It used to really irk me when recipes called for “pre-cooked chicken.” I was like, “What the huh, who has pre-cooked chicken laying around?” But then I kind of warmed up to the idea of grocery store rotisserie chickens, okay maybe “became addicted” would be more accurate than “warmed up to.” So, if you’re a rotisserie chicken fan or otherwise have some pre-cooked chicken around, you definitely have to try this Monterey Chicken Skillet.
What is Monterey Chicken?
This quick skillet pasta is a take on a recipe that I’ve seen floating around the web for years, Monterey Chicken. It’s a unique combo of tomatoes, green chiles, BBQ sauce, cheese, and bacon. Sounds strange, but there are so many good things going on in this dish that you really never get a dull bite. There’s just a LOT of flavor. As usual, I turned it into a pasta dish to help stretch out the cost… Because chicken, bacon, and cheese aren’t exactly cheap.
Substitutions:
I used a little rotisserie chicken, went light on the cheese, and only included the bacon because I happened to have some left over in my freezer. Honestly, I think the BBQ sauce and cheese carry the flavor here, so if you don’t want to spend on the bacon you could skip it and still get a great meal. The Rotel tomatoes (diced tomatoes with green chiles) can be kind of spicy, so if that’s not your ticket, you can use plain diced tomatoes instead (a 15 oz. can is okay).
So, ready to see how easy this is? Let’s go…
Monterey Chicken Skillet
Servings 4Ingredients
- 2 cups shredded pre-cooked chicken (1/2 rotisserie chicken) ($3.50)
- 1 10 oz. can Rotel (diced tomatoes with green chiles) ($0.99)
- 1/2 lb. fusili pasta ($0.63)
- 2 cups chicken broth ($0.30)
- 1/3 cup BBQ sauce ($0.36)
- 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese ($1.24)
- 3 slices bacon ($0.92)
- 2 green onions, sliced ($0.17)
Instructions
- Place the chicken, pasta, and Rotel tomatoes (undrained) in a large skillet. Add two cups of chicken broth and stir to combine. Cover the skillet with a tight fitting lid, turn the heat on to high, and let it come to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, reduce the heat to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes, giving it a quick stir every 5 minutes or so.
- Meanwhile, cook the bacon in a skillet until brown and crispy. Drain the cooked bacon on a paper towel, then crumble into pieces.
- After simmering for 15 minutes, the pasta should be tender and most of the liquid absorbed. If the pasta is still firm, let the skillet simmer for 5 more minutes. If the pasta is tender, but there is still a lot of liquid in the skillet, let it simmer without a lid for 5 more minutes.
- Once the pasta is cooked and most of the liquid is absorbed, drizzle the BBQ sauce over top. Sprinkle the shredded cheese over the BBQ sauce and cover the skillet with the lid. Leave the heat set on low and let the skillet sit for five minutes to melt the cheese. Once the cheese is melted, top with the crumbled bacon and sliced green onions, then serve.
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Notes
Nutrition
Video
How to Make Monterey Chicken Skillet – Step by Step Photos
Before we begin, let’s take a second to talk about Rotel. Rotel is a brand of canned diced tomatoes with green chiles that is available in most U.S. supermarkets (usually 10-oz. cans). If you can’t find Rotel, you can use a can of plain diced tomatoes, or a can of diced tomatoes plus a can of diced green chiles. Original Rotel is spicy, so consider that, although I’ve seen other brands that use mild green chiles so you get the flavor of the chile without the heat.
Anywho, put that can of Rotel in a skillet (undrained) along with two loosely packed cups of pre-cooked chicken and 1/2 lb. of pasta.
Add two cups of chicken broth then stir everything together well. Place a tight fitting lid on the skillet, turn the heat on to high, and let it come to a boil. As soon as it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for 15 minutes. Make sure that it is still simmering on your lowest setting and if it isn’t turn the heat up just a smidge. Also, make sure to stir it once every five minutes or so just to keep the pasta from sticking to the bottom.
While the skillet is simmering, cook the bacon. I happened to have a half package of bacon left over in my freezer, so I cut that in half and froze the remaining 1/4. So, the portion I used is roughly equivalent to 3 slices. If I hadn’t had the bacon, I probably would have skipped it and still been happy with the dish.
Brown the bacon in the skillet, then drain it on some paper towels. Once it’s cooled, crumble it into pieces.
After the skillet has simmered for 15 minutes, the pasta should be tender and most of the liquid absorbed off the bottom. If the pasta is not yet tender, let it simmer for another 5 minutes (with the lid). If it’s tender but there’s still quite a bit of liquid, just let it simmer for a few minutes more WITHOUT the lid, to help the moisture evaporate. Once the pasta is tender, drizzle about 1/3 cup of BBQ sauce over top. It’s easy to go overboard here, so keep it kind of light (I went a little too far I think).
Then sprinkle one cup of shredded Monterey jack over the BBQ sauce. Replace the lid and let it sit for a few minutes, or until the cheese is melted (I still have the heat on low).
Once the cheese is melted, you can turn off the heat and top the skillet with sliced green onion and the crumbled bacon. Hellloooooooo!
Yeah, I was in the mood for indulgent today. :P
This was such a simple and delicious recipe. My son is a little sensitive to the Rotel, so next time I will use regular tomatoes. I too used real crumbled bacon and substituted sharp cheddar for the monterey jack. It was a hit! Thanks!
As a cost-saving measure, I’ve found that real bacon bits (right next to the fake bacon bits at most stores) are much cheaper for recipes that call for just a few slices of cooked, crumbled bacon. I can get a 2.5oz pouch at my local for less than $2 and it will make 2-3 recipes, depending on how much bacon each calls for. Compare that to a 12oz pack of whole, raw bacon, which will make the same number of recipes but costs about $5.
I made this skillet tonight as written, except I used half a 2.5oz pouch of the bacon bits instead of cooked whole bacon. It was perfect, and I still have pre-cooked and -crumbled bacon to use with the other half of the rotisserie chicken, the rest of the BBQ sauce, and cheese in BBQ chicken wraps tomorrow!
If we wanted to go low-carb by substituting zucchini noodles for the pasta, how much would you suggest reducing the liquid?
You’d need to eliminate pretty much all of the liquid, which will end up changing the flavor of the dish (broth provides a lot of flavor). Regular noodles absorb liquid, whereas zucchini noodles expel liquid as they cook, so you’d actually end up with more liquid rather than less as it cooked. Also, the zucchini noodles probably cook quite a bit faster than regular pasta.
This was delicious! The only change I made was to add sliced fresh jalapeños when I added the cheese. Will be adding this to the rotation!
I just made this recipe, and when I put the pasta, chicken, Ro-Tel tomatoes and broth in the pan I thought, “Hoo boy, this doesn’t look all that great.” But once the pasta was done and I put on the BBQ sauce, cheese, bacon and onions—holy cow! Not only is this absolutely delicious but nice and filling, too. This recipe will be in heavy rotation for me.
Love Love! Thank you Beth. Any chance the nutrition info is somewhere??
I don’t provide the nutrition info because the calculators that are available online are just not reliable or accurate. But there are plenty of calculators out there if you want to do it for yourself and are okay with knowing it might be off. ;)
Yummy! Good meal prep with plenty leftover for lunches. I have been asked to put it in the rotation :)
Made this one night a few months ago, but we dont eat peppers so we just used diced tomatoes and had no Monterey so we used cheddar. Its amazing and my family has it at least twice a month and we affectionately just call it “Skillet” :)
Ok not to use the tomatoes? My husband is a picky eater but he’d like everything else in it. Maybe up the liquid to compensate? Add 1/2 cup more of chicken stock?
Perhaps, yes. Maybe throw in a small 4 oz. can of diced green chiles as well. Those add a lot of flavor.
What if I had precooked chicken and pasta? How would this recipe change?help!
It won’t quite turn out the same since the pasta won’t absorb all the flavors as it cooks in the broth and other ingredients. I did use pre-cooked chicken in this recipe, though.
WOW THANK YOU!
I’m so glad I found your site (from link in The Whoot emails)
I guess you can teach an old dog like me new tricks….
so many of your recipes sound yummy! I think the first one I’m going to try is the Greek Marinated Chicken….and probably will make your Lemony Cucumber/cous cous salad along with it (though may substitute the Orzo for hubby’s taste preference!
Thank you for sharing these yummy and easy to do recipes….always on the lookout for new things…
at 72, sometimes I get tired of meal planning and trying to find something to please my hubby…and that won’t take forever and a fortune to make!
I was a little worried at the end there– it looked a bit weird– but I shouldn’t have been! It’s so delicious. While it doesn’t quite fit with the “theme” of the dish, I used Carolina-style BBQ sauce, and I highly recommend it. The vinegar-and-mustard tang pairs well with the tomatoes and chiles.
Subbed out gluten free pasta for this and I just… can’t.. This was incredible. Used spicy bbq sauce with an extra can of green chilies and it created the best kind of comfort food mouth fire possible. Thank you!!!
also meant to rate this 5 stars but the site glitches!
What does cooking pre-cooked chicken for another 1/2 hour do to it? What’s point? Why not just add it in at the end of cooking/recipe?
It absorbs all the flavors.
Beth, I think my husband would love this, but he doesn’t care for green onions. There is so much favorable stuff going on here, so do you think it would still be great without the green onions? I will definitely be using the bacon.