Once in awhile you just need a quickie, and by that I mean a meal that you aren’t spending all day in the kitchen, and then have a dozen pans to clean up. The best thing about this smokey southwest chicken dinner is that it is made in one skillet. It is pretty easy on the difficulty scale, the hardest thing you have to do is know how to safely cook chicken, otherwise you are throwing chopped ingredients in a skillet.
Smokey Southwest Chicken Dinner
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Serves: 4
Ingredients for Smokey Southwest Chicken:
2 Large boneless skinless chicken breast
1 10.5 oz can of yellow corn, drained
1 15.5 oz can of black beans rinsed and drained
1 4 oz can of green chilies, drained
at least 4 oz of shredded of Colby Jack Cheese
1/4 cup of flour
olive oil around 2-3 tablespoons
1 jalapeno pepper, really fine dice or brunoise
2 cherry peppers, really fine dice or brunoise
2 cloves of garlic, fine mince or use garlic press
1 lime, sliced in half
handful of cilantro, medium chopped
1 onion, fine dice
1 tablespoon of smoked paprika (it is easier to dispense from the bottle and guesstimate)
1 tablespoon of Adobo seasoning (it is easier to dispense from the bottle and guesstimate)
1 teaspoon of cumin
1 oz of Ranch salad dressing and seasoning mix
Salt
Pepper
Method:
Heat up the pan on medium. I use a good cast iron skillet, you can use copper, stainless, or aluminum pans too; I avoid Teflon non-stick coated pans and normally substitute ceramic coated instead but use what you have. For all the Cast Iron Cooking nerds, at home I used a modern No. 12 Finex skillet, and at the firehouse I used a second series (1886-1892) No. 10 Griswold “ERIE” skillet
Slice the chicken in half, all the pieces should be around the same thickness. This will allow for even cooking and all the pieces should be done around the same time. You can pound them to be even or just adjust the cooking time on the larger pieces.
Grab a small bowl and put the 1/4 cup of flour in to it, add the 1/2 teaspoon of salt and at least 1/2 teaspoon of freshly cracked pepper. Give a quick whisk to the mix and dredge the chicken.
Do you have to dredge the chicken, no, should you, absolutely. Why? Simple it will assist in keeping the chicken from sticking to the skillet, it helps keep the moisture in, and it is a way to deliver spices to the chicken.
Wet the pan with olive oil. For those who don’t know how much oil that means, it is probably around 2-3 tablespoons for a 12 in skillet.
Sprinkle smoked Paprika, then the Adobo seasoning over both sides of the breast, and cook the chicken. Each side gets around 4-ish minutes, then flip and repeat till the breast is fully cooked through. Grab a cookie sheet and put foil on it. then top with a cooling rack. Place the cooked chicken on the rack and cover with a piece of foil, make sure there is a small slit in the foil to allow steam to escape. Place to the side.
Add the diced onion, cherry and jalapeno peppers, and cumin to the skillet, stir and cook till the vegetables begin to soften. Note if you don’t have a garlic press, then add the finely minced garlic with the rest of the veggies, if you do hold off a couple of minutes to add the pressed garlic.
OK, now add the drained corn, green chilies, ranch seasoning, and the black beans. You can add the juice of half a lime now. Cook for a few minutes stirring often. Then bring the rested chicken back. Optional: you can add the chicken drippings if any.
Place the chicken on top. Squeeze the other half of the lime and add the juice on top of the chicken. Cover all the meat with Colby Jack cheese. 4 oz is the minimum (that is half an 8 oz brick) don’t be afraid to go a little heavy on the cheese if you are like me.
Cover with a lid, or a piece of foil, cook for a few minutes till the cheese is fully melted. Generously add cilantro and serve this one skillet Smokey Southwest Chicken right away.
Totally optional: I add Sriracha sauce on top of my plate, it gives it a nice heat in addition to the jalapenos, without having to go up a level in peppers. Note: I can hear a certain tillerman on Ladder Three grumbling right now, “Jeez you put the crap on everything!” Yes John, I do, and it is good.
A couple of little things:
- I actually eat the food that I make and usually at the expense of the picture quality.
- I will sometimes cook a recipe at home, and then tweak it for the better at the firehouse.
- I am a very messy cook as evident in the pictures, but the good thing in the firehouse is that the cook doesn’t do the dishes, with the exception of my 125 year old No. 10 Griswold “ERIE” skillet and my good Zwilling Pro knives. I clean those babies.
- We actually do run fire calls, sometimes at the expense of dinner. Luckily when I made this meal the Box Alarm waited till we were almost done. No fear, we scraped the cold skillet clean when we got back, and it was still good.
- This meal cost $12.00 to make so it was $3.00 a man
Sully finishing up the last of the one pan Smokey Southwest Chicken dinner
BTW- Check out Sully’s Firehouse Chicken Recipe which can be found on CookingYo.com
Winner, Winner, Smokey Southwest Chicken Dinner
Ingredients
- 2 Large boneless skinless chicken breast
- 1 10.5 oz can of yellow corn drained
- 1 15.5 oz can of black beans rinsed and drained
- 1 4 oz can of green chilies drained
- at least 4 oz of shredded of Colby Jack Cheese
- 1/4 cup of flour
- olive oil around 2-3 tablespoons
- 1 jalapeno pepper really fine dice or brunoise
- 2 cherry peppers really fine dice or brunoise
- 2 cloves of garlic fine mince or use garlic press
- 1 lime sliced in half
- handful of cilantro medium chopped
- 1 onion fine dice
- 1 tablespoon of smoked paprika it is easier to dispense from the bottle and guesstimate
- 1 tablespoon of Adobo seasoning it is easier to dispense from the bottle and guesstimate
- 1 teaspoon of cumin
- 1 oz of Ranch salad dressing and seasoning mix
- Salt
- Pepper
Instructions
-
Heat up the pan on medium. Slice the chicken in half, all the pieces should be around the same thickness.
-
Grab a small bowl and put the 1/4 cup of flour in to it, add the 1/2 teaspoon of salt and at least 1/2 teaspoon of freshly cracked pepper. Give a quick whisk to the mix and dredge the chicken.
-
Wet the pan with olive oil. Sprinkle smoked Paprika, then the Adobo seasoning over both sides of the breast, and cook the chicken. Each side gets around 4-ish minutes, then flip and repeat till the breast is fully cooked through. Grab a cookie sheet and put foil on it. then top with a cooling rack. Place the cooked chicken on the rack and cover with a piece of foil, make sure there is a small slit in the foil to allow steam to escape. Place to the side.
-
Add the diced onion, cherry and jalapeno peppers, and cumin to the skillet, stir and cook till the vegetables begin to soften. Then add the garlic.
-
Add the drained corn, green chilies, ranch seasoning, and the black beans. You can add the juice of half a lime now. Cook for a few minutes stirring often. Then bring the rested chicken back.
-
Place the chicken on top. Squeeze the other half of the lime and add the juice on top of the chicken. Cover all the meat with Colby Jack cheese.
-
Cover with a lid, or a piece of foil, cook for a few minutes till the cheese is fully melted. Generously add cilantro and serve this one skillet Smokey Southwest Chicken right away.
Recipe adapted form Chelsea’s Messy Apron One skillet Southwest Ranch Chicken
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