Deliciously crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, Navajo Tacos made with Indian Fry Bread are topped with a meaty mixture of taco seasoned ground beef and beans, then all the fixings like sour cream, shredded lettuce, cheddar cheese, and tomatoes!
Some of our other favorite weeknight meal ideas are Homemade Hamburger Helper, Meatloaf Hamburger Patties, and homemade pizza made with the BEST Pizza Dough Recipe.
Navajo Tacos (Indian Fry Bread)
If you have never had a Navajo Taco before, now is the time to remedy that situation. The history behind this dish and the importance of the Navajo taco is something I was only vaguely aware of before deciding to make this as a recipe for my American Eats series while I’m looking at the favorite foods of the state of Arizona.
Navajo Tacos were voted the State Dish of Arizona in a 1995 poll by the Arizona Republic newspaper and show up on many lists as one of the foods that Arizona is best known for.
But I could have shared this for South Dakota, which declared Indian fry bread to be the official state bread of South Dakota in 2005, or Oklahoma, which is home to many Native Americans and hosts a large number of pow-wows each year where the Navajo Taco (sometimes just called an Indian taco, since it has been adopted and adapted by many tribes since it’s creation) is the most popular fare.
This history behind Navajo fry bread is a painful one, as is much of Native American history. It was created in 1864 using the simplest of ingredients – the flour, salt and lard that was supplied by the United States government to the Navajo people of Arizona when they were forced to leave their historical homeland and march 300-miles by foot on a journey that has come to be known as the “the Long Walk” to New Mexico, where they were to resettle.
The new land did not support their traditional staples of vegetables and beans, so the fry bread came to be a big part of their diet and culture. These large discs of fried dough can be served savory or sweet, take very little time to prepare, and are made with the same, simple ingredients as when they were first created.
How to Make Indian Fry Bread
There are many ways and recipes for how to make indian fry bread.
One way is to just use any regular bread dough made with yeast but instead of shaping it into loaves, pinch off small sections of dough and pat it out flat, then fry it. This is how I grew up enjoying indian fry bread – whenever my mom would make loaves of bread, she would pinch off dough and fry it up for us to enjoy hot with honey dripping all over it.
In Utah, these are called “scones”, which are nothing like traditional English scones whatsoever. You could even use thawed Rhodes roll dough or even canned Pillsbury biscuits that you just flatten out and fry.
But really it takes hardly any extra time or effort to make fry bread dough (I have always used this Amish white bread, which is awesome for fry bread made with yeast) from scratch. But traditional, authentic indian fry bread was made without yeast, and they are delicious too, with the added benefit of requiring a shorter resting or rising time. So that’s the version I’m sharing with this recipe today.
To make indian fry bread, you just mix together flour (for true, authentic fry bread it should be Bluebird flour), salt, baking powder, and water, then let the dough rest for a bit before kneading it, letting rest for a few minutes, then dividing it into eight equal sections by pinching off golf ball-sized amounts and flattening them out. Then fry the discs of dough in hot oil for a few minutes.
It is seriously so simple and so good! I just use my skillet and about an inch of oil to fry them, so it’s pretty easy clean-up.
And while these are also good topped with honey for a sweet treat, they are traditionally served as a dinner item with meat, beans, and all the taco fixin’s you can think of.
Really though, Navajo tacos are just as good with shredded beef, carnitas, chili, or pulled pork are the more traditional ground beef and beans.
Basically anything you might otherwise put in a taco shell or on nachos is going to be tasty on this crispy, fried shell! I’m including a meat topping option in the recipe today that is kind of a cross between taco meat and a chili that I think is really good, so you have lots of options to choose!
Serve it up with pico de gallo, lettuce, tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, cheese (anything from cheddar, to colby jack, to pepperjack, to cotija), black olives, green onions, sliced avocado and let family members create their own perfect Navajo taco!
I always do my best to research recipes from other cultures thoroughly to represent them as best I can. If this recipe is from your country or culture and you have suggestions for how I can improve its authenticity, please let me know in the comments below! It’s important to us to share beloved foods of other cultures with as much accuracy as possible, while also considering things like accessibility of ingredients and ease of preparation for most home cooks.
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Navajo Tacos (Indian Fry Bread)
Ingredients
Indian Fry Bread
- 2 cups all-purpose flour (preferably Bluebird flour to be authentic)
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup warm water
- 3 cups oil for frying
Navajo Tacos
- 1 Tablespoon oil
- 1/2 yellow onion, diced
- 1 lb. ground beef
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
- 1 (15-ounce) can dark red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
- 1 (14.5-ounce) can petite diced tomatoes, drained
- 1 (4-ounce) can mild diced green chilies
Toppings
- Sour cream
- Shredded cheese
- Diced tomatoes
- Shredded lettuce
- Sliced black olives
- Sliced avocado
- Pico de gallo
- Cilantro
Instructions
Indian Fry Bread
- In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Add the warm water and mix using a fork until a dough forms. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead for 5 minutes, then transfer to a clean bowl and cover tightly in plastic wrap. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
- Divide the dough into 8 equal sections by pinching off golf-ball sized balls of dough, then pat and roll out the dough balls into roughly 6-inch discs on a lightly floured surface. Keep them covered with plastic wrap while you prepare to fry them.
- Heat 3 cups of oil in a large skillet or frying pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes until the oil temperature reaches between 350 and 360 degrees F. Working in batches, fry each disc in the hot oil until the dough is golden brown on one side, then carefully flip with tongs and fry on the other side. Set on a paper towel to drain oil and stick in a warm oven to stay hot while the other fry bread is cooked.
Navajo Tacos
- In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat, then add the onions and cook for 2-3 minutes, just until they begin to soften. Add the meat and brown with the onions.
- When the meat is no longer pink, add all of the spices, kidney beans, tomatoes, and chilies, and decrease the heat to medium-low. Stir everything together, then cover and simmer for 10 minutes, then use to top Indian fry bread for Navajo tacos.
- Add any toppings you like to the base of fry bread and taco mixture, piling it high.
Nutrition
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O love you recipe, and I was making it twice a week, my boy just coudn’t get enough of these delicious Tacos. I appreciate so much for sharing what you have. You have the best recipe online I think. God Bless you
Thank you so much! That is so nice of you to say! I’m glad your son enjoyed them!
If you don’t use bluebird flour, then it really isn’t Navajo fry bread.
Thank you for pointing that out. I’ve had a few other readers comment about that as well. You can order bluebird flour online!
Is Bluebird flour made by the Navajo Nation…answer is no. To be truly authentic the flour would need to be ground by Navajo. Bluebird is the preferred brand for some..but I am not Navajo and grew up eating fry bread made similarly not using this flour that is ground by non Indigenous.
That is not how you make frybread. And that’s coming from a Navajo. I tried the recipe and it came out stale or still doughy.
Please share instead of just criticizing…
Ok Boomer
The who Navajo taco ain’t a Navajo taco. Everything off. And this is coming from a Navajo too.
If I can’t get Bluebird flour, what would you suggest as the best substitute?
Bluebird flour can be substituted with any all-purpose flour, although it has slightly less protein content which makes for a softer texture. A better substitute would be cake flour or a combination of half all-purpose flour and half cake flour.
there is NO substitute for blue bird flour .
Cake flour has less gluten (protein) than all purpose. Bread flour has more gluten so would be a better substitute. OO Italian flour might be the closest substitute to bluebird because it’s both finer ground and has higher gluten
Delicious!!
It can also be served with traditional mutton stew 😋. Thats they way it is eaten the most on the rez.
The fry bread tastes delicious, but mine turned out tough. 5 minutes might be too long to knead. Next time I think I’ll stop as soon as it comes together into a cohesive ball.
Just made the dough for the tacos. Wondering if I did something wrong. Used 2 cups of all purpose flour and 1 cup of water along with the listed baking powder and salt. Ended up adding 5/8 cup more flour because the dough was so wet that I had no way of rolling it out.
Hmmm I don’t know? Sometimes you have to knead the dough a little bit to get the flour evenly distributed. Also, temperature, elevation, humidity can all play a factor in how much flour you need to add to the dough. But I can definitely go back to the recipe and take a look at it to make sure the measurements are correct. Thanks for your feedback.
This happened to me as well, it’s a shame
Mine was very wet too. Just add more flour until it’s dry enough to handle. And don’t knead too much or it will get tough.
Great recipe! I used pinto beans since that is what I had on hand.
The fry bread turned out beautifully! We will make this again…soon!
It’s disrespectful to call this an Indian/Navajo Taco when it really isn’t an authentic recipe. You people are highly disrespectful thinking you know what you’re doing but yet the way you made your fry bread or chili is way incorrect. Please stop this. Call it something else
Hi Dee. I appreciate your comment and meant no disrespect. I did try to explain in my post that this is not claiming to be an authentic recipe and also acknowledge the history behind this dish and its connection to the Navajo people and the state of Arizona. I thought about what would be the best thing to call it (maybe just fry bread? Southwest fry bread? Southwest tacos?) and decided that by NOT calling these Navajo tacos it might be construed as erasing the important connection to history and the inspiration behind the recipe. I don’t live in an area where some of these ingredients are available, similar to many others, so I tried to make an accessible version that, while not completely authentic, helps us enjoy a meal and learn about part of our country’s past. As I am not Navajo myself I can see that feelings may differ.
I would love to have an authentic Navajo taco recipe. Maybe you can share yours with us…
There are other ways to show us this is incorrect. Calling it disrespectful and not knowing what one is doing is utterly emotionally immature. Let’s start off by you sharing the authentic recipe.
What a FABULOUS recipe! Our family visited three Navajo sites last summer on a vacation. We enjoyed Navajo tacos and stories about the Navajo culture. My 16 year old son ambitiously wanted to make some — could we do it? You made an approachable recipe with frying for an inexperienced cook to execute with delicious results and without a terrible mess. The flavors were perfect in the meat/beans, and the texture of the frybread was spot on. Thank you!
Beautifully written. I love learning about food and its origin and try to imitate it with what is available to me. You do all the work for me and I enjoy your recipes! Thank you!
I appreciate you saying that! I think I needed to hear this today. Thank you!
Very good recipe. If you’re not used to baking bread products, know that you may have to adjust the flour to water ratio. I’m in a very dry climate and had to add quite a bit more flour. The good thing about bread is that it’s very forgiving. Mix in slowly and you should end up with a dough you can knead. I didn’t knead for 5 minutes. Just until everything was incorporated. I also was careful after the rest not to ball up and over work. I halved my recipe and got two good sized fry breads out of it. After I split in half, I just gently used my fingers to go around the circle to make into a very ugly and uneven circle. It came out perfect. I can’t comment on the topping because I just made some homemade black beans to go over mine. Very good recipe. If it’s hard, yoy worked it too much.
the fry bread recipe is the closest recipe I could find that my mom used to make when I was growing up. Only we called them Buñuelos. And we didn’t top the bread with the toppings we sopped up our beans with them. I don’t follow the recipe for the meat, but I do use this recipe to make the fry bread.
Eventually I will find the original recipe my mom told me but so far I have to rely on yours. As for the dough being wet, I just add flour to it as I knead it so it becomes easier to make into balls.
These were really good. I grew up in Utah and these brought back memories of summer scout camps!! Thanks for sharing!! Live in the Coachella Valley now, and couldn’t find Bluebird flour anywhere, so I used pastry flour.
I love when we have a strong connection of memories with certain foods. I am glad you enjoyed them!
I adapted this for gluten free flour and it turned out great! I used King Arthur Flour Gluten-Free Bread Flour and let the dough rest for 20 minutes after mixing (as advised on the bag of gluten free flour) then kneaded for a minute or two, rolled out and fried. We were all so happy! They bubbled up while frying and were light and fluffy and delicious! Thanks for a great base recipe to start with!
Great! I am glad you shared how you used gluten free flour so other readers can use it as well! Thank you!
I read some people saying it’s not authentic..this is the exact same recipe my mom learned from our Navajo neighbors fifty years ago. I love it, of course I double the fry bread ingredients for a larger batch because my kids can’t get enough of it.
That is so great to hear. Thank you for telling me!