Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla

Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla is an easy, quick, and delicious recipe where warm, crisp, tortillas are filled with spicy chicken, tons of cheese, and oodles of flavor. It is a perfect appetizer, quick meal, and an easy lunchbox recipe.

Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla

This is one recipe that your kids are going to go gaga about it. Chicken Quesadilla (pronounced as kei·suh·dee·uh) is versatile and comes together in under 15 minutes.

I have been loving Mexican food for a while now and quesadillas are my favorite. From tacos to salsas, enchiladas, to fajitas, I love them all.

I agree that making tortillas from scratch might be quite a task, especially if you are in a hurry and what to put together a meal as soon as possible. That's when store-bought readymade tortillas come to the rescue.

I should also mention that this is not an authentic Mexican Quesadilla recipe. It is more of an American-ized version of it. That's the best part!

Cheesy Chicken Quesadilla is

I believe Indian and Mexican cuisine has a lot of similarities- flavor and ingredients. They could be spicy and tangy and our Indian Rotis can easily be a substitute for tortillas.

This Chicken Quesadilla is as easy to make as it can be. These are tortillas filled with spicy chicken, tons of cheese, a pico de gallo, sriracha sauce, and mayo. These tortillas are made slightly crisp on a griddle with butter until the cheese melts.

Ingredients

• Chicken: You can use leftover rotisserie chicken for this recipe. Shred the leftover chicken to be added as the filling. If you want to make it from scratch, you can either use boiled chicken and pan-fried chicken.
  To make easy pan-fried chicken for this recipe, marinate a few chicken pieces with paprika or chili powder, salt, and pepper. Shallow fry in little oil. Allow it to cool and shred using a fork.

• Sriracha Sauce: I have been a huge fan of Sriracha Sauce ever since I came across it over two years ago. I have started using this spicy-sweet sauce in most of my saucy foods. You must try this recipe with Sriracha sauce if you can. But you may also use tomato ketchup, pizza sauce, or marinara sauce.

• Cheese: I have used a mix of Mozzarella and Cheddar Cheese for this recipe. I love how quick Mozzarella cheese melts and the slightly tangy and sharp flavor of the Cheddar cheese is perfect for making quesadillas. It is definitely not limited to these varieties of cheeses. In fact, I also used regular processed cheese slices. So, make do with what you have or what's easily procurable.

• Pico de Gallo: or Salsa Fresca is a Mexican dip made with uncooked onion, tomato, peppers, salt, lime juice, and cilantro (coriander).

Making Chicken Quesadilla:

• Marinate chicken pieces with paprika, salt, and pepper. Heat oil in a pan and add the chicken. Fry both sides until cooked through. Remove and let it cool. Shred the cooked chicken and keep aside.
• In a bowl, add all the ingredients for Pico de Gallo. Mix and keep aside. As an alternative, add garlic and onions into the same pan/oil where the chicken was cooked. Slightly cook and add tomatoes and jalapenos. Cook for a couple of minutes and keep aside.

• To assemble, the quesadilla, heat a teaspoon of butter in a pan or griddle in low heat. Place a tortilla.
• There are two ways that you can assemble a quesadilla. Adding filling in a tortilla and placing a second tortilla over it to cover. Or assembling the filling only to one half of the tortilla and folding the tortilla into half. We are following the second method.
• Spread sriracha sauce. Place a cheese slice on one half of the tortilla. Over it, add cooked onion-tomato mixture or the Pico de Gallo. Add shredded chicken and mayo.
• Shred mozzarella cheese and cheddar cheese. 
• Fold the tortilla in half. Cook for a couple of minutes until the cheese melts. 
• Flip the quesadilla gently and leave it in the pan for a minute more.
• Remove to a plate.
• Slice into two and serve with sour cream or mayo.

Tips

• Keep all the ingredients handy, in one place, so that the assembling is easier.
• Always use freshly shredded cheese than using store-bought already shredded cheese. It makes the world of a difference. I buy a block of my favorite cheese, in this case, mozzarella and cheddar and shred them by hand.
• You may omit or include any variety of cheese you want.
• The addition of sriracha sauce makes this dish on the spicy side. You may substitute sriracha sauce with tomato ketchup or adjust the quantity acccording to your taste.

Chicken Quesadilla Recipe

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I'm participating in #AtoZChallenge and #BlogchatterAtoZ where I'll be sharing 26 Easy Recipes with you this April. I'm dedicating the posts to the amazing community members who helped me figure out this theme for the challenge. Thank you!