When the married or college kids come home for a weekend or holiday break, I always like to make things that they like, or things that are special to them. I have been scouring the internet for a couple of years to find a recipe that is similar to the Arroz Con Pollo that our newly-wed son always orders at our family’s favorite Mexican restaurant. I was unable to find anything like it. (The ones I found were large chunks of meat more in a red sauce as opposed to a shredded chicken dish in a white sauce.)

So….I combined a couple of other recipes that looked similar and came up with one that worked—and that all of the kids really liked. (And my Arroz Con Pollo son thought was a good knock off!)

So, here you go! Enjoy the ease of cooking with shredded chicken! You might even like to do what I always do—cook up an entire crock pot of breasts and thighs, shred, bag, and freeze them to pull out for easy soups, stews, Mexican dishes, Italian dishes, classic casseroles, and more! (Coming soon!) 🙂

Tip: Cook ten or twenty pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and thighs in the crock pot. Then shred, bag, and freeze for quick entrée assembly!

Oh…and a few tips for freezer cooks and low carb cooks:

(1) This can be doubled, tripled, etc., and frozen in quart sized bags after it is all assembled. To use then, you would just thaw and heat in micro, stove top, or crock pot.

(2) This can work well as an enchilada type of filling without the rice. This makes it a really yummy low carb treat in low carb tortilla shells or Joseph’s pitas. (It would be just a few carbs per serving for the meat without the rice and an S meal for those following THM.)

(3) Another option is to cook chicken, shred it, and freeze it in bags with a little broth (as described in the shredded chicken introduction post). Then you can pull it out to make this quickly.

(4) Another good idea for low carbers and freezer cooks alike is to chop up onions and peppers and bag in quart sized bags to freeze. I love having these in my freezer to pull out, stir fry, and use in recipes all the time!

• 4 chicken breasts, cooked and shredded
• 1 ½ lbs uncooked Minute rice (or precooked long grain rice)
• 3 cloves garlic
• 3 TBSP olive oil
• 1 small yellow onion, diced
• 1 bell pepper, diced
• 1 can Rotel with green chiles
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 ½ tsp paprika
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp oregano
• ½ to 1 tsp cumin
• ½ to 1 tsp chili powder
• 1 1/2 to 2 cups chicken broth (for cooking rice only)
• 1cups heavy cream or half and half
• 4 to 6 clove minced garlic
• 8 oz grated Monterey cheese
• 1 bar cream cheese

1. Heat oil in electric skillet.

2. Once the oil is nice and hot, add in 3 cloves of freshly minced garlic, onion, and pepper. Let it sizzle for a few minutes until the onion is translucent and you have a beautiful aroma coming from the pot.

3. Meanwhile, cook rice in chicken broth by favorite method. (I use brown Minute Rice and cook in micro for several minutes.)

5. Add all seasonings to the pan.

6. Melt cream cheese in microwave and whisk until it is loose and can be poured.

7. When rice is done, drain broth if any is left (but keep if dish is too dry at end).

8. Stir everything else (chicken, rice, cream cheese, cream, cheese, rotel, etc.) into the stir-fried onion mixture.

9. Heat through and serve with soft tortilla shells, salsa, sour cream, corn chips, olives, etc., as desired.

Note: This is also really good enchilada filling for chicken enchiladas. Just omit the rice (and broth) and decrease the cream cheese and half and half or whipping cream to desired thickness. Build four to six enchiladas, place in casserole dish, top with a little shredded cheese, and bake.

The post “Arroz Con Pollo”—A Shredded Chicken Recipe appeared first on Character Ink.

I have been working on recipes for my newlyweds–Jonathan and Maelynn (son and daughter-in-law married in August 2014) and Will and Kara (daughter and son-in-law married in January 2015). I like to categorize my recipes just like I have done with all of my mega-cooking/freezer cooking recipes for the past twenty-five years…according to type of meat/main ingredients. For freezer cooking, this is ideal because I can cook up twenty, thirty, or forty pounds of that type of meat and put a lot of entrees together quickly.

So….I thought I would share on the blog some ideas and recipes that I have been putting together for my kids. So….here is the general information for Shredded Chicken. Watch for recipes soon!

(1) You can cook boneless, skinless chicken thighs and/or breasts in a variety of ways. My personal favorite is putting breasts and thighs in the crock pot overnight (an hour on high then the rest of the night on low) then when I get up in the morning, I take two forks and stir/shred all the chicken. I often put some of the chicken back in the crock pot and make one of the entrees below. (You can also put the chicken in before work/school then do the shredding and use part of the chicken that evening.) The rest of the chicken I put in zip lock quart bags and label. I like to put a half a cup to one cup of broth in the zip-lock bags to keep the chicken moist. (If you don’t need the broth when you make your meal with the meat later, you can drain it and pitch it.) Oh, I put a half a cup to one cup of broth in with the raw chicken when I cook it in the crock pot.

Use shredded chicken for chicken noodle soup!

(2) You can boil your chicken to use in shredded recipes, but I never do this as I’m always afraid it will boil the taste out of them. Others do though. You can also prepare your chicken three other ways: “poach” it in the oven with lots of broth covering it–be sure you check it with a meat
thermometer if you do this as you don’t want to overcook it; microwave it–kind of poaching it like in the oven–again, don’t overcook and in this case, be sure the chicken is completely covered with broth and plastic wrap so it doesn’t have tough edges.

Important Note: If you do not shred your chicken while it is warm (after it gets cold or after it is refrigerated), it is ten or twenty times or harder to shred– and will take a lot longer (and will probably need cubed, not shredded). It is a five min job if you do it while chicken is warm.

(3) Shredded chicken is good in tons of ways–I will list some below. It used to be a staple for me when the olders were little–in chicken tetrazzini, chicken lasagna, hot chicken sandwiches, chicken rice casserole, soups, etc. It is an inexpensive way to make a meal because it
is not very expensive to start with AND it is often used as part of a dish rather than the main entrée.

(4) A lot of recipes call for chicken or mushroom soup–it is better if you can make your own, but I would start out just buying it and using it as is. It helps make a lot of meals really fast. A lot also call for chicken broth. I use chicken base to make my broth, but you can buy cans of broth and then make it richer by adding some chicken base or granulated chicken bouillon.

Watch the blog for upcoming shredded chicken recipes, including chicken noodle soup, chicken strata, arroz con pollo, hot chicken sandwich filling, BBQ shredded chicken, chicken tacos, and more!

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The post Shredded Chicken–Cooking With Chicken Breasts and Thighs appeared first on Character Ink.