Salsa Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers

Salsa chicken is one of my favorite things to make while I’m at school. Mainly because it’s one of the EASIEST ways to make chicken. (I promise it’s almost impossible to mess up!) I’m personally super picky about my chicken because raw chicken kinda freaks me out and I’m kinda weird about textures. I always grew up having grilled marinated chicken, which is still my favorite way to cook chicken (you can’t beat that flavor). Unfortunately, my current apartment doesn’t allow residents to have grills on their balconies so I’ve had to adjust. I tried cooking chicken in the oven, on the stove top, and even on a George Forman grill that someone had given my parents about 12 years ago (could have been why that one didn’t work) but anyways the texture just was never right. One day my roommate brought home a kitchen item that was LIFE CHANGING…a crockpot!! I was a little skeptical at first because I had never really used a crockpot for anything besides keeping things warm. But this became a shiny new toy for us and we tried cooking just about anything you can imagine in it, which means future posts to come about the successful crockpot meals.  Out of all the things we’ve tried, I think salsa chicken has to be my favorite because it is literally two ingredients and it is delicious! (Especially if you are like me and are obsessed with Mexican food.) What is also great about salsa chicken is that you can use it for so many things. I usually make enough to have for a couple of days and will eat it on top of a salad, or in a lettuce wrap, use it for tacos, literally just about anything you can think of. If your like me and don’t have time (or are too lazy) to cook a full meal everyday, this is a great option for you. So now that I’ve rambled a little about my love for the crock pot and my love for salsa chicken, lets get into the actual recipe.

Salsa Chicken Stuffed Bell Peppers

Bare with me because this recipe is one I made up as I started cooking it so some of my measurements are little “guesstimated”, but the great thing about this recipe is that you can kind of make it up as you go and tweak it to your taste. It’s a stuffed pepper so if you want to try to stuff something else in it go for it! Also this recipe is low carb and gluten free, so it may even fit into your new years resolutions. So lets get into it. First off, your going to need to start your chicken because it has to cook for about 3 1/2 hours. I was making a fairly small portion so I used two large chicken breasts (once you shred it the chicken goes a lot further than you’d think) if you are making it for a larger group or simply want more leftovers you could do four chicken breasts or really however many you want. So all you do is turn your crockpot on high cover the bottom of the crockpot with a thin layer of salsa place all of the chicken breasts in the crockpot and pour the rest of the salsa on top so that the chicken breasts are completely covered. You can use any kind of salsa you want just whatever kind is your favorite. I used “Pace” brand, medium heat, 16oz jar but if you are doing 4 chicken breasts instead of two then I’d recommend using a larger jar of salsa. Below is a picture of what it should look like when everything is in the crockpot.

Once everything is in the crockpot put the lid on and make sure your crockpot is on high and let it cook for 3-4 hours (I typically do about 3 1/2).

Now that your chicken is cooking go do whatever you want and then come back when it has about 30 minutes left to prep everything else. Personally I took this time to walk my sous chefs.

Yes, I put the spoon in the picture to emphasize that she was my sous chef…..I’m that pet owner.

So when the chicken has about 30 minutes left you want to start prepping the rest of the ingredients. I started by dicing the onion- if you are making two chicken breasts I’d say do about a fourth of an onion but if you do four chicken breasts do about half of the onion. Then go ahead and sauté the onion in 1 tbs of olive oil. While that’s starting to cook you can go ahead and dice your poblano pepper into  fairly small pieces, smaller than you diced the onion. While you can just use a regular uncooked poblano pepper and sauté that on the stove, I prefer to roast a couple peppers on the grill and then freeze the peppers so I have them when I need them. That’s what I used for this recipe, but like I said just sautéing an uncooked poblano pepper will work just fine. If you are using a pre-roasted pepper, put them in the pan with the onions once the onions begin to look translucent. If you aren’t using pre-roasted put them in with the onions after about two minutes. Once the onions and peppers look almost done, throw  in a handful of spinach (this is another part of the recipe you can tweak to your preference so, if you really like spinach, feel free to throw in as much as your heart desires). As you can see in the picture I did a fairly large handful.

Stir everything up and let the spinach cook down until it is wilted. Next add the corn into the pan and season everything to taste with cumin and pepper. Then use half a lime and squeeze all of the juice into the pan and then stir. Once everything is in the pan, take it off the heat while you prep the bell peppers and the chicken.

By now your chicken should be done. I prefer to shred the chicken while its still in the crock pot with all the salsa. Turn the crockpot off and I like to take two forks and shred the chicken- just be careful not to scratch the bottom of the crockpot. After the chicken is shredded, I stir it up with the extra salsa in the crock pot and let that sit while I finish prepping everything else so that the chicken will absorb more of the salsa for extra flavor! Now to prep the bell peppers I like to cut the tops off them and then cut around the middle part that has the seeds on it (not sure what that’s called) and then just pull it out with your hands.

Next I take the contents of the pan and add it to the chicken and salsa in the crockpot and stir together. Then after all your hard work, get ready to STUFF YOUR PEPPERS (in a deep announcers voice) (yes that was cheesy…. just like your peppers will be) 😉

So pretty much just take a spoon and fill your peppers to the top with the chicken filling. I like to make sure everything is really densely packed so you can fit as much filling in as possibly. Trust me you don’t want to skimp on the filling. Then put them in a pan that has tall enough edges so that the peppers will be able to stand up. I prefer to use a pan that has a lid but it’s fine if it doesn’t because you can cover your peppers with tin foil instead. Cook your peppers at 350 degrees covered for 15 minutes then uncovered for 15 minutes. Take the peppers out and cover the filling with cheese. Then place the peppers back in the oven for 5 minutes uncovered to let the cheese melt. I just used a shredded Mexican mix but you can use whatever kind you’d like. I think cheddar or pepper jack would be good to use also.

I like to top them of with a little or a lot of guacamole. The guac is my favorite part! I used one large ripe avocado and smushed it with a fork on a cutting board ( I couldn’t think of a better word to describe this than smush but you get it). You can also do this in a bowl but I think that it’s easier to do this all on the cutting board. After it is “smushed” it should still have some avocado chunks in it but be fairly smooth. Add in the other half of the lime’s juice and cumin, salt, and a tiny bit of chili powder and mix it so that the spices are spread evenly throughout. Then just top your peppers with it and viola you are done!

Salsa Chicken Stuffed Bell Pepper Ingredients

Salsa Chicken

• 2 chicken breasts
• one 12-16 oz jar of your favorite salsa

Filling

• 1/4 of a yellow onion
• 1 poblano pepper roasted or sautéed
• handful of spinach
• 2 cups of corn (fresh or frozen)
• juice of half a lime
• 2 teaspoons of cumin
• 1/2 a teaspoon of pepper
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil for sautéing

Bell Peppers

• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 orange bell pepper
• 1 yellow bell pepper

Guacamole

• 1 ripe avocado
• juice from half a lime
• 1 1/2 teaspoons of cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon of salt
• a dash of chili pepper

As I said above, this recipe is very easily modified. If you are cooking for more people just use more bell peppers and cook more chicken breasts for the filling. Also if you prefer more heat, add a little chili pepper to the filling mixture. ENJOY!!