Chicken Quesadilla: A Scrumptious Mexican Dish

Once your taste buds resonate with the flavours and essence of a dish, you establish a quick association with it no matter how new and alien it was for you earlier. Just like Mexican Chicken Quesadilla, which bursts with the flavourful and delicious filling of chicken and veggies. It looks like a sandwich but is a wrap made with tortilla, a typical Mexican flatbread, used to stuff the filling. 

The taste of the filling lies in the recipe of marinated boneless chicken pieces with oregano and lemon juice besides some regular hot spices. Not to forget the generously sprinkled cheese that melts and oozes out of the tortillas when roasted making it a drool-worthy sight.

Quesadilla is a Mexican dish where the tortilla is stuffed with meat, spices and various veggies and sprinkled with cheese both on the first layer and on the top of the filling making it extremely creamy and rich to savour. The name of the dish comes from the Spanish word ‘quesada’, meaning cheese and quesadilla is the diminutive form of the word. Conventionally, there are two classic ways of making the dish, where a full quesadilla is made with two tortillas that hold a layer of cheese between them. The other one is where a single tortilla is filled with cheese and folded into a semi-circle. 

The description of quesadilla is incomplete without tortillas, which contain these fillings. So, a tortilla is a thin and circular unleavened flatbread typically made with maize flour and even wheat flour. 

Here’s the recipe for Mexican Chicken Quesadilla.

Preparation time: 40 minutes

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Servings: 3-4

Ingredients:

  • 3-4 tortillas or refined flour chapatis

For marinating and frying chicken:

  • ½ kg boneless chicken pieces
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • ½ tsp black pepper powder
  • 1 tsp cumin powder
  • 1 tsp red chilli powder
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • Salt, to taste
  • 1 tbsp garlic-ginger-chilli paste
  • 6 tbsp oil

For filling:

  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 2 medium-sized capsicum (chopped)
  • 2 medium-sized onions (sliced)
  • ½ cup sweet corn
  • ½ tsp chilli flakes
  • ½ tsp oregano
  • ¼ tsp pepper powder
  • Salt, to taste

Method:

  • Wash the boneless chicken pieces thoroughly and take them to a bowl.
  • Add 1 tbsp lemon juice to it, and all the powdered spices, garlic ginger and green chilli paste to it. 
  • Mix everything well with chicken using your hands
  • Leave it to marinade for ½ an hour.
  • Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan, add sliced onions to it and fry until they soften.
  • Add chopped capsicum, and saute for 2-3 minutes with onions.
  • Then, add sweet corn and saute for a couple of minutes.
  • Add all the spices and salt to it and stir for 2-3 minutes.
  • Cover and cook for another 2 minutes on low heat and turn off the flame.
  • In another pan, heat 6 tbsp oil and fry the marinated chicken pieces in it on both sides until golden and crisp.
  • Take it out and let it cool. Then, cut these chickens into small pieces.
  • Now, spread a tortilla or refined flour-made bread on a plate and spread grated cheese on half of this tortilla.
  • Add cooked veggies and top it with chicken pieces and sprinkle with cheese.
  • Then, fold this tortilla from the other side like a semi-circle.
  • Roast this tortilla in little oil on a frying pan, until lightly golden on both sides.