diff --git a/components/esp_hal_i2c/CMakeLists.txt b/components/esp_hal_i2c/CMakeLists.txt
index 60d93fe8dc2..1c02433b162 100644
--- a/components/esp_hal_i2c/CMakeLists.txt
+++ b/components/esp_hal_i2c/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 idf_build_get_property(target IDF_TARGET)
 
+set(includes)
 list(APPEND includes "${target}/include")
 list(APPEND includes "include")