Mealtime Monday-Easy BBQ Shredded Chicken and Chips

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Shredded Chicken (or Turkey) and Chips

This meal or snack is one of my daughters favorites and super easy to make! I thought this would be an appropriate Mealtime Monday addition since it is easily converted into a “get rid of the left over turkey” meal!

The recipe is super simple and can be varied to your own taste. Basically, I came up with this one day when we had planned to have Mexican for dinner and I realized that we had no hamburger for the recipe. All I had in the fridge was a left over chicken that I had roasted the Sunday before. Four kids, pouring rain…improvise!

I often use ground chicken in place of hamburger for a lot of my recipes anyway so I didn’t think the girls would notice. Once I pulled as much of the meat off the Roaster as I could, I used a chopper to chop the chicken up very fine (about the consistency of hamburger).

I used the regular recipe on the Taco Mix and served it up with chips and taco fixins’. The girls actually commented on how good it tasted! How happy was I…kids liked what I made and I didn’t have to go out in the rain!

Since that first experiment, we have made this into a Signature Dish that the girls actually request. I have also brought it to parties as an appetizer with a bag of tortilla chips.

According to my family taste, I don’t shred the meat as fine as I had the first time but feel free to experiment with it. We have also modified the recipe to used simple BBQ sauce depending on whether it is a Mexican Dinner or just a regular menu item.

Here is how easy and flexible this dish is:

• About a pound of chicken (or turkey)-you can use left overs, chicken breast on or off the bone or thighs according to your taste and budget

• One bottle of BBQ sauce (or one package of taco seasoning)

• One bag of Tortilla Chips

If I am using fresh chicken, I simple put it in a deep frying pan with water (just enough to cover it) and let it boil for about 30-40 minutes until cooked through. Allow it to cool so that it is easy to handle.

TIP: Buy the chicken when it is on sale, boil it and leave it in the fridge to use for recipes like this, to make chicken salad, a quick soup or just to snack on! Also, I throw a few seasonings, garlic powder, onion powder and celery salt in the water when boiling the chicken for some added flavor!

Once the chicken is cooled just pull off the meat you just shred it, chop it, dice it, mash it…what every you want. Basically consider who is eating it and what consistency they would like. (For the baby I really do mash the chicken super fine!)

Add BBQ Sauce, Taco Seasoning or whatever spices you like. I have even made my own quick sauce:

Quick Sauce When You Have Nothing Else

1 cup ketchup
2-3 tablespoons Brown Sugar
1 teaspoon Apple Cider Vinegar
2-3 tablespoons water (as need for consistency)

You can mix this in a separate pot or just mix it right in as you heat the shredded chicken. Just put all the ingredients together, stir and heat.

Warm the mixture and let simmer on low for about 10-15 minutes to let all the flavors blend. I serve this dish along with rice, shredded lettuce and tortilla chips.

You can be creative with this and add a dollop of sour cream on top with some shredded cheese or use the mixture on top of a bed of lettuce with other salad fixins’. It is delious, flexible and a great way to get rid of left overs!

Enjoy!

Have a recipe you would like to share? Please send me a note through Contact Me or DM me on Twitter! I would be honored to have you as a guest blogger to share your favorite recipe on Mealtime Monday!