Chicken Fajita Recipe
An easy chicken fajita recipe that is quick and healthy. Serve with a salad for a fresh, cool summer dinner, or fries when you need something a bit more filling.
Equipment
- Aluminum foil
- Chef’s knife
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Mixing bowls
- Sheet pan
- Wooden spoons
- Zester or Microplane
Ingredients
- 3 avocados
- 1 lemon, preferably organic
- 1 lime, preferably organic
- 1 head crisp lettuce (Iceberg or Romaine)
- 2 large, ripe mangoes
- 2 scallions
- inch fresh ginger
- 1 jalapeno or other hot chile
- 2 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 1 pkg sesame seeds
- 2 cups sour cream
- 12 really good flour tortillas
- Garlic
- Hot paprika
- Sea salt
Instructions
Game Plan
- Don’t refrigerate the chicken
- Preheat the grill or the broiler, adjust the rack
- If you’ll use the broiler, line a baking sheet with foil
- Get out Tools
- Assemble the ingredients
- Open a beer – put the rest in the refrigerator
Prep
- Put a chicken breast on top of a piece of plastic wrap. Cover it with another piece, and pound it until it is about 1/4-inch thick. Repeat with all the chicken breasts.
- Cut the avocados in half, remove the peel and the seed, and cut them into 1/2-inch cubes. Put them in a bowl.
- Squeeze half a lemon over them, through your fingers, toss gently, and forget about this for now – it’s a garnish.
- Zest the lime.
- Measure out ½ cup sesame seeds.
- Rinse the lettuce and spin it dry. Stack the leaves and cut into thin strips. Put them in a bowl in the fridge.
- Cut the mangos into 1/4 inch pieces, and put them in a medium-sized bowl.
- Trim the root and about half the green from the scallions, and cut what’s left into very thin rounds.
- Peel the ginger, and mince enough to get 1 tsp.
- Trim the stem end from the chile, and remove the seeds and the white pith (that’s where lots of the heat is). Mince the chili. Wash your hands!
- Peel and mince 1 garlic clove.
Start Cooking
- Sprinkle the flour tortillas lightly with a little bit of water, then wrap them in foil and put them on the grill away from the heat source, or in the oven on the bottom rack.
- Press sesame seeds all over the chicken breasts. Sprinkle them all over with salt and hot paprika.
- To make the mango salad, add the scallions, the lime zest, the minced garlic, ginger and as much of the chile as you think your palate can stand, to the mango and toss.
- Squeeze the lime and measure out 2 tbsps. juice. Pour this over the mango salad, and toss. Salt the salad to your taste, and put it on the table, with the avocado.
- In fact, set the table now. Put out extra napkins.
- Put the chicken on the grill. If you’re broiling, put the chicken on the foil-lined sheet and put it under the broiler. The chicken will take about 2 minutes per side to cook.
- Put the sour cream in a bowl, and put it on the table with the lettuce and the beer.
- Turn the chicken and cut into one breast – if its no longer pink, take all the chicken from the grill.
- Cut the chicken into 1/2-inch strips, and put them in a dish. Get the tortillas from the oven and put them in a basket – leave them wrapped in foil.
- When you’re sitting at the table with everyone, show them how to make a fajita – you put some chicken in the center of the tortilla, and cover it with everything else (including the mango salad if you want to), then you do your best to get your mouth around it! Yum!