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
I made this tonight. I had everything except I used farfalle. I agreed with one of the other commenters and stirred the BBQ sauce into the mix before putting the cheese on top. Yummy! 😋
I enjoyed this dish. I used some leftover rotisserie chicken which I thought worked well. The one downside to the recipe for me is the BBQ sauce because it tasted very rich. It wasn’t bad, but just not quite balanced. I used a good quality bbq sauce, but perhaps it just wasn’t the right one. I might make this one again because I like all the ingredients individually, but won’t rush to make it again because it seemed off-balanced.
Has anyone tried lentils or rice to replace the pasta? I do not have any pasta on hand, and I am curious if you can get the same result from either of these substitutes?
Delicious!
I used this recipe as inspiration to make my own pasta and chicken skillet :) I diced in some of Beth’s herb roasted chicken breast, used a can of plain cherry tomatoes and added the chicken juices, some pepper & herbs with the chicken broth. I also rinsed out a pesto jar and poured it in there. Came together quickly and the result was pretty tasty :) We opted for adding the cheese on our plates. Like the previous commenter said, it’s a good base recipe for experimentation!
i think this is a great base for experimentation. i made my own version of this, rotel+turkey meat+ different shell pasta+turkey broth+cheddar cheese+a little bbq sauce. i pressure cooked it for 15 minutes, and it was great. i gave it to my mom and told her it was chicken monterey skillet, except that it isn’t chicken or monterey or skillet.
Oh wow! That sounds fantastic!
This is a favorite in our house – love your creativity in making it a pasta skillet meal!
Thank you Erin!
WOW just wow. Ive lost a lot of weight balancing my meals and this one was the perfect amount of protein and carbs I needed tonight not to mention amazing!! My husbands typically the cook but he’s in school one night a week so I thought I’d give this a go. I knew I was making this today And had no precooked chicken so I threw some chicken breasts in the crock pot with a little chicken broth and seasoning all day so they would shred easily when I got home. I healthied it up a smidge by using whole wheat noodles, part skim mozzarella, and turkey bacon and for additional yum factor I added some crushed garlic and pepper while boiling. I added the bbq to taste so probably a little less than the original recipe but it is still needed to add that extra somethin somethin.
Thanks Mariah!
I would love to convert this to 100% instant pot for summer camp (without a stove top) in a dorm. Any ideas??
I really liked this dish aside from the bbq sauce. Any ideas for an alternative sauce? Thanks!
I bet taco sauce would also be good.
We can’t find RoTel easily here in my neck of the woods (Canada), so I swapped a can of plain tomatoes and a good heaping tablespoon of chilies in adobo sauce. It came out great. Tried it last time with tomatoes and separate can of chopped green chilies, and actually preferred the adobo chilies! Just a thought/hack. Much hotter with the adobo chilies though! Be warned.
This is a little late, but if you have Save-On-Foods in your part of the country, check there. Mine (Calgary Area) has them in last week and I bought 6 cans. They also have they’re own brand which isn’t quite the same, but it works.
Barring that, I’ve had very little issues finding canned chopped green chilies in the Mexican section of most stores. Use that with a small can of diced tomatoes.
Rotel is so popular, all the major brands make sometime similar – Heinz, Hunt’s, store brands – just look for the diced tomatoes with chilis
I make this recipe probably a few times per month. It is always a hit, plus it is super easy. :)
I usually modify it ever so slightly by stirring in the barbecue sauce, then melting the cheese on top, just because I like it to be a little more homogenous. But this recipe is the perfect vehicle for all of my leftover meats. Last year just after Thanksgiving it was the perfect way to save us from boring-turkey-torture, and I’ve thrown in leftover carnitas and just about anything that we need to use the last little bit of. :)
Really good, honestly this is one of my go-to, favorite recipes on this site besides the shakshouka
This turned out like it was supposed to (tasty), though my pasta needed only the typical 10 minutes. It gave me high school flashbacks, as Chili’s Monterey Chicken was my favorite dish back then!
I made this last night, my wife picked out the recipe. For myself I was leery of pasta and Bar B Que sauce together. Even after adding salsa and parmagan cheese to my plate, the Bar B Que sauce overpowered the rest of the dish. My wife on the other hand thought it was good.
This is a little weird–I’m vegan, but this recipe looked like such an interesting mix of flavors I tried it anyway! I used Gardein chick’n tenders and sauteed those til brown and followed your instructions exactly, then topped with vegan cheese. This was SO good and even better the next day, and the first time I’ve made a one-pot pasta that didn’t get all mushy! It wasn’t spicy enough for me using mild Rotel, so I added sriracha and think next time I’ll make it with hot Rotel. Thanks!!