Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Texas Chicken Quesadillas

These quesadillas have been flying around the cooking message board I often post on. I have had the recipe saved for awhile and once I made them this week I was sorry I didn't make them sooner! The sweet caramelized onions combined with the BBQ sauce on the chicken and the cheddar cheese was an amazing combination. And the whole recipe made enough for Chuck and I to eat dinner AND have enough so that both of us could take lunch the next day!

A few notes about the amounts of certain ingredients: When I saw that this called for 1 1/2 onions for only 4 servings, I did a double take and only bought one. How could you possibly eat that many onions in one serving?! Well, I was wrong - the caramelization process combined with the honey makes them so sweet and delicious you hardly know you are eating an onion. When I assembled the quesadillas, I definitely wished I had more.

On the other hand, if you use approximately a pound of chicken as the recipe suggests, you may think that there is not enough chicken to go around, it is so sparse-looking on the tortilla. But it all worked out in the end, because there was more than enough chicken flavor in each bite, so don't worry!

Soooo...you're going to make these tonight, right? I served them with Sauteed Corn and Black Bean Salad and a green salad.

Texas Chicken Quesadillas
slightly adapted from Jenn and Food, Perfect Together
Makes 4 large servings

2 tablespoons oil (I used olive oil)
1 1/2 sweet onions (vidalia is preferred), sliced into rings
1 tablespoon honey
2 cooked chicken breasts (about 1 pound), diced
1/2 cup BBQ sauce (my fave is Sweet Baby Ray's)
1-2 cups shredded mexican or cheddar cheese
8 ten-inch flour tortillas (medium-size)

Heat one tablespoon oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onions and saute until they just become golden and begin to get soft. Turn heat to medium and continue cooking until they caramelize (about 20-30 minutes). Mix in the honey and stir until it is golden brown. Remove and set aside.

Place the remaining oil (if necessary)in the same skillet and add the chicken and BBQ sauce. Cook until heated through.

Lay out 4 tortillas. Divide the chicken, onions and cheese evenly onto each tortilla, top with another tortilla and cook in your quesadilla maker about 5 minutes. Alternatively, you can cook them in the oven at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

Ready to be covered and baked!

8 comments:

Cara said...

Those look really great--I don't ever think about carmelizing onions to take out the onion-y flavor. We just recently busted out the quesadilla maker again, and that thing's awesome!

Donna-FFW said...

Oh these sound delicious. I love all types of quesadillas.

Jo said...

Hey Colleen - these look really good. I will definately have to try them in the near future.

How are things going with Chuck, yourself and Bubs???? Hope all's good!!

Take Care,

Jo xx

Sara said...

Your quesadillas look great! I usually bake my quesadillas so I can get more than one done at a time.

What's Cookin Chicago said...

Looks delicious! I especially like the caramelized onions in this dish!

Stef said...

I've had these bookmarked forever too. Now I have to try them! I think I'm one of the last...haha.

Melissa said...

You can never have too many caramelized onions. I too was surprised though when I made too few for a couple of sandwiches, mostly because they shrink so much. I can't believe I didn't factor that in.

These sound GREAT. I've been meaning to do something like this since I saw Home Cook posting her bbq chicken quesadillas a couple of times.

ShoeFanatic614 said...

I don't even like onions but these were amazing! My husband gave them two thumbs way up!