Salsa Chicken Casserole

I took some chicken out to make something for the week and realised I was tired of the same old thing.  Stir fry, cheesy chicken spaghetti, added to sausage and beans and rice. This was something I just kind of threw together after looking at multiple recipes on Pinterest.  It didn't turn out too bad.  Could definitely use some tweaking.



 

 

Dice up some onion and garlic.  No recipe can go wrong with onion and garlic. 

 



Cook some chicken.  I boiled 2 huge boneless breasts.
 

Make some rice.  I used brown.  Spread out in the bottom of a baking dish.

Saute onion and garlic.  I had a green bell.pepper and figured it couldn't hurt.  Don't think it really made a difference.  I used a medium onion and 1/4th of the pepper.  Next time I would double the onion and probably skip the pepper altogether.  Spread evenly over rice.

Cut up/shred chicken and add next.

This is where I kinda got stumped.  I had salsa, Velveeta, sour cream and whipped Philly cream cheese..

So I threw the salsa in a bowl.

Of course Calli was around to supervise.

Then I added a chunk of Velveeta about the size of a deck of cards.

I nuked that untill the cheese started melting into the salsa.  (Not shown)

I was beginning to doubt the ratio of salsa mixture to the chicken and added a can of diced tomatos without draining.  Turned out to be a good idea.

At this point, I had the cream cheese and sour cream.  I decided to go with the cream cheese.  This is the whipped, not the block.  If you're trying to melt cream cheese into something, the whipped is the way to go.

While that was all gelling in the microwave I decided to sprinkle some cayanne over the chicken.

I know this looks gross, but let me tell you, this was tasty.  This could be a nice dip with some Fritos or corn chips.

I poured it over the chicken and threw it in the oven at 425 degrees for about 20 minutes.

This was area that needed the most improvement.

It did melt down into the chicken and rice a bit, but I think it could have been meltier.  Is that a word?

 

Overall, it was good. 

 

I think this could be really good rolled up in tortillas enchalada style with some shredded cheese.  I would probably leave out the rice if I was going to put in tortillas to cut the carbs.

 

So, a recipe in progress.