Green Chicken Chilli

After the fish tacos, another Tex-Mex influenced recipe: a green chicken chilli. As is often the case when I come up with something to cook, this was borne out of wanting to use up one of its key ingredients: a can of tomatillo salsa that I had bought a while ago.

What you’re looking for here is lightness & freshness: both in flavour but also in colour so use a light coloured bean rather than say red kidney, black beans or even pinto beans. If you don’t have butter beans something like cannellini (which I’d intended to use & I suspect would work best but I’d run out) or flageolet would be fabulous too.

You can serve this with rice or flour tortillas if you like or, as we did with an assortment of toppings (grated cheese, chopped avocado & spring onion and greek yoghurt laced with coriander) and some tortilla chips which I’d made by cutting up a couple of wholegrain tortillas into chip shaped pieces, spraying them with low fat cooking oil spray and baking for ten minutes.

Have some lime wedges and bottles of chilli sauce on hand and you’re ready to go!


Green Chicken Chilli

serves 2

½ tablespoon olive oil

1 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
1 chicken breast fillet, seasoned with salt & pepper all over
1-2 jalapeno chillis, deseeded & finely diced
1/4 tin of poblano chiili slices, chopped
½ green pepper, diced
1 tin of butter beans, drained and rinsed
1 ½ tsp cumin
1 tsp coriander
½ tsp dried Mexican oregano
6 tbsp tomatillo salsa
250ml chicken stock
½ lime, juiced
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
chopped coriander and a quartered lime to serve
tortilla chips or strips to serve
chopped avocado (½) & spring onion (2-3), to serve

Heat 1 tsp olive oil in a cast iron casserole and heat.

Add chicken breast and brown on both sides - you don’t want to cook it, just brown - then remove and set aside.

Add a little more oil if necessary & cook the onion & green pepper over a low- med heat for 10-15 minutes until the onion is translucent & both veg softened.

Add the jalapeno and poblano chillies, garlic, cumin, coriander, and a small pinch of salt. Cook for a few minutes more.

Add the oregano & tomatillo salsa.

Stir through before adding the lime juice & stock. Bring to the boil then reduce to a stir and add the chicken and any juices on the plate. Let simmer for about 20 minutes.

By this time the chicken should be cooked through, so you need to remove it again to a plate or chopping board and shred with 2 forks.

Add back to the pan along with the drained beans and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Stir through the chopped coriander.

To make the tortilla chips, brush or spray a couple of tortillas with oil, cut into strips and pop in a pre-heated oven for 10 minutes

Serve the chilli in bowls sprinkled with chopped coriander and with sides of lime wedges; cubed avocado; Greek yoghurt laced with chopped coriander, garlic powder & lemon juice; grated cheese; tortilla chips and more chopped coriander.