Who doesn’t love tacos? This versatile dish can be served morning to midnight, hard or soft, with proteins ranging from fish to chicken to beef, with fillings that will help clean out a fridge. What’s not to love?
This particular recipe is flavorful, elegant, and simple. You’ll enjoy bright darts of lime, bold undercurrents of savory heat, and that rich dark chicken meat that adds a luscious layer of taste. You could top it with sour cream, hot sauces, cabbage slaw, raw onion, black olives, Mexican white cheese or cheddar, avocado — it’s one of those great recipes to throw down when you’re about to do a grocery run and need to make space. Here’s how we did it:
Ingredients:
- 1.5 pounds of boneless skinless chicken thighs
- 1 cup chicken broth
- 3 tablespoons honey
- Chipotle peppers in adobe sauce (canned)
- A teaspoon of garlic powder
- A half teaspoon of cumin
- Salt
- A lime
- A can of black beans, drained and rinsed
- And for the pickled red onions: 1 red onion, 1.5 cups of cider vinegar, a few spoonfuls of sugar and a dash of salt
Materials needed:
- An Instant Pot
- A big mason jar (for pickling the onions)
- A small saucepan (for boiling the stuff to make the pickled onions)
Directions for pickling onions:
So easy! We hear “pickling” and we imagine Ma Ingalls spending hours on the prairie. Lies! Here’s how easy it is:
- Slice 1/2-1 red onion thinly, put in heat-safe container
- Bring 1.5 cups apple cider vinegar to a boil
- Add the sugar and dash of salt to vinegar and whisk to blend
- Pour over onions
- And done!
You can serve immediately or keep in the fridge in a well-sealed container for a couple weeks. Happy pickling!
Taco recipe:
- In Instant Pot, combine broth, honey, chopped up chipotles* and some adobe juice, and spices.
- About the chipotle: it’s hard to say how many to use, because heat tolerance and pepper levels vary. I pulled out one full pepper plus a bunch of bits and pieces and finely diced them and it was tasty!
- Add chicken thighs. Turn over a couple times to coat.
- Seal pot; set on high pressure for 13 minutes. Let natural release for 5, then release pressure.
- Remove chicken and use forks to shred it apart. It will be SO TENDER — thank you Instant Pot! This shouldn’t be hard at all.
- Meanwhile, put your IP on the sauté setting and let the mixture cook down.
- Return chicken to pot; add black beans and squeeze half your lime in, add a dash of salt. After it cooks for a minute, taste; you may want to add more lime or salt. Let simmer a minute or two more until beans are heated through and softened.
And that’s it! Serve with warm tortillas (for a bonus, see my previous blog entry on making tortillas from scratch – so worth it!). Toppings include your amazing pickled onions, a cabbage slaw, rough-chopped fresh cilantro, sour cream avocado or guacamole, and more!
PRO TIP on guacamole, especially for my fellow Alaskans; getting great avocados up here can be such a chore. Buy the individual Costco hummus servings and freeze them — either the smashed avocado or guacamole. Take them out of the freezer the night before, and they’ll be ready to go! Calorie-controlled, and guaranteed quality.