Chicken Nachos recipe

Chicken Nachos is everything you know and love about nachos, made with juicy shredded Mexican CHICKEN! With mandatory melted cheese, quick guac and a dollop of sour cream, this nachos recipe is weekend worthy yet easy enough for dinner midweek.

You’ll love how juicy and flavour loaded the chicken is!

 Chicken Nachos

I have it in my head that when most people think of nachos, they automatically think of a ground beef/ mince topping, like this Beef Nachos.

I have absolutely nothing to back me up on that statement, it’s just my personal opinion. 😇

So the entire premise on which I’m sharing this CHICKEN nachos recipe is that it’s something a little bit different to the usual. A nachos so outrageously delicious, a certain food blogger was inhaling pictured nachos like she was never going to eat again.

Lift / munch / eat / repeat. Now that’s an arm workout I’m happy to do many reps of!

Chicken Nachos ingredients

So here’s what goes in my Chicken Nachos. I make it with just essential toppings because the chicken itself is loaded with great flavour.

1. Juicy shredded Mexican Chicken – the exact same recipe I use for Chicken Tacos, except I reduce the sauce down a bit more (thicker sauce = crisper chips)

2. Quick Guac – it’s a dump and mash job. Potato masher, to be exact. Avocado, coriander/cilantro, lime, salt and pepper, mash as you would potato. Very effective!

3. Cheese – a nachos without cheese doesn’t exist in my world 😇

4. Jalapeno, coriander/cilantro and sour cream – basic toppings. A touch of freshness goes a long way with nachos!

Best cheese for nachos?

My favourite cheese for Nachos is Monterey Jack because it has flavour with a bit of stretch like Mozzarella, and it melts well without going greasy but doesn’t get that crusty brown top like Mozz (which is not a good thing for nachos, can end up pulling entire layer of cheese off).

Cheddar, tasty cheese, Colby and shredded Mexican Cheese blends are also firm faves, but any melting cheese will do here.

🇦🇺Australia – I get Monterey Jack and shredded Mexican Cheese blends at Costco. Excellent value – and the shredded cheese freezes 100%.

Chicken for Nachos

And here are the ingredients that go in the chicken for Nachos which, as mentioned above, is the exact same recipe I use for Chicken Tacos. (PS For the chicken, thigh, breast or tenderloin all work great here)

How I make nachos in the oven

This recipe is a nachos that’s baked in the oven, but I’m also going to tell you how to make it in the microwave. Because while one might turn their nose up at the thought of microwave nachos, it’s a damn convenient option to have for various circumstances one might encounter in life (including emergency munchies, and also the millions / billions of people in the world who don’t have ovens eg. much of Asia).

To bake it in the oven, it’s as simple as a double layer situation: chips -> chicken -> cheese -> repeat -> bake 5 minutes.

Guess what? Nachos chips DO NOT GO SOGGY if you microwave them! Cheese melts darn fast in the microwave. 🙂 Way faster than it takes for corn chips to become soggy!

How to make nachos in the microwave

To make nachos in the microwave:

• make dinner plate size single layer batches

• spread one layer of chips on a plate

• top with chicken then cheese

• microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute, until the cheese to become bubbly

And here’s proof that the chips don’t go soggy – all the cheese pull shots were done with a quick microwave to remelt the cheese. And it took many MANY takes!!😂

A big, fat, juicy, cheesy nachos recipe

I am a firm believer that a Nachos should be able to stand on its own two feet even without extra toppings like guacamole and sour cream.

So I promise you this – the chicken topping for this nachos recipe has flavour aplenty, plus it’s nice and juicy so you’d happily devour this nachos even if you find yourself short on toppings.

As long as you have cheese.

I take no responsibility for devourability if you attempt this without cheese! ~ Nagi x

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More weekend worthy munchies

• Cheese and Garlic Crack Bread – if you haven’t tried it, you haven’t lived…

• Homemade Movie Popcorn – ultra buttery, and stays crisp for DAYS!

• Spring Rolls! PS They can even be baked! 

• Truly Crispy Baked Buffalo Wings

• Crispy Roasted Parmesan Potatoes – seriously so good to munch on as a snack!

• Browse for more Weekend Munchies

For complete transparency – the nachos you see in the video is about 2/3 of the recipe below which serves 4. I wanted it to fit on a cake pan so it looked decent for photos, rather than having a pile in the middle of a baking tray.

But of course, as it always happens when I try to be efficient and do the photos and video using the same batch, the nachos was completely butchered after shooting the video so I had to make it again for photos!

Watch how to make it

Life of Dozer

I went to the bathroom and came back to find him in THIS position….

Note the fluffy white blanket at the bottom. That covers HIS designated section of the sofa. So not only has he left drool on my MacBook, he’s breached his sofa boundary.

Naughty Dozer!