King Ranch Chicken

This is a recipe from an old church recipe book I have. I was too obsessed with sweets as a child to really get into this kind of cooking, but I'm so glad I got that book! This is a great recipe, that I tend to have most ingredients for at any given time. You can always boil chicken in larger quantities, shred, and freeze in meal size servings for ease in the kitchen on other nights.
















This recipe can also be assembled and frozen before or after baking!

King Ranch Chicken
1 chicken or 2-3 chicken breasts
1 bay leaf
1C chopped onion
1C chopped green pepper
1 stick butter (1/2C)
2 cans cream of mushroom
2 cans cream of chicken
1 can diced tomato's
1 small can diced green chilli's
12 corn tortillas, torn into pieces
1 1/2 C shredded cheddar

Boil chicken with salt, pepper and bay leaf. After cooking, bone the chicken and cut into bite sized pieces (return the bones to the pot to continue making homemade broth!).

In a large saucepan, saute onions and green peppers in butter until tender. Stir in soups, tomato's and chilli's.

In a 9x13 pan, arrange alternate layers of tortillas, chicken, soup mixture, and cheese, using 1/3 of all ingredients. Repeat layers 2 more times.

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes until hot and bubbly and cheese just starts to brown.

May be frozen before or after baking.

To continue making homemade broth, just boil the bones for several hours, then strain through cheesecloth or colander. Cool, and freeze in 1 Cup portions in freezer safe baggies.