Chicken Taco Cups

by Ann

Now that I am blogging about recipes I am always asking friends about food and wondering what I should try next.  When my friend Sue and I went on the road trip to Globe that I wrote about a couple weeks ago, she was telling me about a recipe she had made recently that sounded good.  Knowing that I had a happy hour the following week to attend, and I'd offered to bring an appetizer gave me the perfect opportunity to find and try the recipe.

It would seem that the easiest way to get Sue's recipe would be to ask her for it, but instead I went to the Internet, and am fairly certain that I found what she described on the Taste of Home site.  I added a couple of diced jalapeno chilies to give it some kick, but next time around might consider even upping the heat index with a hotter variety of salsa. I've told you already, but will say it again, we like our food hot in the southwest.

When positioning the wrappers try to make the well as big as possible to allow for lost of tasty filling!

Add filling, top with a spoon of salsa and sprinkle with cheese

I did not have a full pound of chicken, and the batch made 48 generous-sized appetizers

Chicken Taco Cups

Ingredients:

¾ to 1 pound chicken breast*, cut into 1” pieces
1 envelope taco-seasoning
1 small onion, chopped

1-3 seeded, minced jalapeno peppers (not called for in the original recipe, but added some kick) 

2 cups jarred salsa (divided)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (divided)
48 wonton wrappers
sour cream and chopped green onions, cilantro and black olives (if desired for garnish)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°. 

Spray mini-muffin tins with Pam and press one wonton wrapper in each, being careful to not tear the wrapper.  Bake unfilled shells for 5 minutes until lightly brown.  Set aside until filling is ready.

If chicken is not already cooked, sprinkle it with taco seasoning.  Heat a sprayed or lightly coat with oil frying pan to medium, and cook chicken pieces until no longer pink (10 minutes or so).

Transfer chicken to food processor; cover and process until chopped.

In a large bowl, combine chicken, onion, 1 cup cheese, and half of the salsa. 

Spoon a rounded tablespoon of mixture into each cup; top with a slight teaspoon of salsa and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake 15 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted.

Serve garnished with your choice of sour cream, green onions, cilantro and black olives.

The original recipe said that these can be frozen and reheated, but I did not try doing that.

*When I made these I used already-cooked shredded chicken breast from my freezer, so I added all filling ingredients to the food processor.  It looked sort of like meatloaf mixture, but cooked up and tasted great.  One online review also said that the cook had used canned chicken successfully.

And once again, it comes down to friendship.  I taught with these ladies more than ten years ago, and lucky for us, Kim (far left) hosted this get together to honor two birthday girls, Cindy (middle) and Denise (far right).  Oh yeah, and that's me between Kim and Cindy, and Pat on top of the "heap."  

Here's to girlfriends!