chicken burrito bowl/casserole

We absolutely love Mexican food, Tex-Mex, spicy Southwest, California Fresh-Mex or Baja-Mex. Yum. I never get tired of it and could eat it every night of the week.  So its no wonder that I always have the seasonings, just waiting for it's turn to make my eyes water and my lips burn!

I made my Chicken burrito bowl/casserole

It was inspired by a local taqueria. I watched them and basically came up with my own and frankly it's just as good.

10 frozen chicken tenders
1 can of black beans
3 cups of seasoned Mexican rice * (see below)
2-3 cups (or handfuls) of shredded pepper-jack cheese
1/2 cup of shredded sharp cheddar
Your favorite Taco seasoning mix
green onion
cilantro
cut up tomato
sliced avocado
shredded cabbage
salsa, taco sauce, hot sauce

• I cook the frozen tenders in a small amount of olive oil with some garlic. When cooked through, I chop up the chicken in the pan, add some Taco seasoning and a little water for a slightly saucy sauce with the seasoned chicken.

• In another pan, follow directions for Instant rice.  Bring the water, butter and about 3-4 tbsp of taco seasoning, and some Knorr bouillon to a roaring boil. Add the rice.  If you have some dried onion - throw it in.  To get my family to eat brown rice, I usually make half and half and you can buy the instant brown rice for this. But I didn't have any last night.

I love casseroles. Mainly because it's easy to have everything there - not a lot of bowls to clean up. So I used a 13x9 cake pan because my other Pyrex was in the freezer with a spaghetti casserole.

• I spread the rice in the bottom of the pan and sprinkled some of the pepper jack cheese on the hot rice.

• Then I spread the black beans

• The seasoned chicken

• the rest of the pepper-jack cheese (save just enough to put on top)

I placed it in a warm oven - while I shredded the cabbage, green onions, cilantro, tomatoes - and cheddar cheese

Then just before serving I topped with the cabbage, and all of the above - and some sliced black olives.

Now my family likes to use flour tortillas and pile the mixture inside the tortilla to make burritos. I like to just eat it without. My version of  a burrito bowl.  (less Carbs) 

I've done this also with leftover Taco beef meat.

Note: Because I am only using what I have - I didn't have the following:

green onion, cilantro, brown instant rice, avocado.