Chicken Saltados

Making a pantry meal is a fine art.  My mother taught me the basics of a pantry meal and they have since been an important key to our dinner menu.  First things first: what is a pantry meal? It’s simple; a pantry meal is a meal that can be constructed on the fly with what you have in the ‘pantry’.  I am a fan of a pantry meal, and although I usually don’t measure what is going into the meals, I will try and remember now so I can share the most excellent ones with you.  This is a most excellent pantry meal that came together quite nicely and I will definitely make again. 

Last weekend on the way home from my mom’s house, we ate at Taco Mac - my favorite- and brought home leftovers consisting of 4 wings, 2 chicken fingers, and some fries (and sadly no cheese dip).  That is definitely not enough for a whole meal for two, so Glenn came up with the Saltados idea and we ran with it.  Keep in mind that this is a pantry meal so feel free to add/subtract/substitute for whatever you want. Here’s what we did:

What you need:

1 cup cooked chicken cut into pieces (we used wing and tender meat)

¼ onion sliced

¼ bell pepper sliced (can be any color)

4 mushrooms sliced (we used baby bellas)

handful of fries  (yes, a handful is a true measurement)

1 cup cooked brown rice

4 small or medium tortillas

fajita seasoning (recipe below)

Optional but highly recommended

avocado sliced into small pieces

2 lime wedges

cilantro

For fajita seasoning: 

½ teaspoon ground cumin

1/8 teaspoon dried oregano (crushed)

1/8 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper

1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

dash garlic powder (or more if you are like me and LOVE garlic)

dash onion powder

How you do it:

Once you’ve got everything sliced up, this dish is pretty simple.  I started the rice while I was slicing and dicing, so it was done by the time the rest of the fillings were ready to be put into the tortillas.  At the same time I started the rice, I put the tortillas in foil and heated them in a 350° oven to warm.  You could also put them in the microwave prior to serving, or just serve em cool.  With some cooking oil, sauté up the onion, pepper, and mushrooms (you’ll want them to be pretty crunchy still) and then add the chicken and fries. In the end, toss the fajita seasoning over the top with a little water, enough to make the seasoning stick, but not too much – you don’t want it watery.  Now, wasn’t that simple. Now you just put everything together.  First- the tortilla, then the rice, then the chicken and veggie mixture - you could stop here, but I wouldn’t recommend it… keep on going, add the cilantro (we didn’t have any fresh cilantro but used the cilantro in a tube which I highly recommend) and the avocado and squeeze the lime over the top. And you’re done, time to enjoy! 

-hayden