Beef or Chicken Air Fryer Flautas

Chicken or beef air fryer flautas make a great dinner! Homemade shredded meat wrapped in tortillas and crispy on the outside without any oil.

Have you tried making air fryer flautas yet? I bet you’ve had them at Mexican restaurants but never thought how easy they’d be to make them homemade. Now you can with our easy air fryer recipe here. (affiliate links present)

Air Fryer Chicken Taquitos

Yes we shared with you a while back how to make frozen air fryer taquitos, these are a bit different. Sometimes the term is used interchangeably but there is a difference. The biggest one is the type of tortillas you use to wrap them up. The insides can be whatever you want them to be too which is great.

Either shredded chicken, beef, or ground beef works for this. You can use your Ninja Foodi air crisp function to make these or any other brand you have like AirWave, Phillips etc… Here we go…

Flautas in Air Fryer

Want to make them spicy? Many do and the easiest way to do so is add red pepper flakes or use half lb. of spicy ground sausage and half beef. Shredded chicken with jalapeno powder works wonderfully too. Use what you love.

Are flautas and taquitos the same?

Nope. These are made with flour tortillas where the latter uses corn tortillas. Some restaurants switch them and use the other term which would make sense as to why people might be confused.

Traditionally both are deep fried in hot oil but these are much healthier. You don’t need any at all but if you want the outsides to be really crispy crunchy you can use some olive oil spray in the last minute. This air fryer ground beef recipe used beans and hamburger meat prepared with taco seasoning.

Ninja Foodi Flautas

With the Foodi you will use the lid that is attached. First off you’ll want to precook your meat and season it ideally. To make taco meat you can make it in your Instant Pot, on your stovetop or make air fryer ground beef and toss with a bit of broth and taco seasoning.

Ingredients

1. Ground beef
   1. you can make air fryer chicken taquitos / flautas using leftover chicken like we did with our air fryer chimichanga recipe
   2. or use pressure cooker pulled pork
2. Shredded cheese
3. Refried beans
4. Salsa
5. 6″ small corn or flour tortillas

How to Make Tex Mex Flautas

This are the basics. You could add a can of diced green chilis if you like, bring up the heat with Tobasco, use spicy ground sausage for a ton of flavor and spice…. The filling is totally up to you, instructions here are how to roll and cook perfectly.

How to roll flautas

Once you have the filling mixed together well it is just a manner of filling each tortilla in the middle and rolling it up. Lay them on a baking sheet or paper towel with the seam side facing down until you’re done with this whole process. You could double this recipe if you were making a bunch for a party or something.

Leave the top and bottom with some room so it doesn’t want to leak out. 2 heaping Tablespoons is about right, depending on how large yours are. Remember that they need to fit inside your basket so 6″ is just right. I always like to preheat my Cosori so they cook evenly the whole time they’re cooking. Do that while you’re rolling all these babies up, that takes about 5 minutes so it will be ready when you are.

How do you keep flautas rolled when frying?

If you make them this way and keep the end on the bottom they will be just fine. A toothpick can be inserted too but isn’t entirely necessary. If deep frying it would help to submerge one held by the tongs for a minute until the end sticks nicely and doesn’t unravel.

What temperature do you cook taquitos in air fryer?

Yes, we will refer to these by the “other name” here. It is best to set the temp. to 375 F. Essentially you are just melting and rewarming the inside ingredients and crisping the outside so it won’t take long.

How to Make Air Fryer Ground Beef Flautas

You’ll follow these same steps no matter what kind of filling you use. Once they have a few minutes inside you can flip them over and they will stay in tact. Preheat air fryer to 375 degrees F for 5 minutes. In a bowl mix your precooked taco meat, refried beans, salsa and cheese together.

• Lay a tortilla down and spoon about 2 heaping Tbsp. of mixture in the center. Roll it up gently and sit on baking sheet with seam side on the bottom so it doesn’t unravel.
• When preheated place them into basket in a single layer without overlapping with the seams set on to the bottom for 8-10 minutes.
• At minute 4 flip over and check at min. 8. If you want them browner spray with olive or avocado oil cooking spray and air fry 1-2 more minutes.

Serve with additional salsa, our empanada dipping sauce, sour cream, guacamole, etc. Let’s jump to recipe and I’ll tell you how we serve these up.

What do you serve with flautas?

It is fun to make these as a football party food with all sorts of dips and sauces set out. At one end have some Dixie Cups so people can spoon some into different cups and dip away.

• Guacamole
• Sour cream
• Homemade pico de gallo salsa
• Hot sauce
• Bang bang sauce is great
• Queso fresca
• This is how to make fry sauce
• Slightly warmed cream cheese

That is how we do it for fun dinner nights too, the kids love it.

How do you reheat leftover flautas?

You could throw them back into your machine for about 2 minutes. If you don’t want the outside to get too crispy then just use your microwave for about 30 seconds instead.

Honestly, it is easier and best if you just make what you want then and there. Then save the filling and tortillas separate. Refrigerate and reassemble the next day for another batch. They’ll turn out better that way. Have a different mixture you love inside yours that you think we might love too? Leave us a message below so we can try your combo!

Other meat filled rolls we love

Whether you stuff these with shredded salsa chicken and a bit of salt and pepper or the mix we have below, it’s a quick and easy meal. Love these and looking for what else you should make next? Here are a few suggestions:

• You can make some homemade air fryer egg rolls some night. The inside possibilities are endless.
• Air fryer won tons we made the other evening too. With bagged cabbage and ground beef I just added flavor with jarred teriyaki sauce and won ton wrappers. Easy peasy.

Our air fryer empanadas are fun hand pies essentially. You can stuff them with this same mixture if you wanted.

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