Besides looking good, the seasoning for this chicken quesadilla recipe tastes the part, so much so that while salsa or sour cream would be fine complements if that’s your thing, I suggest trying it as is first.
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
The ingredients for a home-made chicken quesadilla
Mark Guydish | For Times Leader
I’ve dabbled with something akin to a chicken quesadilla from time to time, usually just putting a tortilla in a pan, adding green peppers, cheese, onions and cooked chicken, then layering a second tortilla on it. Most often, I did this the first night of a backpacking/camping trip, porting out some fresh, pre-sliced peppers and onions and a can or two of chicken. But I’ve never made an effort to actually cook a proper quesadilla.
Last spring, when brother Joe was in from California to hike some of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia (I didn’t participate; a foot issue I thought was fixed had resurfaced), he was at my house to pick up some equipment he had sent me, and mentioned needing some pitas (a good option for sandwiches since they don’t squash in the pack like bread). I offered a bag of tortillas from our freezer. Upon returning from his excursion, he gave me the unused portion, about six, I think.
Not willing to refreeze them, I decided to look for a quesadilla recipe online, and this one from delish.com seemed simple yet full of flavors I was pretty sure both MT and I would like.
That turned out to be an underestimation. The seasoning for the chicken complements the other ingredients very well, and the final product was one of the best quesadillas I’d ever had.
Regular readers may know I’m not much of a sour cream topping kind of guy, so I didn’t bother buying any, but I had planned to buy salsa — an idea I dropped when I couldn’t find a jar small enough for one-time use. For me, that turned out just fine. This was so good that I felt it needed no additional condiment, something that rarely happens in a restaurant (I almost always want more salsa than they serve, at least in non-Mexican restaurants).
MT agreed, though by the second or third piece she did say that some salsa would be a good thing to have on hand for guests. So by all means, serve with sour cream and salsa.
Lastly, previous attempts at a vague rendition of quesadillas always started with pre-cooked chicken, either left over or in a can. I highly recommend this as a new dish, not a use of leftovers from a previous chicken dinner. I have little doubt seasoning the meat during cooking rather than after makes a difference.
Dobru chut!*
Chicken Quesadilla (delish.com)
6 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
2 bell peppers, thinly sliced
½ onion, thinly sliced
Kosher salt
1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts, sliced into strips
½ teaspoon chili powder
½ teaspoon ground cumin
½ teaspoon dried oregano
4 medium flour tortillas
2 cups shredded Monterrey jack
2 cups shredded cheddar
1 ripe avocado, sliced
2 scallions, thinly sliced
Sour cream and/or salsa for serving, if desired
With the burner on medium-high, heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet. Add peppers and onion and season with salt. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a plate.
Add 1 tablespoon oil to pan and heat over medium-high heat. Add chicken to pan and season with chili powder, cumin, dried oregano, and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden and cooked through, about 8 minutes. Transfer to a plate. Wipe out skillet.
Add 1 tablespoon oil. Add 1 flour tortilla to skillet and top half of the tortilla with a heavy sprinkling of both cheeses, ¼ of the cooked chicken mixture, ¼ of the pepper-onion mixture, a few slices of avocado, and a sprinkling of scallions. Fold the other half of the tortilla over and cook, flipping once, until golden, about 3 minutes per side.
Keeping cooked quesadillas warm, repeat with remaining oil, tortillas, chicken, pepper-onion mixture, avocado, and scallions to make 4 quesadillas.
Slice into wedges and serve.
* Readers occasionally ask me what this means. According to the internet, it is the Slovak (my family ancestry) equivalent of “Bon Appetit.”
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