Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Green Chili Chicken Mac 'n' Cheese


I rarely share recipes on the blog because my food photography is less than stellar (and my food rarely looks like something out of Martha Stewart anyway), but I had to share yesterday's recipe. I took my favorite mac 'n' cheese recipe, added a few items, changed out a few things, and turned it into green chili chicken mac 'n' cheese. It was a huge hit and my usually all-night-grazing toddler ate a whole bowl in one sitting. This is going to be on the regular recipe rotation.

Note: We try to be wheat free in our household, so I subbed rice macaroni for regular noodles and rice flour for wheat flour.  We've been doing it with our mac 'n' cheese for a while and truly can't taste the difference (my parents couldn't either).  But if you do wheat, then just sub them back.  Easy peasy.

Ingredients:
16 ounces (rice) macaroni
4 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons (rice) flour 
2 cups whole milk (or split with cream)
sea salt, to taste
fresh ground black pepper, to taste
2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded 
3/4 cup tomatillo/green salsa
1 can (4 oz) fire roasted green chili, drained
2-3 chicken breasts


Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 350°F.
 
2) Cook and drain macaroni according to package directions; set aside.
 
3) Put chicken in a pan on the stove with a little oil to cook. 
 
4) (While chicken is cooking, start sauce) In a large saucepan melt butter. Once fully cooked, shred and set aside.  (Tip: If you have a stand mixer, 2 minutes with the paddle attachment will result in perfectly shredded chicken.)
 
5) Add flour mixed, using a whisk to stir until well blended.

6) Pour milk/cream in gradually; stirring constantly.

7) Bring to boiling point and boil 2 minutes (stirring constantly).
  
8) Reduce heat and cook (stirring constantly) 10 minutes.

9) Add shredded cheddar little by little and simmer an additional 5 minutes, or until cheese melts.  Stir constantly.
 
10) Stir in salsa, green chili, salt, and pepper. 
 
11)  Stir in chicken until fully coated.
 
12) If your saucepan is large enough, add macaroni as well and toss to coat with chicken cheese sauce.  If not, layer bottom of casserole dish with cooked macaroni and poor chicken cheese mixture over top.

13) Bake 30 minutes until the top is golden brown.

Serves 4-6.  Total prep time: ~30 minutes.  Total baking time: 30 minutes.


If you make this, I'd love to hear how it turns out for you!  I'm trying to hold off on the leftovers until tomorrow night so we can eat quickly before David's back-to-school night.  But it's so hard to open the fridge and see the casserole dish and not take just a tiny bit


Have a wonderful Wednesday!




5 comments:

  1. Wow. That sounds really good. I usually find mac and cheese is too much work for just a side dish; I would never have thought of adding green chilis but it really sounds like a good idea!

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  2. Since I'm a true southerner, mac n cheese is definitely a main course ;). I usually make the 100 Days of Real Food version but this intrigues me... how spicy is it? I don't handle much more than mild salsa lol.

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  3. It wasn't spicy at all, even thought the salsa was "hot" - there is only enough in there for flavor, not spiciness. The green chilis were just the regular mild ones. I'm sure you could make it with any mac n cheese recipe, just add the green/tomatillo salso, green chili and chicken. The recipe I used as a base is the Fannie Farmer recipe (which is also all real foods).

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  4. This looks SO good! Thanks for linking up with "Try a New Recipe Tuesday." I hope you will be able to join us again this week. http://our4kiddos.blogspot.com/2013/09/try-new-recipe-tuesday-september-10.html God bless, Lisa

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