Day: January 11, 2014

Recipes

RECIPE: Mexican Lasagna

Tara

Mexican Lasagna (6-8 servings)

  • 4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes with garlic, drained
  • 1 can (8 oz) tomato sauce
  • 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce (optional)
  • 12 (6-inch) corn tortillas
  • 1 cup part-skim ricotta cheese
  • 1 can (4 oz) diced green chiles
  • 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro, divided
  • 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 375. Cut chicken into 1/2″ pieces.
  2. Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken, chili powder and cumin. Cook 4 minutes or until tender, stirring occasionally. Stir in diced tomatoes, tomato sauce and hot pepper sauce; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer 2 minutes.
  3. Combine ricotta cheese, chiles and 2 tablespoons cilantro in small bowl; mix until well blended.
  4. Spoon half of chicken mixture in bottom of 12×8″ baking dish. Top with 6 tortillas, ricotta cheese mixture, remaining tortillas, remaining chicken mixture, cheddar cheese and remaining cilantro. Bake 25 minutes or until heated through.

Recipe Source: 100 Best Chicken Recipes Cookbook (ISBN: 0-7853-8052-3)

Mexican Lasagna

Personal Review: This cookbook has been sitting on my shelf forever (I’m terrible about buying cookbooks at bargain prices and then never even cracking them open.) Anyway, Garrett got into all my cookbooks one day and while Nathan was helping me put them back in their bookcase this cookbook caught his attention. He started flipping through it and found this particular recipe and told me he wanted me to make it.

So I did.

And I’m torn about it. First of all, I liked it overall. But I have an issue with cilantro … I’m not a huge fan of it. I think it’s way too strong at times and like I said, I just am not a fan. Nathan, on the other hand, is obsessed with cilantro. I swear he would put it on everything in sight if he could. Now that being said, I made this before I got my new handy-dandy herb mill for Christmas and so I was just chopping the cilantro up and it was in big huge pieces (you can see them in the pictures). I think if I made this recipe again with the aid of my new kitchen tool the cilantro wouldn’t be as strong and I would like it a lot better.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this recipe. It really had a good taste. I didn’t use the hot pepper sauce, but I think I would add it next time I make this one (although I think I would add it to the ricotta cheese mixture, I felt as if it needed just a smidgen more taste other than just ricotta cheese).

If you make this recipe, I’d be curious as to your opinions. And if you have any suggestions on how to make this recipe even better, I’m dying to hear them as well. Because the recipe itself is a good start, but I think it needs some tweaking, but I don’t know where to begin with that.

wkendcooking