Desperate Housewives: Quesadillas & Salsa Piccante

Juanita Solis’s Quesadillas & Salsa Piccante

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone!  Quesadillas and Salsa are meant to go together, so I made both recipes for lunch today!

The quesadilla recipe is supposed to be from the senior Juanita Solis, Carlos’ mother, and not his daughter.

The recipe allows for a few different “proteins” (chicken, crab meat, beans, etc.) but I chose to use shredded chicken.  I also chose to exclude the optional roasted peppers, as peppers tend to upset my stomach.

To make shredded chicken, I threw the chicken tenders (breast will work too) in a pot, covered with water, and boiled gently for about 12 minutes.  Then I shredded the chicken with a fork and knife.

While the chicken boiled, I prepared the salsa.  I chopped up tomato, red onion, cilantro and pepper and tossed them all together with some salt.  Then I set this aside to marinade while the quesadillas were finished up.

For the quesadillas, the cheese is spread over top of the flour tortilla, followed by the protein (shredded chicken in this case.  If you’re using roasted pepper, it would be added as well.  Then another flour tortilla is placed on top.

I chose to pan fry my quesadillas, since I don’t have access to a grill and my broiler is finicky, but they do have options and instructions for how to prepare this all three ways.

The quesadilla was fried on both sides, flipping carefully in between, and then I chopped it up into quarters and served with salsa and sour cream on the side.

Taste: 10/10

Both the quesadillas and the salsa were delicious!  I would definitely make this again.  I have a nice chipotle salsa recipe already, but I’m excited to add this one to my recipe list as well!

Difficulty: Easy for Salsa, Average for Quesadillas

The only challenge to the quesadillas is not spilling the ingredients when you move it to the pan (or baking sheet or grill), and being careful when you flip the quesadillas so that it stays even and none of the innards fall out.

The salsa couldn’t be easier – just chop everything up and combine!

Cost: Cheap

For the salsa you’ll need tomato, red onion, cilantro, and serrano pepper.

For the quesadillas you’ll need Monterey Jack or Pepper Jack cheese (I used Monterey Jack), 8-inch flour tortillas, a protein of choice, and if you’d like you can add the optional roasted red or poblano pepper, sour cream, and/or salsa.