Not Your Usual Chicken Fajitas

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I’ve mentioned previously that I’m not a fruit-with-my-meat kind of girl. It’s just never appealed to me. Everything from turkey with cranberry sauce to pork chops and apples just sounds…not good. I’ve tried a few variations and they’ve just never been my thing.

Pineapple on pizza is actually one of those things I file in the “gross” category. But, I kept trying pineapple in different combinations, and ended up thinking it was actually okay in more savory dishes. A week after I made (and enjoyed) a “Hawaiian” barbecue sauce with pineapple, I decided to try out this recipe.

While I have a standard chicken fajita recipe that I really enjoy (and other off-the-cuff versions I’ve thrown together many times) these are definitely different from others I’ve made. Let’s get the huge thing out of the way – they have no cheese. Crazy, I know. While they do include common fajita ingredients like peppers and onions, they’re also made with carrots, jicama, and pineapple.

To my own amazement, I really enjoyed these (did I also mention that I think carrots are, generally speaking, pretty blah?). The jicama and carrots were just slightly sweet and provided a bit of a crunch. The pineapple added a little sweetness, and the chipotle a great smokiness.

It was actually my intention to use steak in these fajitas, like in the original recipe, but Tom ended up making an impromptu trip to the butcher’s a night earlier in the week to pick up some grass-fed ribeyes (mmm). So, I decided to go with chicken thighs rather than eating red meat twice that week. I also amped up the meat content. I completely forgot to buy a jalapeno, so I ended up just using chipotle, which was perfect because it lent some smokiness to the dish, in addition to heat. I’ve actualy found chipotles to be my “gateway” ingredient when it comes to trying sweet things in savory dishes. It somehow makes adding them okay. Great, even.

Like Bittman suggested, we had these with some very simple guacamole, and I also made my “famous” beans, of course. Zachary loved this whole meal (I did take his portion out before adding the tequila since it didn’t cook for long after that) and kept asking for more of everything. More chicken! More pineapple! More beans! The kid loves Mexican-inspired food as much as I do, for which I’m very grateful. In fact, the other night, he was VERY upset about having to wash his hands before dinner (much like keeping socks on, it’s akin to torture) and in the middle of a whiny toddler temper tantrum, he managed to eek out “QUESADILLA!!” between cries (we were not actually having quesadillas that night, much to his disappointment).

Not Your Usual Chicken Fajitas

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12 thoughts on “Not Your Usual Chicken Fajitas

  1. Ok. You have me spitting my coffee out at 6am due to your kid eeking out ‘quesadilla’ while crying. It cracks me up when kids say random stuff like that in the middle of tantrums.

  2. I LOVE having fruit in my savories but maybe that’s because it’s the closest I can come to having dessert for dinner. 😛

    This sounds pretty out-of-the-box and I like that the fajita veggies are non-traditional!

  3. I’ve seen this at our local Mexican joint, but never had the balls to order them. They sound fabulous too, esp with the tequila. Trying them here at home soon!

  4. I share your love for mexican food! In fact, we even have quesadillas for breakfast!! This is a very interesting take on fajitas and perfect timing, I got some markdown skirt steak today I am going to try this with! Thanks for sharing!!

  5. This sounds very interesting! I’ve never thought of using pineapple and jicama in fajitas! I’m kind of up in the air about pineapple in savory dishes too… I think it’s gross on pizza too, but I like it in some asian stir fries. I’ll definitely give this a try!

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