I woke up this morning and my brain immediately turned to dinner. For reasons I can’t fathom, I really wanted to make a dish that involved baked chicken and salsa. Have I ever eaten this dish before? No. Have I ever seen it made? Nope. I guess I was just feeling kind of zesty.
A quick search on Google revealed that salsa + chicken is actually a real thing. Not to be confused with fiesta chicken, of course, which is far more complicated and involves more ingredients. Salsa chicken is literally just chicken smothered in salsa. Canned salsa. Oh yea, there’s some fancy cooking going on in my kitchen. If I wanted to get all fancy and health-conscious I probably could have made my own from scratch with fresh vegetables and spices, but…this was easier at the time.
When I told Dan what we were having for dinner he was very skeptical. “So…you just poured some salsa over the chicken and baked it?” “Well, yea. But the chicken breasts are seasoned!” Truth be told, I was pretty skeptical too. I don’t even like salsa all that much! But, we were both very pleasantly surprised. The baked chicken breasts were unbelievably tender and juicy, and time in the oven took away some of the salsa’s artificial zing and replaced it with a wonderfully smooth, tangy flavor that perfectly complemented the chicken. Delicious! I just wish I had some rice or corn to go with it.
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