No one is quite certain about chili’s history, just as no one can agree on how to make it. Everyone has a favorite chili recipe ranging in variety of heat to ingredients. There are many chili recipes in cookbooks, on the Internet and even among families. You will find chili in crockpot chicken recipes. As new cooks try different recipes, they alter ingredients to suit current tastes and fads. Perhaps it started with a trail food that Texan cowboys used in the mid-1800s, comprised of salt, chili peppers, and dried beef. Similar to survival packets of food, boiling water restored the mix, nutritious and ready to eat.
Texas seems to fit into nearly every chili legend, most likely because of its proximity to Mexico and the spicy foods of that culture. The following legend sounds reasonable because there are free-choice gardens and orchards around the United States that started centuries ago. As rumor has it, the cowboys planted onions, oregano, and chilies within mesquite patches along busy trails. Wildlife and cattle avoided the brush. When cowboys passed by they could pick some of the harvest and mix it with chunks of beef and water for dinner.
Immigrants from the Canary Islands receive credit for bringing cumin to San Antonio and using seasoning and flavorful vegetables like onions and peppers to add to meat. Did they originate chili? Perhaps, but then San Antonio’s poor chopped peppers to stew with whatever meat they had, giving the impression of more meat in the dish and creating a flavorful, satisfying chunky chili type of meal. Like stone soup, the legends continue about chili and delicious international recipes. Now that breast chicken recipes include chili, you can create a legend of your own.
Ingredients –
- 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts
- 3 green onions
- 10 ounces chicken broth
- 2 garlic cloves
- ½ teaspoon dried oregano
- ¼ cup chopped cilantro
- 2 teaspoons cumin seed
- 2 yellow bell peppers
- Three 15-ounce cans Great Northern white beans
- 1 fresh jalapeno pepper
- Sour cream
- 1 cup shredded Monterey jack and medium cheddar cheese
Preparation:
Cut the chicken and brown it in a skillet on all sides with a tablespoon of oil. Put the chicken in the bottom of the crockpot.
Chop the tops and bulbs of the green onions and scatter them over the chicken. Chop the garlic cloves and put it over the onion. Add the cumin, cilantro, oregano, and chicken broth. Cover the crockpot and cook on low for 4 hours.
Drain and rinse the white beans. Remove the seeds and slice the bell peppers. Make a small slit on both sides of the jalapeno pepper. Quickly add the beans, and peppers to the crockpot and cover. Cook an additional hour and a half on low.
Serve in bowls. Add a swirl of sour cream topped by the Monterey jack and cheddar cheese mix to each bowl. Serve with hot bread, cornbread, or tortilla chips on the side. This will quickly become one of your family-favorite crockpot chicken recipes.
