Casserole Dishes · Quick & Easy Meals

Salsa Verde Chicken

Robin at Haphazard Homemaker

Do you ever see a picture of a food dish that looks really good and you really want to make it, but you aren’t sure if you would like it? After scanning a few versions for this recipe, I saw that it was pretty basic and had just a few ingredients. I loved all but one of the ingredients, and I knew that one was the key ingredient for the flavor. The one ingredient that kept me from trying it was the Salsa Verde. I just knew I wasn’t going to like it. One because it was a green sauce, and two because it had jalapenos in it.

I don’t eat hot stuff very often, with the exception of my jalapeno poppers and Stuffed Poblano Peppers. After reminding myself that my poppers have 3 of the main ingredients of the Salsa Verde Chicken, I decided what the heck! We had hot dogs if Hubby didn’t like this dish. That was a stipulation in our marriage contract.

I was totally amazed at the flavor in this dish. Creamy cheesy topping over melt-in-your-mouth chicken with a hint of heat, but not too much. Dare I say it’s addictive? Hubby loved it, too! So this is definitely a keeper! I’m already making plans for that half-full jar of Salsa Verde in the fridge.

It is super simple to put together and leftovers reheat beautifully and is just as delicious the second time around. We have reheated it in our NuWave Oven for 3 -4 minutes. I’m pretty sure it would heat well in a microwave too, but we got rid of ours so I don’t know that to be fact.

Since there’s only two of us, I made half a recipe and baked it in my 8″ square Pyrex Easy Grab Glass baking dish.

Salsa Verde Chicken

FREE Printable Recipe

Prep Time 10 minutes Cook Time 30 – 35 minutes  Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 4 medium boneless skinless chicken breasts
  • 1 – 2 tablespoon olive oil
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • 1 tbsp fajita seasoning (I used my homemade Fajita seasoning)
  • 8 oz cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup salsa verde
  • 4 oz shredded mozzarella cheese (I used a shredded blend)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C)
  2. Lightly oil casserole dish with olive oil, then arrange chicken in dish and brush with a little olive oil.
  3. Spread the softened cream cheese over the chicken. (My cream cheese wasn’t very soft, so I had to smash it down after 15 minutes in the oven)
  4. Sprinkle salt, pepper and fajita seasoning over the cream cheese.
  5. Pour the salsa verde over the chicken and cream cheese.
  6. Sprinkle shredded mozzarella across the top. (I added the shredded cheese after 20 minutes of baking)

Bake at 400°F (200°C) on the middle rack for 30-35 minutes or until chicken is cooked through to an internal temperature of 165˚F (75°C) and the juices run clear.

I serve this with cauliflower rice for a Keto/Low Carb dinner, but it would be equally delicious with regular rice or egg noodles, steamed broccoli or vegetable mix, or sliced tomatoes.

Enjoy!

Robin

18 thoughts on “Salsa Verde Chicken”

  1. It looks really good. Your Salsa Verde Chicken is a variation of what we call Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas.

    When I make Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas, I do it kind of like pound cake. The ingredients are

    5 pounds of grated yellow cheese or a yellow white cheese blend(Mexican 4 Cheese Blend works well),
    5 pounds of shredded chicken thighs
    3 or 4 large yellow onions chopped,
    4 cups of chicken soup stock,
    2.5 to 3 pounds of roasted, peeled green chiles, chopped (the onions, soup stock and green chiles should roughly equal 5 pounds),
    5 pounds of corn tortillas.

    Sauté the onions, mix in the soup stock, and bring to a boil. Turn off the heat, and mix in the green chiles. I add garlic and Italian seasoning to the mix. That mixture is the enchilada sauce. In a large roasting pan, maybe two, depending on the size, lay down a layer of overlapping corn tortillas, followed by a thin layer of shredded chicken. Spread a layer of the enchilada sauce over the chicken and cover the sauce with a layer of cheese. Repeat the layers until the pan is full. Preheat the oven to 350º F, bake until hot all the way through and the top layer of cheese stats to brown.

    It freezes well and is always better reheated after all the flavors have melded together.

    Liked by 1 person

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      3. We also make green chile quesadillas with chopped green chiles and Mexican four cheese blend put inside a flour tortilla that’s folded in half like a taco. I use the same proportion of chile to cheese.

        I fry them on a griddle until the cheese is completely melted and each side of the tortilla is browned. I cool them on cooling racks, cut each quesadilla in half so it’s like a quarter of a round tortilla when they have cooled. I put one or two in ziplock sandwich bags, and then put as many of the sandwich bags with the quesadillas in them into gallon freezer bags and freeze them.

        We pull them out of the freezer and throw them in our lunch bags or take them in the car when we travel. They heat up nicely in the microwave or toaster oven, they are great at room temperature, and while traveling, we throw them on the dash and let the sun heat them up. They make very convenient and fairly healthy fast food.

        Liked by 1 person

  6. It really looks good. Sometimes, food pictures can be very frightening because you don’t know if you could reproduce the same quality as the picture. I tried this recipe and liked it. I’m looking forward to making it again.

    Liked by 1 person

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