Looking for chicken with ground beef recipes? Well you’re in luck because I’ve got a list of recipes that will keep your mouth watering. And all of them are easy to make, which is another plus in my book! You can have these Chicken Picadillo Recipe on the table by the end of the week!
Chicken With Ground Beef Recipes
This adaptable enchilada skillet recipe, which can be cooked with either beef or chicken, is fantastic!
I adore all Mexican cuisine, but enchiladas are one of my favorites. Making enchiladas takes some time because you have to create the sauce, cook the filling, stuff and roll the tortillas, and bake them for 30 to 40 minutes. This dish gives you all the flavor in just half the time and only uses one skillet, which is a huge plus in my book.
This recipe is easily adaptable to either beef or chicken, and you can use either HOT or MILD canned tomatoes and green chilies depending on your family’s tolerance for heat. Try modifying the recipe by include whole kernel corn, black beans, or jalapenos. For the beef version, I prefer to add a few black beans for my family, but you may make this dish with either meat or without.
I enjoy topping the Easy Enchilada Skillet with more cheese, salsa, and sour cream. Add a serving of Mexican rice or chips and your preferred salsa to round out the meal.
Simple Chicken or Beef Enchilada Skillet
This adaptable enchilada skillet recipe, which can be cooked with either beef or chicken, is fantastic!
INSTRUCTIONS
For the Chicken Version
- Cooking spray a large nonstick skillet, adding the chicken and tortillas, stirring to combine well. Cooking over medium heat for about five minutes, stirring frequently.
For the Beef Version
- Spray a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray, add the ground beef and chopped onion, and cook and stir over medium-high heat until the meat is no longer pink. Drain on a plate lined with paper towels, pour off any grease, and then wipe the skillet clean. Return the beef mixture to the skillet, along with the black beans and torn tortillas, and stir to combine. Cover the skillet and cook over medium heat for about five minutes, stirring frequently.
For Both Versions
- The meat mixture should be well-combined with the tomatoes, enchilada sauce, and tomato sauce. Sprinkle with half the cheese and cover with a tight-fitting lid to cook for five more minutes or until hot. Top with the remaining cheese and sliced green onions and serve right away.
Chicken Picadillo Recipe
Chicken Picadillo is a variation on the traditional Latin American cuisine, which is generally made with ground beef. In a single bite, it’s flavorful, salty, and sweet.
This picadillo recipe is easy to prepare and will quickly become a staple in your supper menu.
Ground chicken is mild tasting and absorbs all of the flavors it cooks with beautifully. So why not make up a double batch of this recipe or our spicy ground chicken and black bean casserole to use throughout the week.
Why this Recipe Works
- It’s versatile! There are so many uses for picadillo (see below for ideas).
- Flavor! It’s packed with so much flavor.
- Chicken picadillo is easy to make ahead of time, perfect for meal-prep.
Here is What You Will Need
This is an overview of the ingredients and steps to make this recipe, scroll down to see ingredient notes and substitutions as well as a printable recipe card with exact measurements and complete cooking instructions.
Ingredients
- olive oil
- ground chicken breast
- bell pepper
- garlic
- onion
- adobo sauce
- raisins
- green olives
- ground cumin
- coriander
- oregano
- cilantro
- diced tomatoes
Equipment
- cast iron skillet or a stainless steel skillet
- vegetable knife
- wooden spoon
Here is How To Make Chicken Picadillo
- Chopping the bell pepper, garlic, onion, olives, cilantro, and tomatoes (if using fresh tomatoes) will prepare the ingredients.
- Step 1: Add the bell peppers, garlic, and onions to the skillet with the oil, and sauté for a few minutes.
- Step 2: Cook the onions and ground chicken breast together until the chicken is fully cooked.
- Add a teaspoon of water or oil to the pan if the chicken begins to stick.
- Include the vinegar, spices, and adobo sauce.
- Step 4: Add the tomatoes and combine the ingredients.
- Step 5: Stir in the raisins and olives; turn down the heat.
- To serve, top the picadillo with freshly cut cilantro.
- This recipe should be completed in between 35 and 45 minutes.
Ingredient Notes & Substitutions
- The flavors from this recipe are all absorbed by the mildly flavoring ground chicken. It is possible to use either ground chicken breast or ground chicken that is a mixture of white and dark flesh.
- Any sort of ground meat, such as turkey, beef, or pork, can be used in place of ground chicken.
- Cayenne peppers. In this dish, bell peppers of any hue will work. My favorite peppers are green or a combination of green and red.
- Adobo sauce, a spicy, acidic Mexican flavor that is available in most supermarkets, is crucial to the recipe’s flavor profile.
- If you can’t locate simple adobo sauce, replace it with an equal amount of the sauce made from chipotle peppers.
- Olives give this dish a salty, saline flavor. Change out the olives for 1/4 cup of capers if you don’t like them.
- 12 teaspoon of garlic powder can be used in place of each clove of fresh garlic.
- 2 teaspoons of dried oregano may be used in place of the fresh variety.
Storing and Using Leftovers
This is one of those recipes that taste even better the next day and you can freeze it, so be sure to make extra.
- For three to four days, keep leftover chicken picadillo in the fridge in an airtight container.
- In a freezer-safe container, freeze chicken picadillo for up to six months, then defrost it overnight in the fridge.
- Reheat it in a skillet or saucepan over the stove.
Variations
- When frying the ground chicken with the Mexican chorizo mixture or one diced jalapeno pepper, make the chicken picadillo really hot.
- Cuban picadillo with potatoes – After the meat has finished browning, add one cup of diced, cooked potatoes.
- Add 1/2 cup frozen corn to the picadillo for a Mexican dish.
Serving Ideas
The serving options for picadillo are endless! We eat it with steamed veggies or a salad and serve it over rice or cauliflower rice.
In a quesadilla, taco, empanada, egg roll skin, or wrapped in pizza dough for a picadillo calzone, chicken picadillo is delicious.
For a hearty chicken picadillo salad, add cheese, avocado chunks, and picadillo to a bed of greens.
Is Ground Beef Healthy?
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Americans still enjoy eating beef, ingesting around 4.5 servings weekly, despite the growing appeal of eating a plant-based diet. And they really enjoy their ground beef, which accounts for more than 46% of all beef consumed in the US at retail.
You’ll probably stock up on your fair share of burger meat now that backyard grilling season is just around the corner, and you might be curious about what you’re getting when you eat all that ground beef.
1. You get nearly half of your daily protein needs.
About 20 grams of protein, or slightly less than half of the Dietary Reference Intake (DRI) of 46 grams for average inactive women and 56 grams for average sedentary men, are provided by a quarter-pound burger cooked using 80/20 ground beef (80% lean / 20% fat).
A macronutrient that serves as a building block for muscle, tissue, and bone growth and repair is protein. The bloodstream transports oxygen throughout your body and aids in the production of hormones. Because it is more satiating than carbohydrates, it might be a crucial macronutrient for maintaining a healthy weight.
But even if getting enough protein is essential for health, do you have to consume a lot of red meat to meet your needs? In no way. In the US, protein deficiencies are uncommon. The vice president of health promotion for Executive Health Exams International and nutritionist Jeff Novick, RD, says that “Nature has made sure we are protected against protein deficit.” Vegetables, lentils, and whole grains are all great sources of high-quality protein.
2. You might develop gout and kidney stones.
Your joints and kidneys could be harmed if you regularly consume ground beef. Your levels of uric acid may increase if you consume animal protein, particularly red meat. Gout and kidney stones can develop as a result of uric acid accumulation in the bloodstream, which can also cause crystals to form in the joints (gout). Both have excruciating pain.
Kidney stones and animal protein have a long history together. Men who consumed an additional 4 ounces of ground beef per day raised their excretion of uric acid by 48% and their risk of kidney stones by 250%, according to a British study published in Clinical Science.
The World Cancer Research Fund advises keeping intake of cooked, unprocessed red meat to three servings (12–18 oz.) per week in order to maintain health. Setting yourself this objective will inspire you to start consuming leaner sources of protein throughout the week.
3. You will consume a lot of calories.
The amount of calories in ground beef is substantial for its size. For instance, 120 grams of ground beef in a normal sit-down restaurant hamburger has 326 calories. You can see how the calories in that meal can pile up to over half a day’s worth if you make it a double-meat cheeseburger with bacon (with bun and condiments).
You may prepare leaner varieties of ground beef at home, such as ground round (14% fat) and ground sirloin (10% fat), for your meaty dishes. However, a burger cooked on the grill would taste different when made using ground chuck that is 20% fat.
4. Your arteries might stiffen up.
A review published in the journal Nutrients suggests that consuming ground beef may have an immediate impact on your cardiovascular system. With or without a high sugar content, a meal heavy in saturated fat causes endothelial dysfunction and low-grade inflammation, according to an analysis of hundreds of research. The flimsy lining of the blood arteries is called endothelium. Endothelial cells are harmed by inflammation, which makes the arteries less flexible and more susceptible to atherosclerosis, which narrows the arteries and reduces blood flow.
Consider switching to ground beef from grass-fed animals if you are worried about the amount of saturated fat in it.
According to dietician Lisa Richards, author of The Candida Diet, “Grass-fed beef typically includes less total fat than grain-fed beef, which means that grass-fed beef also contains less calories, gram for gram.” In comparison to grain-fed beef, grass-fed beef has a higher concentration of good fats including conjugated linoleic acid and omega-3 fatty acids.
Additionally, she claims that eating grass-fed beef can increase your intake of the antioxidant vitamins A and E. Even a modest amount of omega-3 fatty acids will be given to you!
5. It may be harder to focus.
According to a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 2020, eating a lunch high in saturated fat, such as one made of ground beef, a few hours before taking a test or working on a task demanding high concentration may impair your capacity to concentrate. Researchers separated a group of women into two parts at random, one of which consumed a meal high in saturated fats and the other of which was served a healthy lunch with less saturated fat. Both meals had the same number of calories and were made to resemble a fast-food hamburger meal. All of the ladies took attention-based assessments five hours later. The groups changed meals and completed additional tests during the following few weeks. The results showed that all of the ladies performed 11% worse on average after eating the lunch heavy in saturated fat. The test-takers’ response speeds were also more inconsistent, and they had a harder time focusing for the entire 10 minutes of the test.
6. Your bones might suffer.
Red meat consumption should be kept to a minimum for those with osteoporosis because too much animal protein may drain calcium from the bones. According to a 2017 study published in Advances in Nutrition, cutting back on red meat and other Western diet mainstays including soft drinks, refined grains, fried foods, and desserts enhanced bone mineral density, which can lower the risk of fracture.
7. Eating a lot of it is associated with cancer.
The International Agency for Cancer Research of the World Health Organization declared in 2015 that consuming red meat and processed meats like bacon increases the risk of colorectal cancer. Red meat, including beef, lamb, and hog, is a Group 2A carcinogen, which means it probably causes cancer, according to the IACR. Although not everyone views red meat as the enemy of a healthy diet, the majority of medical professionals concur that it is advisable to limit your intake of meat. For instance, the American Institute for Cancer Research advises consuming no more than three servings of red meat per week, totaling no more than 18 ounces.
8. You could be hastening your demise.
Numerous studies have shown a link between eating red meat and a higher risk of developing chronic illnesses and dying from any reason. For instance, one extensive study examined health and lifestyle information from studies on more than 120,000 men and women over the course of more than 20 years. According to research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, eating one serving of red meat per day increased total mortality risk by 12%, while consuming processed red meat increased risk by 20%. It’s important to note that the researchers found that red meat eaters were less likely to engage in physical activity, to consume smaller amounts of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and to have a higher body mass index.
However, a different study in a population recognized for leading a significantly healthier lifestyle and consuming far less meat also connected red meat consumption to all-cause mortality. Data on Seventh-day Adventists, a Christian sect whose adherents typically consume a diet high in whole foods, refrain from alcohol consumption, and limit animal products, were examined in the 2019 study published in Nutrients. Seventh-day Adventists who reported a low-to-moderate intake of red meat (90 percent ingested around a half serving per day) had a slightly greater risk of both all-cause mortality and death from cardiovascular disease compared to individuals who did not consume any red meat.
The number one killer of Americans, heart disease, has been linked to diets high in saturated fat, according to dietitian Jana Mowrer, MPH, RD, founder of HealthWins.org. “Even though there is a lot of debate right now about the role of saturated fat in our diet, I still subscribe to the idea that we should watch how much saturated fat we consume because it comes from highly processed foods and animal sources and displaces other more nutrient-dense foods like fruits and vegetables. For instance, the keto diet worries me because it places a lot of focus on high-fat consumption, which frequently results in a diet with very little fiber.”
Picadillo FAQ’s
Here are the most commonly asked questions about this recipe. If your question isn’t answered below, please leave me a comment, and I will get back to you as soon as I can.
What is picadillo?
Picadillo is a traditional dish in many Latin American countries and the Philippines. It’s warm and comforting, very similar to chili with a sweeter flavor.
Can I make chicken picadillo in a slow cooker?
Yes! You can make this picadillo recipe in a slow cooket. Brown the meat and veggies in a skillet and add them to a slow cooker with the spices, olives, raisins and tomatoes. Set the slow cooker to low and cook for at least 1 ½ hours.