Taco Bell Chicken Quesadillas | Pour Choices Kitchen

Bringing the joy of my favorite drunken food to my homes all across the world with this amazing copy cat recipe. What really makes it special is the jalapeño crema sauce which goes great on more than just quesadillas. Even better is this meal won’t cost you an entire roll of toilet paper!

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Grocery List:

1.5 to 2lbs of boneless, skinless chicken thighs, trimmed
Cattleman’s Grill 8 Second Ride Carne Asada Rub
Large tortillas
Oaxaca cheese
Kraft cheddar jack cheese blend
Cooking spray

Marinade:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup lime juice
Zest of one lime
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1/4 cup red onion, diced
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp ground oregano

Jalapeño Crema:
1/2 cup mayo
1/2 cup sour cream
3 tbsp pickled jalapenos
3 tbsp pickled japaleno juice from the jar
2 tsp smoked paprika
2 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
3/4 tsp white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp chili powder

Hold on to your butts because we’re making my favorite drunk as at 1:00 a.m. food Taco Bell chicken quesadillas how the hell they cost so much I don’t know but take my money because they always hit we’re making our own jalapeno kma sauce blending some cheeses together

And by the end of this we may come out cheaper than an actual Taco Bell meal per serving by the way for a dollar more you can add a line of sour cream and like eight dices of tomato to your taco turning it into a taco supreme a whole dollar okay seriously

Taco Bell you’re going to stop taking advantage of my drunk ass okay financially and in the bathroom starting out we need to get our chicken marinated there are tons of marinated recipes out there this happens to be my favorite for grilled chicken tacos and now I’m going

To use it for today so in a big measuring cup or Bowl we’ll start out with 1/4 cup of water and add to it a half a cup of oil this was canola oil next is the zest of one lime I’m using this micr plane and you just want to get

The green parts once you start to see white stop otherwise you’ll be adding bitterness to your marinade and holding the zester on top and running it over the lime is a way better to collect the zest and see what you’re doing versus running the lime on top of the zester

Add that to the water and oil and next we’ll be adding in the juice of one and 1/2 limes so use the lime you just zest it and zest it first because it is hard to zest a squeezed lime trust me and then add the juice of another half of a

Lime you essentially want 1/4 cup of fresh lime juice next we’ll add in six cloves of minced garlic I ran these through my garlic press and it’s so easy you don’t even have to take the skin off you just squeeze it and it all comes out

Then we’ll add in 1 tbsp of salt one tblspoon of cumin 1 teaspoon of black pepper and 1 teaspoon of Mexican oregano you can use regular oregano if you don’t have Mexican oregano which by the way the packaging probably won’t say it that way it’s not going to say Mexican

Oregano but you’ll find this at Latin markets or in the Latin section and it just has a more pungent flavor than regular oregano which is why we’re using it lastly we’ll need 1/4 cup of a finely chopped Red Onion I like finely chopped because when we take all this out of the

Marinade um I like some of those small bits of onion and garlic and other things we add to be stuck to the chicken and we’ll add in 1/4 cup of chopped cilantro mix all that up now let’s prepare our chicken chicken thighs chicken thighs say it with me chicken

Thighs some of y’all are going to ignore this and still use chicken breast and if that’s your jam sure but chicken thighs is going to be way better in flavor and texture now if your concern is oh chicken breasts are supposed to be healthier than chicken thighs I can tell

You right now the difference between thighs and breasts is about 40 more calories in the thighs and like four G of fat okay that’s it small change so again chicken thighs are absolutely worth that extra 40 calories in 4 G of fat so much flavor you’re missing out on

If you insist with chicken breast and as I say this in every single video they are way more forgiving when cooked than chicken breasts so like thighs are done at 175 but stay juicy even up to like 195 200 chicken breasts on the other

Hand are done at 165 but if you go over 5° in a chicken breast you’re pretty much now eating Viva paper towels so I’ve got around a pound and a half of chicken thighs here I think this marinade is probably good for up to about I’d say 2 lb of chicken thighs

Maybe two and a half if you see any excess fat just go ahead and trim that off and these are boneless and skinless by the way and you can find brands that do a really good job of trimming the fat off for you but of course it’s always

Cheaper to do things yourself like trimming and deboning just FYI anyway our chicken is going into the Ziploc bag and we’ll pour the marinade on top squeeze out all the air and give it a good massaging really working that marinade and all those herbs and onions and stuff around okay then just for

Extra precaution I’m throwing this into a small casserole dish just in case there’s any leaks and into the fridge it goes for 2 hours yes 2 hours I know this is definitely not a drunk at 1 a.m. friendly recipe but having this stuff already made before 1 a.m. is clutch

While the marinade goes we can make my favorite part the jalapeno cream sauce is what makes the Taco Bell quesadilla so damn good and it’s pretty simple so to a small blender I’m adding in half a cup of sour cream this is actually a table cream that I like to use just

Because it’s more liquidy if that’s a word and easier to put into sauce bottles but regular sour cream is totally fine next is a half a cup of mayo then we need some pickled jalapenos I’m using about 3 tbspoon of pickled jalapenos and then 3 tsp of the juice

They came in that right there is all of our wonderful flavor for this then we’ll add in 2 tspoons of smoked paprika 2 tspoons of ground cumin 1 T teaspoon of garlic powder 1 teaspoon of onion powder half a teaspoon of salt and half a teaspoon of chili powder lastly just

Under a teaspoon of white sugar maybe this was like 3/4 of a teaspoon give that a good blending until smooth and then set aside in the fridge till it’s time to assemble our quesadilla this should be good for up to a week and it makes an amazing sauce for tacos

Burritos hell you can put on your eggs whatever you want it is a really delicious sauce now 2 hours is up I’m getting my chicken out of the marinade and going to a rack over some paper towels just to let the excess drip off and then it’s seasoning time now you can

Use any type of Mexican or taco seasoning that you want whether it’s a L’s packet or you have your own blend but I love this 8sec right carnea Sala seasoning by catman’s Grill you know me I’m a big catman’s grill fan it’s a great seasoning for things on a grill

Which you very well could do this chicken on the grill it would be amazing and awesome but it also works great in the kitchen again totally fine to use whatever Mexican seasoning or taco seasoning that you want just make sure to hit all the sides and crevices of the

Chicken thighs and don’t be shy with it either once seasoned I like to let the chicken hang out for about 10 minutes which is enough time for that seasoning to start melting into the chicken we can also use this time to preheat our oven to 400° because we’re going to start

This chicken out on the cast iron and finish it in the oven so now I’ve got my cast iron skillet over high heat once the cast iron is ripping hot we’ll place our chicken in and not touch it for like 2 to 3 minutes this is to allow some

Searing action to take place on our chicken now you at home will have a much better looking sear on your stove top than I do using this induction top just because it tends to concentrate the heat in just the middle but essentially you want to have a good Browning on the

Chicken and while we wait I just want to show off this thermop pin by thermoworks it is a clutch food thermometer when cooking because it reachs temperatures fast so you’re not having to keep your hands close to flames letting out all the heat from whatever device you’re cooking in and it allows consistency

Among your Cooks if you nail a temperature every time you’ll know what to expect every time time versus trying to time it out because there are tons of variables like heat output size of the chicken how the temperature starting out with the chicken Etc so grab you one of

These if you can otherwise let’s check our chicken if we see some Browning we’ll flip the chicken onto the other side and then immediately place the entire cast iron pan into the preheated oven so that side in contact with the pan will have a chance to se her and the

Radiant heat from the oven will help finish cooking the chicken all the way through more evenly and this is going to be great for those of you who again ignored my calls for using chicken thighs and you’re using chicken breast this is a great method of cooking

Chicken breasts but don’t use that use chicken thighs and yes we could just cook this chicken all the way through on the cook toop but then we run the risk of ruining or good sear on the outside or burning things and adding ugly flavors we just don’t want that so into

The oven I put the chicken for 15 minutes and then I checked it with my PIN to see if we had reached over 175 and we did so now we can chop up the chicken and set it aside now let’s talk cheese I’m using a Waka cheese today

Which is a great melting cheese for quesadillas you can find this at Latin markets and sometimes if your grocery store has a refrigerated Mexican section you can find it there too where like the ctia cheeses and stuff might be I’m also adding in some craft Mexican style

Cheddar jack just because I like the flavors those have and they add to the Waka cheese you can totally ignore my fancy ass and just use the Mexican shredded cheese but if you have the access try it all out no real measurements here just however much

Cheese you see fit in your belly now to assemble our quesadilla I’m using my electric griddle here just because it’s easier to film uh and show visually but you can totally clean out that cast iron Paran that you cook the chicken in and make it all in there and also I should

Say you don’t have to use cast iron you can totally use a nonstick pan but cast iron or this griddle is a great way to go I’ve got my griddle around 400° or medium high heat and after hitting the surface with some cooking spray I’m placing my tortilla down to warm up some

That spray will also help the tortilla crisp up a bit too I’ll flip it around a few times until it’s nice and pliable and then on one half of the tortilla I’m going down with a layer of Waka cheese first since I want it closer to the heat

So it can start melting then a single layer of chicken use however much you want I use a lot because again nothing pisses me off more than a quad deer from Taco Bell with only like five pieces of chicken in it and all that cheese so go

Crazy here you deserve it then our jalapeno cream sauce and our craft Mexican cheese blend by the way I probably should have just mixed all this up together but I was just being lazy and didn’t do that so well was me fold the empty side of the tortilla over and

After about 10 seconds or so however long it takes for that tortilla to kind of settle I’ll flip it over again and I’ll just keep flipping it over and over again trying to get the tortilla crispy and also to get that cheese to melt and

After maybe about 5 minutes or so it was done cut your quesadilla into triangles throw a little Pico and guac on the side and enjoy yourself a delicious Taco Bell quesadilla at home hey this is poor Choice’s kitchen we have a patreon link down in the description $1 a month is

All we ask for to pay for recipes in these here inflated times and we also have a YouTube membership that one is $2.99 just because YouTube likes to take their cut both of these go a long way in helping us make these recipes and I’m

Hoping over time as I begin to be able to make money off of this Channel that I can do special patreon and members only things that is definitely in the works but for right now it’s just a little old me by myself so I got to make sure I

Don’t burn out oh and of course you can’t go wrong with tequila or Mexican beer here so you all enjoy this recipe and I will see you all back here next time