Slow Cooker Mexican Chicken Stew

Mexican chicken stew

Inspiration

The inspriation for this dish came out of my head.  In my opinion, Mexican food is so easy, it seems like any of the ingredients go together.

Ingredients

Ingredients lineup

• 1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut into bite-size pieces (I think I now prefer thighs to chicken breasts)
• 1 can Herdez salsa casera (I have no idea how salsa casera is different than regular salsa, all I know is I love having cans of this in the pantry for recipes)
• 1 can tomatoes with green chiles 
• some roasted sweet corn
• some pepper stir fry (peppers + onions)
• about 1/2 cup leftover mole sauce I had in the freezer
• Mrs. Dash fiesta lime
• ground cumin seed
• 1 can sliced black olives (added at the end)

Spices

I threw all of the ingredients in my medium-sized West Bend slow cooker in the morning and then headed to work.  I love meals like this that aren't much preparation and

Steamy slow cooker

Typically I throw in some canned beans in a dish like this, but I wasn't feeling like having the beans in the dish this time, so I heated up a can of chili beans and served them on the side. 

I had some brown rice in the freezer, so we ate the stew on top of the rice.  The shredded cheese was in the basement chest freezer and I was too lazy to go get it, so I used some nutritional yeast as a cheesy-flavored substitute.  Nutritional yeast is good for you, it has B-vitamins and protein.  I love it on popcorn.

Verdict

The mole sauce was just the right touch, it added a dark depth of flavor that I appreciated.  Of course it would have been perfectly fine without it too, but it was nice to use it up in something rather than throwing it away.

Husband Jeff and I liked it a lot, but we love Mexican food.  Sonny D doesn't really care for Mexican food, so might have eaten a bite of chicken, but he preferred his rice.