“Chicken Quesadillas. It’s a pet peeve of mine. A quesadilla is a tortilla with cheese. If you put chicken in it, it ceases to be a quesadilla. It’s like putting a slice of cheese between two buns and calling it a hamburger. BUT in an effort to show that I can conform, on occasion, I will (with fear and trembling) be making Chicken Quesadillas tonight!” This was my Facebook status before the first time I made these!
My niece wrote back and said, “Well, if you wanna get all technical, Wikipedia says that a quesadilla is a corn tortilla with primarily cheese and other ingredients, like cooked meat or vegetables. So you know….if we were being technical…”
To which I responded, “Wikipedia wasn’t born in Mexico!” Ha! Well we had a fun little discussion. In the end my experience with Quesadillas in Mexico was that it was strictly a tortilla grilled with cheese. But I did venture out and make these non-quesadilla quesadillas that my family absolutely loves. I had to admit they were pretty good!
Ingredients:
Flour Tortillas
Cheddar Cheese
Chopped Chicken (I used frozen fajita meat.)
Cilantro, Tomatoes, Green onions and
Herdez Salsa Verde
Lightly fry the first side in butter over medium heat.
Then flip the tortilla over and while the second side cooks quickly top half of the tortilla with the ingredients.
Fold it in half and continue cooking until the tortilla is crispy, the cheese is melted and the ingredients are hot!
Enjoy it hot right off the griddle!
Next time I’m going to try adding a little crumbled bacon–yum!
- Flour Tortillas
- Cheddar Cheese
- Chopped Chicken (I used frozen fajita meat.)
- Cilantro, Tomatoes, Green onions and
- Herdez Salsa Verde
- Lightly fry the first side in butter over medium heat.
- Then flip the tortilla over and while the second side cooks quickly top half of the tortilla with the ingredients.
- Fold it in half and continue cooking until the tortilla is crispy, the cheese is melted and the ingredients are hot!
These look easy – I’ll have to try them. We have a tortilla press, so we do a lot of quesadillas! We just put cheese (and sometimes refried beans) in ours.
When I make these I cook the chicken strips with fajita seasoning then put Tostidos salsa con queso on them. sometimes I use shredded taco cheese, too. I dip them in sour cream to top it off. Delish!!!
While we are being technical, I never heard of fajitas when I lived in Mexico, but they are very common in South Texas. When I moved here, I looked up the word and it meant “beef skirts.” Well, in that case, there would be no such thing as chicken fajitas. Well, language evolves. Your recipe looks delicious. I think it would be good with strips of beef fajitas also.
I am having chicken quesadilla’s tonight but have to leave out cilantro cause it taste like soap to me!
This that your favorite salsa verde, Esther? My husband really loves it, and we’re in search of a good, authentic-tasting brand. I actually looked for Herdez yesterday at the store. (I’d seen a commercial for it. Great endorsement, right?) They didn’t have their salsa verde, though. We need your expert taste buds to help us! 🙂
I second Allison’s question (?) and would like to know more about the Herdez products…which are good? I grew up on LaVictoria products that were popular up in Chicago and suburbs, but haven’t been able to find them here. My mom would fry tacos and I we would eat that sauce with them. Ate a tamale the other day and was having a hard time eating it without the LaVictoria Salsa Brava Hot sauce. Remember my dad eating the green stuff and thinking it gross at the time. I’ve changed my mind 🙂
Yes! The Herdez brand is probably my favorite. It is what I grew up with in Mexico, but I like the La Victoria brand green salsa too. La Victoria is a little spicier than the Herdez that I can get around here. I get the Herdez at Target. I have gotten La Victoria around here, but I’m not sure where…maybe Krogers? I’ll let you know.
These look delish!
We love making quesadillas at our house, and I do add chicken to them. It’s one of the few ways I can get meat into my kids. Your recipe looks scrumptious. 🙂
Those look wonderful! We had them for dinner tonight as well – but I didn’t add everything that you did!
I like mine without the chicken actually 🙂 But really I never say no to cheese it is probably a food group on its own for me right next to chocolate and coffee!
ate a cheese quesadilla as part of my (yummy) salad at Chili’s tonite. laughed to myself about your insistance that all quesadillas are sans meat… i guess mine qualifies! 🙂 your recipe looks yummy… i might try it out!
That looks delicious!
These looks so good. I’ll save the recipe, thanks for sharing.
Actually I have found that recipes and the names of them vary from place to place in Mexico. In Guadalajara where we lived, at least when we lived there, quesadillas were as you say, tortilla and cheese. But you know how the chilaquiles are in Guadalajara, and up here in the Valley they have chicken in them. I think Valley food is closer to Northern Mexico food, like maybe from Monterrey up to the border.