Easy chorizo, egg & cheese breakfast taco recipe made with a crispy egg fried in chorizo and folded with cheese into a tortilla.
I ate this as a makeshift breakfast every day for weeks while writing my Taste of Tucson cookbook. The fat from the tablespoon of chorizo makes the egg really crispy and adds a lot of flavor without too many extra calories. I fry up a batch of chorizo in advance and store it in the fridge, where it becomes solid. Then I scoop it out, and heat it up.
These Sonoran-style breakfast tacos are simple, satisfying, and built around a handful of quality ingredients. What sets them apart from Tex-Mex or New Mexico versions is the use of a single corn tortilla, Mexican chorizo (not Spanish), and the technique of frying the egg directly in the rendered chorizo fat. The result is a crispy-edged egg with smoky, spicy flavor cooked right in.
This recipe is adapted from my cookbook Taste of Tucson, which explores the food traditions of the Sonoran Desert region spanning southern Arizona and northern Mexico. Sonoran cuisine is one of the most distinct and underrepresented regional food cultures in the US, and breakfast tacos like this one are a perfect entry point… unfussy, deeply flavorful, and rooted in place.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon prepared Mexican chorizo
- 1 large egg
- 1 corn tortilla
- 2 to 3 tablespoons shredded Mexican-blend cheese
Instructions
- Reheat the chorizo in a small nonstick skillet over medium heat until smoking. Crack the egg on top and fry for 2 to 3 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Rinse out the pan, leaving about a half teaspoon of water in it. Return the pan to medium heat. Add the tortilla and warm for 30 seconds on each side. Top with the cheese and add the egg/chorizo. Heat until the cheese melts, about 30 more seconds. Fold over and eat like a taco.
