laying the bell pepper on its side on a cutting board.
Red bell pepper with top and bottom removed on white cutting board.
Slice off the tops and the bottoms. You can slice around the stem to use most of these pieces, too.
Slicing through red bell pepper on white cutting board.
Make a slice through one side of the bell pepper from top to bottom.
Slicing through ribs of red bell pepper on white cutting board.
Open up the bell pepper, and slice through all the ribs, detaching the ribs and center piece that holds the seeds.
Separated core and flesh of red bell pepper on white cutting board.
You should be left with two separate pieces: the outside flesh of the bell pepper and the inner core and seeds. Discard core and seeds.
Trimming ribs of red bell pepper on white cutting board.
Remove any excess rib pieces if necessary.
Slicing red bell pepper into thin strips on white cutting board.
Cut the bell pepper into thin (less than 1/4 inch) matchsticks.
Pile of sliced red bell pepper on white cutting board.
Your pile of matchsticks should look like this!

How to Cut an Onion for Fajitas

Now on to the other staple fajita ingredient: onions! For fajitas, onions are best done in long, thin slices. Here is how you can achieve that:

You can also view this as a step-by-step web story here.

Slice the top of the onion off.
Slice the bottom of the onion off without slicing off the entire core.
Slice the onion in half and peel that half. It’s easier to peel once you’ve sliced this much!
Place the onion on a cutting board with the center cut side down and make thin (less than 1/4 inch) slices.
Once the base becomes so small it’s difficult to cut, flip so the center cut side is down and continue slicing.
You should have a nice pile of thin onion slices!

How to Assemble Sous Vide Fajitas

Now that your marinade is whisked, your bell peppers are prepped, and your onions are sliced, it’s time to put everything together!

Wait, where’s the chicken? Let’s address that. For this recipe, you can use boneless skinless chicken breasts or boneless skinless chicken thighs. I’m using breasts in this recipe, but both are delicious! Regardless of what you choose to use, you’ll want to cut the chicken into 1 inch pieces that are closer to strip-shaped than cubed.

Sliced chicken breasts on white plate.
Here is what you want your chicken breasts to look like: more rectangular than square.

Once the chicken is ready, it’s time to assemble.

Sous vide chicken fajita components on yellow surface, including sliced onions, chicken breasts, bell peppers, and marinade.
Gather the fajita components: sliced onions, chicken breasts, bell peppers, and the marinade.
Fajita components in vacuum seal bag.
Add all of the ingredients to a large vacuum seal bag.
Hands massaging fajita ingredients in vacuum seal bag.
Massage the bag to coat the chicken, bell peppers, and onions in the marinade.
Vacuum sealing chicken fajita ingredients on yellow surface.
Vacuum seal the bag. If you see liquid starting to creep towards the seal line, manually press seal to stop the suction.

Don’t have a vacuum sealer? Don’t fret. There are lots of other air removal methods you can use. For this, I recommend the water displacement method.

At this point, you can freeze the fajitas to cook later or cook immediately. I like to batch make several dinner portions of these fajitas for future dinners!

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    How to Cook Sous Vide Fajitas

    If you’re cooking from frozen, you can go straight from the freezer to the sous vide water bath. No defrosting required! Just add an extra half hour to the minimum cook time.

    Vacuum sealed chicken fajitas in sous vide water bath on yellow surface.
    Sous vide at 150 degrees F for 1.5-4 hours.

    When your fajitas are done in the sous vide bath, preheat a cast iron skillet over hot heat. Add a little bit of ghee or high smoke point oil like canola oil to the skillet. Cut open the bag and use tongs to remove the chicken, bell peppers, and onion from the bag and add to the skillet. Save the juices!

    Use the tongs to toss the chicken and veggies every 30 seconds or so and cook until just charred. This shouldn’t take more than a few minutes.

    Once the charring is done, drop the heat to medium low and pour the liquid from the bag into the skillet. Let simmer for a couple of minutes until the liquid has reduced.

    Chicken and veggies for fajitas in cast iron skillet on yellow surface.

    Now you can assemble your fajitas! We like corn tortillas over flour tortillas, but you can use whatever tortillas make you happy. Squeeze on some fresh lime juice and garnish with fresh cilantro if you’re feeling fancy.

    While you’re at it, make some Sous Vide Infused Tequila with Cucumber and Lime for the perfect cocktail pairing!

    You can also view this recipe as a step-by-step web story here.

    Sous vide chicken fajitas on white plate on yellow surface.
    5 stars from 3 reviews

    Get the Recipe:

    Sous Vide Chicken Fajitas

    Prep Time: 30 minutes
    Cook Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
    Yield: 4 people
    Print Recipe Pin Recipe Leave a Review
    Sous vide chicken fajitas are so easy and the best way to ensure your chicken is tender, not tough or rubbery. This recipe can be made with chicken breasts or chicken thighs, and the best part: it can be cooked from frozen!

    Ingredients
     

    Marinade

    • 2 tbsp honey
    • 2 tbsp lime juice, about 1/2 lime
    • 2 tbsp olive oil
    • 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
    • 2 tbsp chili powder
    • 2 tsp kosher salt
    • 2 tsp garlic powder
    • 2 tsp onion powder
    • 1 tsp paprika, hot or regular
    • 1 tsp ground cumin
    • 1/2 tsp freshly cracked black pepper

    Fajitas

    • 2 boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into 1 inch strips
    • 1 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
    • 1 orange bell pepper, thinly sliced
    • 1/2 white onion, thinly sliced
    • Canola oil, for searing

    Serving

    • Corn or flour tortillas
    • Chopped cilantro, optional
    • Lime wedges, optional

    Equipment

    Instructions
     

    • Preheat sous vide water bath to 150 degrees F using immersion circulator.
    • Whisk together all ingredients for the marinade.
    • Add the marinade, bell peppers, onions, and chicken breasts to a vacuum seal bag. Massage the bag to coat all the components in the marinade. Vacuum seal or use another air removal method.
    • At this point, you can freeze or refrigerate and cook later or cook immediately.
    • Add the bag to your sous vide water bath and cook for 1.5 to 4 hours. If cooking from frozen, cook for a minimum of 2 hours.
    • After sous viding, preheat a cast iron skillet until it’s smoking. Grease with canola oil. Use tongs to remove protein and veggies from bag and add to skillet. Save the bag and juices. Cook, tossing occasionally with tongs, until charred.
    • Reduce the heat to medium-low and pour the juices from the bag into the skillet. Simmer for 1-2 minutes, until sauce has thickened a bit.
    • Sprinkle the cilantro all over the chicken and veggies in the skillet and serve with tortillas and lime slices.

    Notes

    Nutritional information does not include tortillas.
    Cuisine: Mexican
    Course: Dinner
    Author: Chelsea Cole
    Calories: 207kcal, Carbohydrates: 19g, Protein: 14g, Fat: 9g, Saturated Fat: 1g, Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g, Monounsaturated Fat: 6g, Trans Fat: 0.01g, Cholesterol: 36mg, Sodium: 1355mg, Potassium: 524mg, Fiber: 3g, Sugar: 13g, Vitamin A: 3120IU, Vitamin C: 83mg, Calcium: 41mg, Iron: 2mg
    Did you make this recipe?Mention @aducksoven on Instagram or tag #aducksoven.