We love Mexican flavored dishes at our house. Hubby likes any dish that’s got a little kick in the taste buds (okay, make that a lot of kick). But my criteria for the perfect dish is one that’s quick and easy to make. This recipe for green chili chicken manicotti makes everyone at my house happy.
My middle son was home for a few months recently due to the impact of Covid on his profession. And while he was here I took the time to indulge him and cook things that I knew he wouldn’t (or hadn’t) been cooking for himself (I’m actually not sure how much cooking he does).
But since I’ve been sick (I got a cancer diagnosis earlier this year), I haven’t felt like doing anything very complicated or too time comsuming in the kitchen. However, we still like to eat well.
I had some leftover chicken breast in the refrigerator and needed something quick for supper. Now you can make a multitude of different tasting dishes if you’ve got a box of manicotti noodles and some individually wrapped mozarella sticks. So I scrounged through the pantry to find the green enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes with green chilies and dinner was pretty much in the pan.
This dish literally took about 5 minutes to put together. The hardest part was dicing up the leftover chicken.
Green Enchilada Chicken Manicotti is a great recipe for Mexican flavored manicotti
Green Enchilada Chicken Manicotti
A quick and easy Mexican flavored pasta dish made with leftover chicken.
Ingredients
- 1 box manicotti noodles (one box generally has about 14 noodles)
- 14 individually wraped Mozarella cheese sticks
- 1 large chicken breast cooked and diced
- 2 10-oz cans green enchilada sauce
- 1 10–oz can diced tomatoes with green chilies
- 1/2 pound Mozarelle cheesse shredded
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
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Spray 9×13 baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
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Unwrap cheese sticks and insert one cheese stick into each dry manicotti noodle. Place in 9×13 pan.
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Cover noodles with green enchilada sauce. Noodles need to be covered completely so add a little water if you need to (or add the liquid from the can of diced tomatoes and green chilies).
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Top with shredded mozarelle and diced chicken breast.
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Drain liquid from diced tomatoes and green chilies and spoon tomatoes and green chilies over top of dish.
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Cover dish with aluminum foli and bake in preheated oven for approximately 60 minutes until noodles are soft and completely cooked.
Why you’ll love Green Enchilada Chicken Manicotti
Now, the reason I love this version of Mexican Chicken Manicotti is because it is so easy. Since you start with dry noodles, you don’t have to spend time waiting for water to boil, and then handling hot, sticky noodles to insert the cheese (something I despise!).
The trick, though, is that you’ve got to get enough liquid to completely cover the manicotti noodles so that they’ll cook completely. If you don’t, your noodles will be…crunchy. And that’s never good. So add water as necessary (just don’t drown them).
Now if you’d like more information about using dry noodles (not to mention that it’s another great manicotti recipe) then check out Mexican Manicotti before you leave. I’ve also got a great recipe for Ground Turkey Manicotti that’s a great addition to your holiday table (especially if your family gets a little tired of plain old turkey leftovers)
By the way, IF (and that’s a really big if) you’ve got any leftovers when dinner is over, these refrigerate well and are great for leftovers…or a midnight snack. I’ve never tried freezing them (they don’t last that long at our house), but I suspect that the freezing and thawing process would be a little hard on the manicotti noodles (I don’t know that they’d fall apart – I really don’t think they would – but I’m just not sure the noodles would be quite as good after thawing). But since it’s so quick and easy to throw together, I’ve never seen the benefit in tying up freezer space with something that I can get in the oven in five minutes.
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