Southwest-Style Chicken (or Turkey) Chowder

A quick and delicious way to use leftover cooked poultry

Have leftover cooked chicken or turkey? Need a warming, comforting dish to chase away the chill? Try this chowder. It’s a spicy mix of ingredients that you may already have on hand. Perfect pantry cooking!

Best thing about this dish is it’s ready in under an hour, start to finish. And you can freeze leftovers, so you’ll have another meal ready to go in minutes.

Winter never tasted so good.

Chicken and Roast Cauliflower Soup

A hearty, winter-friendly way to use leftover chicken or turkey

We see leftover poultry in your future. Chilly weather too.

So why not take them both on with this warming soup? Add some roast cauliflower to the mix and you’ll increase the comfort quotient even more.

Who knew you’d be giving thanks for leftovers?

Roast Butterflied Chicken or Turkey

AKA spatchcocking, the fastest way to roast poultry

Looking for comfort food as fall chill arrives? Roast poultry is your pal.

Especially if you butterfly the bird first. It’s the easiest path to the perfect plate: No trussing required and the poultry cooks more quickly. It roasts more evenly too – so both white and dark meat come out properly done and juicy.

So in this season of political rivalry, here’s our platform: A chicken in every oven.

Chicken and Black Bean Nacho Dip

All the flavor of regular nachos, but easier to make (and eat)

Nachos! What could be better?

Well, how about easier-to-make nachos that don’t fall apart on the way to your mouth?

Enter this nacho dip. All the traditional nacho yum in a dip that stays put on tortilla chips.

Your washing machine will thank you.

Taco Soup with Chicken

Traditional flavor in a quick dish = easy Taco Tuesday

Tacos. What’s not to like? Well, they can be messy to eat, OK. But we have a fix for that.

Taco Soup gives you all the flavor with none of the greasy lap blobs. It’s an easy one-pot dish that’s perfect for weeknight dinner. But it’s still jazzy enough for weekends.

Of course, this dish is a natural for your Cinco de Mayo celebration next week. And May 5th just happens to fall on a Tuesday this year.

We think that’s a sign.

Chicken or Turkey Tetrazzini

This baked pasta favorite will liven up your leftovers

It’s November, so there may be turkey in your future. Which means turkey leftovers. Give them a home in this traditional pasta dish and no one will complain about eating remakes. 

And you don’t need to stop with turkey. Tetrazzini works with chicken too. Not to mention seafood and ham.

You may even want to save some leftovers and make this dish for dinner guests. That’s our favorite kind of recycling.

Slow-Cooker Mexican Shredded Chicken

Easy and tasty, great for tacos, burritos, and enchiladas

Yearning for some spicy Mexican, but don’t want to heat up the kitchen during those long summer months? Just plug in the slow cooker – it’s a cool way to make hot Mexican dishes.

This recipe for shredded chicken is easy, tasty, and versatile. You might call it Mexcellent.

Chicken and Andouille Jambalaya

You can feed a crowd with this spicy Creole dish

Mardi Gras may be over, but that’s no reason to ignore New Orleans-style cuisine. It’s good any time of the year!

So today we’re cooking jambalaya, which is pretty much every-day fare in Louisiana. And why not? It’s a one-pot dinner with outstanding flavor.

Best of all, jambalaya is not hard to make. Most of the cooking is unattended, and you can prepare it ahead of time. That makes for a perfect company dish.

It’s the big easy, you might say.

Chicken Cacciatore

Classic Italian, made even better with mushrooms and red bell pepper

Ready for rustic? Cacciatore means “hunter” in Italian, so the idea is to eat as you would on the trail. Or something.

We prefer to cook it in our kitchen, where we can add wine. Not to mention red sauce, mushrooms, and tasty bell peppers.  

Our version is still simple to make, though. And you can even prepare it ahead of time, then reheat it whenever.

So you won’t have to hunt around for something decent to eat.

Coq au Vin

Soothe your winter blues with this classic French recipe for wine-braised chicken

We have a foot of snow in our corner of the world. Time for comfort food! And what could be better than a meaty dish slowly braised in rich wine sauce?

Enter coq au vin, a classic French recipe. It requires some prep work, but the result is so worth it. Serve this at your next dinner party and bask in the adoring applause.

Adoration works for you, right?

Chicken, Green Chile, and Pozole Ragù

Serve this Mexican-inspired dish over polenta or grits – or toss it with pasta

Hatch green chilies? Bring them on!

They’re in peak season right now, so we can find them fresh (or roasted) at our local markets. But they’re also available in cans at most grocery stores (or frozen from online vendors).

Hatch green chilies are the star of this Mexican-inspired ragù. But no worries if you can’t find them. You can substitute poblano or Anaheim chilies, which also have great flavor.

Good to have choices, isn’t it?

Asian-Spiced Chicken Noodle Soup

Rev up this traditional favorite with ginger, garlic, and jalapeño

We’re trudging through cold-and-flu season in our part of the world. Time for chicken noodle soup (a/k/a liquid penicillin).

You could buy canned soup, of course (and the leading brand’s logo is museum quality when painted by Andy Warhol). But homemade is so much better, especially when you add an Asian angle.

This soup is so good you may look forward to getting sick. And creating your own work of art.

Chicken and Celery Stir-Fry

Ginger, garlic, and fermented black beans add sizzle

Lunar New Year arrives on February 16. So how about some Chinese-inspired stir-fry?

Asian cooking can look complicated to Westerners, but it’s actually pretty simple. It’s all about the prep – the cooking takes very little time.

So fetch some flavor for the Year of the Dog.

Cajun-Spiced Chicken and Andouille Chili

Zesty, flavorful – and perfect for Mardi Gras or the Big Game

So we have the Super Bowl this Sunday, followed soon after by Mardi Gras. Calling all party planners!

This Cajun-spiced chili serves up New Orleans in a bowl, which makes it perfect for both events. Best of all you, can make it a day or two ahead of time – because the flavor only improves as it rests in the fridge.

All planning should be this easy.

Barbecue Chicken Salad

BBQ sauce adds depth to this main-course dish

Barbecue! We can’t get enough of it. So why not BBQ Salad?

For this dish, we whipped up a batch of French-style salad dressing. You know, that orangey stuff from the 50s. But we replaced the ketchup with BBQ sauce, and made a few other adjustments.

The result: Deep barbecue flavor. Enough said.

Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Chicken

Outdoor flavor, indoor easy

Here in the US, we’ll be celebrating Memorial Day this weekend. And that means the start of cookout season.

Problem is, the weather forecast says rain in our area. Bummer.

Fortunately, we have the perfect dish for days when the weather gods refuse to cooperate. This slow-cooker BBQ pulled chicken tastes like you cooked it long and slow over an outdoor smoker. But you never need to leave the house.

Most of the cooking is unattended, too, giving you time to do other things. Like chat with your guests over a cocktail. Or two.

Chunky Chicken Chili with Green Chilies

Warm up with a spicy and flavorful bowl

This time of year, the days are short in our part of the world. And the nights are cold. Fortunately, we have chili to keep us warm.

Chicken chili is a bit lighter than the beef version, so we don’t sink down in our snowshoes. But green chilies and white beans make it plenty tasty and hearty.

Good thing this recipe yields a big batch. You’ll want seconds.

Curried Cauliflower and Chicken Soup

This Indian-style dish is comfort food at its finest

We admit it: As cooler weather moves into our part of the world, we turn into soupaholics.

And this hearty curried soup is becoming one of our faves. We made it with odds and ends we happened to have in the refrigerator (some leftover roast chicken and half a head of cauliflower that needed using).

Best of all, we put it together in about half an hour, so it made an easy weeknight dinner. And it tastes way better than anything you can buy in those red-and-white cans.

Chicken and Andouille Sausage Gumbo

New Orleans flavor in your own kitchen  

The US has loads of interesting regional dishes. One of the best known is gumbo, a hearty stew-like dish with bottomless flavor. Gumbo originated in south Louisiana eons ago. Today it’s made with a wide variety of meat and seafoods, in both Cajun and Creole styles. It’s so popular (and the variations are so endless) that probably every family in Louisiana has their own unique recipe.

All gumbos are based on a long-cooked roux (the flour-and-fat mixture that also forms the basis for many gravies). When we make gravy, we usually cook the roux for only a few minutes. For gumbo, we need to cook it for at least half an hour, and usually more like 45 to 60 minutes. It’s a bit of work, yes. But the flavor payoff is worth it. And that flavor is the essence of gumbo.

Mardi Gras is coming up this Tuesday—and it’s the biggest celebration of the year in New Orleans. What better way to join in the festivities than by making a batch of gumbo for yourself? It’s like a party in a bowl.

Turkey (or Chicken) Piccata

This simple, lemon-sauced dish screams “special occasion”

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, you may be looking for a festive main dish. Preferably one that’s impressive, but still easy to prepare. A piccata made with scaloppine is just the thing.

You could use veal scaloppine, of course. But turkey and chicken have plenty of flavor—and they cost a lot less. Plus, your supermarket’s meat case probably stocks pieces of turkey breast already sliced into “scaloppine” (making this dish even easier to prepare).

So if you’re still pondering your Valentine’s Day menu, fret no further. You rang—turkey piccata answered.