Loaded Chicken Nachos

Why settle for mediocre nachos at a smoky bar or pub? The better option is to eat the tasty dish in the comfort of your home. Not only is making loaded chicken nachos easier than you may think, but the homemade dish is a perfect party pleaser.

Loaded Chicken NachosPhoto by2foodtrippers

You may think that nachos are a bar food. That's what we thought too. We loved eating the cheesy tortilla chip dish when we hung out with friends but sometimes we were suffered from nacho disappointment. And then it hit us. We could and should make nachos at home.

First though, we had a few key decisions to make about our recipe for the quintessential bar food. What kind of cheese should we use? Should we use solid or liquid cheese? Should we make our nachos in a dish or in a tray? Should we add a protein and, if so, what kind? And, most important, how will we prevent the cheese from making the chips soggy?

The answers revealed themselves once we did a little research. We have to give it up to Chef John and his YouTube channel, Food Wishes. He's a YouTube legend and we've been watching his videos since we went nomadic in 2016. Watching his "Super Deluxe Steak Nachos" video provided a the inspiration we needed in a tight convenient package.

In that video, Chef John bakes nacho chips in a deep baking dish with a simple layer of cheese, homemade refried beans and cubed steak. He then tops the baked nachos with additional accoutrements. This approach solves two challenges:

1. The baking dish provides insulation, keeping the chips, cheese and beans hot.
2. The cheese melts over the beans and protein without making the chips soggy.

After getting the necessary inspiration, we took our nachos recipe in a different direction. First, we found that chicken breast, if sautéed properly in a skillet, provides a wonderful complement to the cheese and other toppings that we prefer over steak. Next, unlike Chef John, we don't make refried beans from scratch. Finally, we top our nachos with flavorful guacamole instead of simple avocado chunks. The result is an ovenful of goodness that's not only an ideal game day snack but also a wonderful dish on any party spread.

A World of Nachos

So what makes us nachos authorities? While doing our nacho research, we realized that we've eaten nachos on four different continents. Nachos, like pizza, have a become a quiet phenomenon in world cuisine and part of our global eating repertoire. We've eaten them in European cities like Lisbon and Prague as well as in Da Nang, Cape Town and, of course, all over the USA.

The nachos we've eaten in bars around the world have ranged from lick-smacking good to painfully awful. In retrospect, eating all of those versions gave us the impetus to create great nachos in our kitchen. And, now, we're glad we brought the bar food home. Our nachos recipe is so satisfying that pizza may be next.

Ingredients

Here's everything you need to make loaded chicken nachos at home:

1. 8 ounces tortilla chips
2. 2.5 ounces white cheddar cheese (grated on the largest hole on a box grater)
3. 2.5 yellow cheddar cheese (grated on the largest hole on a box grater)
4. 1 grilled chicken breast (1/2 pound chopped into 1-inch cubes with its juices)
5. 6 ounces refried beans (canned, heated until warm)
6. 6 ounces guacamole
7. 1 onion (medium, diced)
8. 6 ounces tomato (diced)
9. 1/4 cup pickled japalapeno (jarred)
10. 3 tablespoons Mexican crema (in a squeeze bottle)
11. 1 tablespoon cilantro (chopped)

Tortilla Chips - Just about any chips will work in this recipe. Of course, the better quality chips you use, the better the nachos will taste.

Grated Cheddar Cheese - Usually a nachos recipe calls for cheddar and monterey jack. In our case, living in Europe, we can't find jack cheese so we use a mixture of yellow and white cheddar with excellent results. Avoid any cheeses that have too much age on them since they don't melt as well. In other words, stay away from cheeses marked 'mature' or 'aged'.

Grilled Chicken - After a couple times making nachos with steak, we switched to chicken with better results. We simply season a chicken breast and grill it in a cast iron skillet on medium heat for about seven minutes on each side until the internal temperature reaches 140°f / 60°c. We don't flatten the chicken breast before cooking it. Instead, we press it with a spatula to achieve an excellent crust. Once we cook the chicken, we deglaze the pan and pour the chicken jus into a separate bowl. We then slice the chicken into one inch cubes and place the cubes in the bowl with the chicken jus. With that said, you can certainly use steak if you prefer. You can also omit meat if that's how you roll.

Refried Beans - Warming canned refried beans over a stove with a touch of water prevents them from sticking to the bottom of the pan. The canned version works great in this recipe.

Guacamole - We make guacamole with avocado, onion, serrano, cilantro and salt. (For this recipe, we used our new mortar and pestle and the result was fantastic.)

Diced Tomato - We don't make fresh salsa or pico de gallo for this recipe. Insead, we coarsely dice a couple roma tomatoes.

Diced Onion - We use a sweet white onion two ways in this recipe. It goes in the guacamole and it's also a topping.

Pickled Jalapeños - We prefer pickled jalapeños over fresh jalapeños in this recipe. They provide a little acidity which we love.

Mexican Crema - We make Mexican crema by mixing sour cream with lime juice and salt. It's easy to mix those ingredients to taste. We then place the crema into a squeeze bottle so that we can artfully decorate our nachos.

Chopped Cilantro - Cilantro provides an excellent garnish and herbaceous finish to the dish. Simply omit cilantro if you have a problem with the versatile yet controversial herb.

How To Make Loaded Chicken Nachos

You need to do a bit of prep work before you make your nachos. Specificlally, you need to pre-make the guacamole, cook the chicken breast and warm the refried beans. You also need to do a bit of chopping and grating. Once you do those tasks and arrange your mise en place, you're ready to go.

Start by laying the chips about three deep in a baking dish.

Top the chips with refried beans. Add the cubed chicken with the chicken jus.

Top the chips with a generous layer of grated cheese.

Place the baking dish into a conventional oven at 450°f / 230° or 420°f / 215°c in a convection oven (oven with a fan).

Set the timer for five minutes at which point you'll want to check the nachos for doneness - the cheese should be melted with just a hint of brown edges. If the nachos aren't done, set the timer for another five minutes and check the nachos frequently. You don't want the cheese to burn!

Now comes the fun part. First, generously dollop the nachos with the guacamole.

Next, sprinkle the nachos with diced tomato and diced onion.

Sprinkle on the pickled jalapeño rings.

Decorate the nachos with a artistic squeeze of crema and optionally garnish with chopped cilantro.

Splash on hot sauce like Texas Pete if you're a hot sauce fan like Mindi. Otherwise, the nachos will be plenty flavorful on their own.

Serve with a spoon and dig in.

This recipe was originally published on 2foodtrippers. Consider subscribing to 2foodtrippers if you enjoyed it.