Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Baked Chicken Taquitos (Flautas)

Today's post is sharing a recipe that hits several criteria in my book. It's a tasty recipe to make up for the family. It's one that is easily doubled. It freezes well so you can make some for later. It makes GREAT leftovers. 

I originally found the baked chicken taquitos recipe on Pinterest. It comes from a blog called "Chef-In-Training." The recipe can be found here. If you follow it to the letter, it's a good recipe. It's easy to prepare in advance (read: during nap time) and simply cook when it's time to eat. I love that they're baked instead of fried like a traditional taquito. Speaking of which, are taquitos supposed to have corn shells? A quick wiki search just told me that a flour tortilla is actually a flauta. Good to know. 

If you've read many of my posts on recipes, you probably know I don't settle for a recipe "as-is." I'm constantly experimenting as well as utilizing what I have on hand. Here is my alteration of the recipe:

4 oz (half package) cream cheese softened
3 roasted green chiles, chopped
1/2 lime (squeezed for juice)
3/4 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder 
3/4 tsp onion flakes 
3 Tbsp chopped cilantro
2 cups shredded cooked chicken (more on this in a minute)
1 cup shredded mexican/fiesta cheese
about a dozen small tortillas (I use flour as they stay rolled better)
sea salt or kosher salt
cooking spray

The inspiration for some of my changes is because I received some gorgeous green chiles in my bountiful basket last week. I roasted all of them on the grill (hi heat, 4-5 minutes per side until charred, put in glass bowl covered with plastic wrap until cool, peel skin, de-seed and chop). I'm nuts over roasted peppers or chiles. The flavor is amazing. In addition to the roasted chiles, I had about 1 cup of seasoned shredded chicken in my freezer. It was left over from the last time I made chimichangas. The meat is so flavorful I thought it would be great in the taquitos/flautas. You can find the recipe to make this seasoned chicken here on "Mama To The Max." I only had half the amount of chicken I needed, so I added one large chicken breast's worth of shredded chicken to the mix. It wasn't seasoned, but there were enough other spices to make up for it. There are a few other tweaks I made to the recipe based on the flavors of the seasoned chicken (less onion, no garlic, more cumin, less chili powder). 

Basically you mix up all the ingredients, spoon about 2-3 Tbsp into a tortilla, and roll tightly. If you want to freeze and cook later, do it now. If you want to cook, spread on a cookie sheet so they're not touching, spray lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with salt. Cook in 425 oven for 12-15 minutes. If you're baking from frozen, I've found a 375-400 oven for 20 minutes seems to work better. The basic recipe makes a dozen using the 8" tortilla size. I wouldn't recommend using larger tortillas. 

The roasted chiles and seasoned meat made this dish SO much better. I'm a flavor junkie, so this hit the spot. Plus there were extras for both my husband and I to eat for lunch today. Can't beat that!

Sorry, I don't have pictures, but you'll have to trust me on this one. Enjoy!!

1 comment:

  1. Ooh, girl! You now have me craving that chicken! I just showed my husband this recipe and we are definitely going to try this the next time we make our chicken meat. Yummmmo! Ty so much for the reference and the new recipe idea!

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