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My boyfriend and I made this last night and it was phenomenal! We put it on arugula and kale and added some cotija and tortilla strips over it all. It was perfect!
Remy
A lot of people ask me where I learned to cook. Food blogs generate these types of Q’s, ya know?
I never really have a good answer to that questions because it’s not like I grew up around gourmet food with the exception of mom’s amazing reuben casserole (this is not a joke – it was my favorite and most requested birthday meal ever). I’ve never been to culinary school, and I did not spend most of my childhood with my grandmother in the kitchen learning to make hundreds of authentic Norwegian recipes.
I guess my real answer for where I learned to cook is my tastebuds and the internet. Boring-est story ever.
What I wish people would ask me instead is where I learned to love food. That’s where the stories are because I learned to love food from so many different people and places in my life.
Like from my family, because we would always, always sit down to eat dinner together (thank you mom ❤). Enjoying meals together with people, no TV, no couch-eating, no cell phones (I’m pretending like cell phones were invented during my childhood – just go with it) – this attitude of giving meals and meal-sharing people our undivided attention is something that is a part of my food being.
And then I learned more food love from watching and drooling as my grandmothers spread the lefse with butter and brown sugar in the kitchen at Christmastime and then rolled each piece up into those tidy little heaven-logs. Gimme gimme.
Then I went to college, where Food = Baked Doritos, popcorn, and M&Ms. But luckily, two awesome food things happened to me in college.
1) I spent a semester in Spain, where I ate delicious Spanish home-cooked recipes from my gracious host mother who was a food lover extraordinaire. That, along with some travels around Europe, was a really incredible season of eating. Swiss chocolate truffles and cheese fondue, we belong to each other.
2) I lived with the best foodie roommate who, obviously, is still my best foodie friend! Or just best friend who is also a foodie. Or just everything. Ang and I co-developed our long-standing love of all food with many a late-night run for chips and salsa, an embarrassing number of trips to the one and only Olive Garden, hundreds of pans of cookie brownies, and food creations like creamy fettuccine with corn. I owe a big piece of my food heart to her.
To tie it all together, today’s Spicy Chipotle Shredded Chicken is an Ang-inspired recipe. I first fell in love with it at when she made it for a group of our friends and then, like any good food blogger, kind of took the idea (um, wait, yellow mustard in chicken? but yes actually) and created my own version. And good news up in the house today:
Spicy Shredded Chipotle Chicken IS DELICIOUS IN ANYTHING. Tacos. Nachos. Salads. Quesadillas. Enchiladas. Tamale Pies. and mooore.
There is so much versatility with this spicy delicious meat that it might just become a meal-time staple. We had a little container in the fridge this last week and every day was a new lunch (salads, tacos, nachos) depending on what we were in the mood for. Which, for me, was all the Mexican food ever made in the history of the world.
And now finally here we are at the end of my long post / beginning of your amazing Mexican food creations. Let the good times roll.
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Spicy Shredded Chipotle Chicken
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 4–6 depending on how you use it 1x
Description
This Spicy Chipotle Shredded Chicken is perfect for tacos, nachos, quesadillas, salads, and more! Spicy, saucy, and delish.
Ingredients
- 3 individual chipotle peppers in adobo sauce + 1 teaspoon of their sauce
- 4 cloves garlic
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 cup freshly squeezed orange juice (store bought is fine – I just use my own so there’s no added sugar)
- 1 1/2 cups reduced sodium chicken broth
- 1/2 cup light beer (or replace with 1/2 cup broth)
- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts
- 2 teaspoons yellow mustard
Instructions
- Mince the chipotle peppers and garlic cloves. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the garlic and chipotle; saute for 1-2 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent burning. Smells will be yummy.
- Add the orange juice, chicken broth, beer, and cilantro and turn the heat to high to bring to a boil. Add the raw chicken breasts; cover and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for 15-20 minutes or until the chicken breasts are cooked through. Remove the chicken breasts from the pot and place on a cutting board for a few minutes to cool. Shred the chicken with two forks.
- Meanwhile, keep the sauce left in the pan over low heat. Whisk in the mustard and cook the sauce until it reduces by about half and you get all that mmm mmm good flavor in a thicker, more concentrated sauce. Add the shredded chicken back to the pot with the sauce and toss to combine. Top with additional fresh cilantro.
Notes
This chicken works great for tacos, salads, Mexican rice and bean bowls, casseroles, nachos, quesadillas, and so much more. I usually add black beans and sometimes corn or cooked farro <– weird but really good.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 30 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Mexican
Keywords: shredded chicken, chipotle chicken, spicy chicken
I wasn’t able to get the sauce to thicken! But the chicken was still good 😊
Can I do this in a Slow cooker?
Yep! Four hours on high or 6-8 hours on low should work great!
Another delicious recipe from you! Thank you!!! I melted a little bit of cream cheese and added a drizzle of honey to cut the heat for my daughter. It was delicious both ways!
Using orange juice as a sugary, tenderising agent to sweeten this and caramelise the chicken as it reduced is such a clever idea. This recipe yielded the tastiest, most flavourful chicken that I am ready just about throw into all of my meals ! It was incredibly easy to make, and now I’m never buying chipotle ever again 🙂
Looks good! Can you cook it in a slow cooker?
That should work!
Anyway this recipe can be made in a crockpot/slow cooker?
Yes this can be made in the slow cooker!
I love this chicken! I always use in burrito bowls. I do rice, corn, beans, the chicken, topped with cheese and whatever other deliciousness I have at home. I love making it at the beginning of the week so I can eat the leftovers for lunch all week long.
Amazing! Thank you for sharing!! I didn’t have the peppers so I added a bit of crushed red peppers to the oil. I also didnt have mustard so I had to make my own with the ground mustard I have. Overall- Flavor is on point!! I’ll be making arepas with this chicken!!
Thanks for sharing, Nora! Glad you enjoyed this!
how fun. i scrolled thru yr recipe and saw a familiar bottle of beer, blurred but still recognizable, i thought..oh! she must be from minnesota. i scrolled back up to yr bio and YUP, ya are! cheers to grain belt beer! i’m nd and went to the uofm and am now in cali. cheers fellow cooker!
So while in quarantine I was looking to up my quesadillas by using pulled chicken. I love your recipe but don’t have access to chipotle peppers. Can I make it without them and still have a tasty sauce? Anything I can use to replace them?
You could try adding a little bit of hot sauce for some flavor instead. Otherwise, here’s a recipe substitution idea to make your own version of chipotles in adobo sauce. Let us know how this goes for you, Lisa!
This recipe was so easy and delicious! I made it with fresh squeezed oranges and a coors lite beer. I also used dijon mustard and it was still good. I couldn’t get it to thicken though. I wanna try to make it again but with the yellow mustard that ghe recipe called for.
Glad to hear you enjoyed this, Taylor!
No salt and pepper noted for a reason? Delicious recipe though, thank you!
Just salt and pepper to taste. 🙂
Can this be done in the crockpot?
Other readers have had luck making this in the crockpot! 👍
I had an amazing shredded chicken taco bowl at a hospital cafeteria and decided to come home and replicate it.
I searched for recipes for shredded chicken and after reading a few decided to go with this one. I am glad I did!
This recipe is EASY and exactly what I was looking for…except this chicken had a little more heat. No problem. Next time I will reduce to one or two peppers.
This recipe is a keeper. Loved it!
Thank you Linday & Ang!
So happy to hear this! 🙂
I was looking for a shredded chicken recipe to use to make a taco salad in a tortilla shell bowl. Something I tried and enjoyed at a hospital cafeteria and wanted to replicate. I found this recipe and it was perfect and easy! I may decrease to 2 peppers next time just to lower the heat a little. The brand of Chipotle Peppers in Adobo that I purchased was very hot(not sure if they all are?)..
YUM! This sounds perfect in a tortilla shell taco salad. 🙂
I’ve made this recipe twice now and it’s fabulous! I added an extra teaspoon (or two) of adobo sauce, but otherwise followed the recipe. Delicious!
This recipe looks great! Do you think that you could do it in a slow cooker?
This is ridiculously delicious. And stupid easy. And I decided to just huck the whole thing into my instapot …sautéing the chipotles and garlic adding the other ingredients (didn’t use the beer, added extra chicken) and cooked on high pressure for 11 minutes. Pulled chicken out then reduced the sauce way down. Added lime juice and salt after reduced. All done in 20 min! And DELICIOUS!
This is fantastic! I make it multiple times a month. I love the fresh, spicy flavor. You could not find anything better at a restaurant. I have made it on the stove, in an instapot, and in a crockpot. I prefer the instant pot or crockpot, however for the crockpot I would recommend halving the liquid part (or a little more than half).
Hi Lindsay! This looks delicious. Would you think that simmering the sauce and serving it over already cooked, shredded chicken would be just as good?
Thanks for the recipe!
Do you think this could work in a crock pot ?
Yep for sure!
I used this recipe in my Instant Pot – pressure cooked it for 7 minutes and natural release for 10 minutes. The best chicken ever! So yummy in a burrito bowl with lime rice and black beans. Thank you for the recipe.
Love that! Thanks for sharing, Donna!
My boyfriend and I made this last night and it was phenomenal! We put it on arugula and kale and added some cotija and tortilla strips over it all. It was perfect!
I LOVE this dish! I make it all the time. It’s a little too sweet for my boyfriend, would cutting back on the OJ and using more chicken stock and beer help curb the sweetness a bit? I would love to get it to a point where he would enjoy it as much as I do! Thanks!