If you love the viral smash tacos, then just wait until you try these chicken Caesar smash tacos! With seasoned ground chicken, a homemade Caesar dressing, ice cold romaine lettuce, and freshly grated parmesan cheese, this may be your new favorite griddle recipe (especially if you’re a Caesar lover)!

chicken Caesar smash taco with chicken, lettuce, croutons and Caesar dressing in a tortilla

If you’ve made our smash chicken burgers before, you already know where this is headed – but we’re taking that same smash technique and turning it into something completely different. Chicken Caesar smash tacos. Ground chicken, smashed thin on the griddle inside a flour tortilla, topped with a cold, crunchy Caesar salad. That contrast between the hot, crispy chicken and the cold Caesar on top is what makes this one worth adding to the rotation.

You can check out our favorite homemade Caesar dressing here. For this post, we’re focused strictly on the smash taco itself – the chicken, the technique, and the griddle work.

What are Smash Tacos?

Smash tacos work off the same idea as a smash burger, just reshaped. Instead of pressing a ball of ground meat into a patty, you’re pressing a portion of seasoned ground meat directly onto a tortilla, then cooking that whole thing – meat and tortilla together – on a screaming hot griddle.

The result is a crispy, caramelized crust on the meat side, while the tortilla soaks up all that flavor and grease on the flip side. It cooks fast, it’s got great texture, and it’s a completely different eating experience than a traditional taco. Once you make one batch, you’ll start looking for other proteins to run through this same method.

You can see our traditional burger-style smash tacos here, or our Philly cheesesteak smash tacos here.

Ingredients and Notes

Ground chicken is lean, and lean protein needs a little help so it doesn’t dry out or fall apart on the griddle. That’s what the rest of this mixture is doing. Here’s what you need for these Chicken Caesar smash tacos:

ground chicken
egg – The egg works as a binder to hold everything together, but the yolk also brings a little extra fat into the mix, which matters when you’re working with lean meat.
mayonnaise – The mayo is doing something similar – adding moisture and richness so the chicken doesn’t cook up dry.
Panko breadcrumbs – These help bind the mixture too, but the bigger job here is texture. It gives the finished chicken a better bite instead of a dense, compact patty.
Shake That All-Purpose Seasoning – Or substitute salt and black pepper, or your favorite all-purpose seasoning for chicken.
flour tortillas – You definitely want flour tortillas for this recipe, the corn don’t work as well. Look for the soft taco sized tortillas.
romaine lettuce, Caesar dressing, croutons, and parmesan cheese – All of the ingredients needed for your Caesar salad topping. We recommend our homemade authentic Caesar dressing for this one, but you can definitely use store-bought.

How to Make Chicken Caesar Smash Tacos

Mix the chicken. Combine the ground chicken, egg, mayonnaise, panko, and Shake That seasoning in a bowl. Mix it enough to combine everything evenly, but don’t overwork it.

making a mixture of ground chicken in a mixing bowl

Portion it out. Divide the mixture into 5 equal portions. This makes it easy to build consistent tacos and keeps your cook times even across the batch.

Build your tacos. Spread one portion of the chicken mixture onto each tortilla in a thin, even layer, pushing it almost all the way to the edge. The more even the spread, the more even the cook – don’t leave thick spots in the middle.

spreading a ground chicken mixture on a flour tortilla

Griddle, meat side down. Set your griddle to medium heat. Place the tortillas meat-side down and let them cook undisturbed for 4-5 minutes. Resist the urge to move them around — that’s how you build the crust.

smashing ground chicken and tortillas on a griddle

Flip and finish. Flip to the tortilla side and keep cooking until the chicken is fully cooked through, checking with an instant-read thermometer for 165°F internal. If you need a little more color or heat on the chicken side, flip back over for another minute or two.

using an instant read thermometer to check the temperature of chicken smash tacos on a Blackstone

Top and serve. Load each smash taco with chilled Caesar salad, homemade croutons, and a finish of shredded parmesan. Serve immediately – the heat from the chicken will start warming up that cold lettuce fast, so don’t let these sit around.