Quesadilla with Grilled Chicken and Jack Cheese

The Best Chicken Quesadilla

This Chicken Jack Quesadilla makes all the difference between what you’d get served at your favorite fast food joint or a dine in restaurant. Whether you choose to use an extra large burrito sized flour tortilla, like I do, or a small to medium, these quesadilla’s are packed with flavor. I use marinated grilled chicken, Monterrey and Colby Jack Cheese and, of course, my secret sauce; made from the Fire Roasted Salsa that I showed you how to make, last post. I’m talking about a thick creamy quesadilla that any good restaurant would dream of having on the menu.

Quesadilla Grilled Chicken

It’s very important to make the chicken as tender and as flavorful as possible, when making a restaurant style quesadilla. You can make it lean, if you want to, by using breast meat, if you prefer, but I highly recommend using chicken thighs, instead. In my experience, it makes tastier quesadilla’s. Just chicken thighs isn’t going to be enough, however. Adding a spicy marinade will take it to the next level, infuse the meat with flavor and insure tenderness. 30 minutes of soaking is all it’s going to take before you take it to the grill. Then an additional 20 minutes of cooking will add the smokey taste everyone loves from great barbecue. Just be sure the meat is cooked all of the way through and hits a core temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

Quesadilla Secret Sauce

The difference between a fast food quesadilla and a restaurant style quesadilla is huge. Fast food quesadillas just consist of cheese, meat (if you’re lucky),possibly some onions and/or green chili’s. There usually isn’t much bulk and generally made thin and small. A good restaurant, however, will serve up a large to extra large sized tortilla, packed with more ingredients than it can usually hold; grilled marinated chicken, 2 cheese’s and a secret sauce that makes it extra creamy when the cheese melts into it. My secret sauce consists of 3 ingredients: Sour Cream, Mayonnaise and my Fire Roasted Salsa.

Quesadilla Cheese

The cheese you choose will completely change the flavor of your Quesadilla and there are several winners. Cheddar, medium or sharp, and Jack Cheese are generally among my favorites. Queso asadero is the original cheese used to make Quesadillas but these are great alternatives. In this recipe, I like to use Monterey and Colby Jack Cheese together because it’s very crowd pleasing and not to spicy for my kids. If I’m making them for my wife and I, I’ll change out the Monterey and use Pepper Jack, instead, for a little kick. Some folks even spread cream cheese inside the tortilla but you use what you like.

Chicken Jack Quesadilla Ingredients:

6 Boneless Chicken Thighs
1 pkg Extra Large Tortilla’s
1 lbs Monterey Jack Cheese, grated
1 lbs Colby Jack Cheese, grated
1 Cube Butter, salted

Chicken Marinade
1/2 cup Water
2 tbsp Olive Oil
1 tbsp Cumin
1 tbsp Smoked Paprika
1 tsp Tumeric
1 tsp Mexican Oregano
1/2 tsp Garlic Powder
1/2 tsp Onion Powder
1/2 tsp Fish Sauce
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Black Pepper

Secret Sauce
1/2 cup Sour Cream
1/2 cup Mayonnaise
1/2 cup Fire Roasted Salsa

Follow the instructions in the video recipe to make this Chicken Jack Quesadilla.

Crisp Chicken Burritos – Taco Time Style Chimichanga

Taco Time Crisp Chicken Burritos

If you’ve never had fried Crisp Chicken Burritos, you’re really missing out. Most folks would just call these Chicken Chimichanga’s, and they wouldn’t be wrong either, but Taco Time likes to call them Crisp Burrito’s. I filmed and posted Taco Time’s Fried Crisp Bean Burrito recipe a while back, which is their original recipe, and those are phenomenal but they introduced these a few years later, with their beef recipe, and they quickly became one of my new favorite burritos. I order these every time I hit the drive through. You can make the Beef Crisp Burritos, using this same concept, by referring to my Chili No Beans recipe, if you’re interested.

Crisp Chicken Burritos Filling

The filling recipe for these Crisp Chicken Burritos is very simple and easy to make. It consists of four parts; cooked ground chicken, chopped onion, chopped green chili’s and cream cheese. Technically you could get away with using canned chicken, if you want to make it even easier, but I find that cooking my own chicken tastes better and it reduces the sodium content drastically. Now all you have to do is salt and pepper to taste.

Frying Crisp Chicken Burritos

The secret to Frying an open end Crisp Chicken Burrito is simple. Place about 4 ounces of the chicken and cream cheese mix in the center of a flour tortilla and spread it thin in the middle, leaving about a half inch of space on each end of the tortilla. Rolling the burrito tight is very important and sealing the end of the tortilla with a flour paste will insure that the burrito won’t unroll or unravel while frying. I can use a tooth pic to keep them together, if you prefer, but this is the professional way to do it.

Crisp Chicken Burritos Ingredients:

16 Flour Tortillas

2 lbs Ground Chicken, Breast, Thighs or both
8 oz Cream Cheese
1/2 Onion, chopped
4 oz Green Chilies, chopped
1/2 tsp Smoked Paprika, (optional)
Salt and Pepper to taste

Flour Paste
1/4 cup of flour
1/4 cup of water

Oil for frying

Follow the directions in my Crisp Chicken Burritos video tutorial and deep fry at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 2 to 3 minutes or until golden brown.

Fried Crisp Bean Burritos

I Love These Crisp Bean Burritos

Crisp Bean Burritos are the best when I feel like I’m starving. I use to get these from a copy cat version of Taco Time that only charged 79 cents a piece. So I’d hit the drive through after a hard days slavin’ at work and pick up a 6 pack of Crisp Bean Burritos. I’d usually make it through 3 and sometimes 4 before I had to give up and store the rest away. But, you know just as well as I do, we always get hungry again.

So if you’ve got some Refried Beans and at least a half decent Tortilla, we are well on our way. I recommend 2 pieces of advice that will ultimately up the quality of the Crisp Bean Burritos with no extra cost to you.

1) Use dehydrated Refried Beans and a fresh batch of tortillas.
2) Cook the refried Beans with a piece of Bacon.

Be Sure to let the beans cool before you load your tortillas. You need the beans to be thick so they don’t bleed out in the Fryer. Oil temperature should be 375 degrees and the Crisp Beans should be fried until they are golden brown(2 to 3 min).

Crisp Bean Burritos Ingredients:

Bacon
Refried Beans
Scallions
Tortillas
Oil

1) Cook Bacon in the bottom of a pan then add your Refried Beans with Scallions.
2) Wait 10 minutes to cool, then add desired amount to each tortilla.
3) Roll and pin the last tortilla flap with a tooth pick.
4) Fry at 375 degrees until golden brown.
5) Enjoy your Crisp Bean Burritos.