Who doesn’t love nachos? Haven’t met these people yet.

My Easy Sheet Pan Chicken Nachos are the perfect go-to weeknight dinner meal, a fun weekend lunch and one of the best feed-a-crowd game day dishes! Made with a combination of budget-friendly canned vegetables, store bought rotisserie chicken, and fresh ingredients, my sheet pan nachos can easily go from a meat-lover’s meal to a vegetarian meal with just a few simple substitutions. I love this meal especially because I only use one pot to prepare the chicken and one pan to cook it on AND serve it on. Place the pan on the table, grab a spatula, and BOOM, dinner is served!💥👍🏼

Sure, there are TONS of sheet pan nachos recipes out there, which only goes to show how versatile this kind of dish is—like chicken soup or tacos. In writing up this recipe though, I wanted to focus on how budget friendly, nutrient dense and delicious canned vegetables are. They often get a bad reputation and seen as subpar when compared with fresh. On the contrary! Canning vegetables is a simple way to lock-in the flavor and nutrition of seasonal produce. Right now, we are in the middle of tomato season, which means there is an abundance of tomatoes being harvested right now, so how do you enjoy all of that flavor and nutrition of this fresh produce all year long? Can them! They’re taken from the farm to the cannery in a matter of hours (I’ve witnessed this myself!). Unless you grow your own tomatoes, you can’t get much fresher than this. So the term “fresh, canned” isn’t an oxymoron, it’s accurate!

Here are a few canned tomato facts I’ve learned from my friends over at Tomato Wellness:

🍅 All tomatoes contain the phytochemical (fancy word for natural plant chemicals that provide health benefits like cancer protection) lycopene, but the bioavailability of it in heated and cooked tomatoes is higher and can help protect everyone from heart disease, macular degeneration, and help protect men from prostate cancer.

🥫 Canned tomatoes are picked, driven to a nearby cannery, and canned within five hours of harvest compared with fresh tomatoes found in most grocery stores that take about 24 days to go from field to supermarket.

🍅 Shelf life of canned tomatoes and most other canned vegetables: 3 years. Shelf life of fresh tomatoes: not 3 years, sometimes not even 3 days.

Don’t get me wrong, fresh tomatoes are amazing, but don’t knock canned tomatoes. Diced, pureed, whole, fire roasted, stewed, tomato sauce…..you can’t go wrong! Enjoy them in my Easy Sheet Pan Chicken Nachos as well as these recipes on my blog:
*Just Good Salsa
*Mexican Bean Salad
*Tuna Pesto Pasta Salad
*Black Bean "Mud" Soup
*Slow Cooked Chicken Tacos
*Black Bean and Corn Bowl with Lime and Cotija

Easy Sheet Pan Chicken Nachos

Serves: 6-8
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Ingredients

To prepare chicken:

  • 1/2 cup diced onion

  • 1, 4oz can diced green chile

  • 1 finely diced garlic clove

  • 1 , 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes, drained and divided

  • 1 pound chicken meat from a store bought rotisserie chicken

  • 2-3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

  • 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro

  • 1/2 teaspoon dried Mexican oregano

  • 1/4 teaspoon chile powder

  • 1/4 teaspoon seasoned salt

To prepare nachos:

  • 1, 11 oz bag of restaurant style tortilla chips

  • 2 cups Mexican style blended cheese, shredded

  • 1, 15.25 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed

  • 1, 2.25 can sliced black olives, drained

  • 1 medium avocado, diced

  • 2 tablespoons cilantro, chopped

  • Sour cream, optional for serving

  • Jalapeño chile, sliced and optional for serving

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a standard sized sheet pan with foil. Set aside.

  2. To prepare chicken: Add onion and canned green chile to a medium pot and heat until onion is fragrant and translucent. Next, add garlic half of the canned tomatoes and heat for about one minute, then add in chicken. Mix all ingredients together, mashing chicken with a wooden spoon while mixing to “shred” meat.

  3. Add lime juice, cilantro, and seasonings to chicken and combine until all ingredients are incorporated. Turn off flame and set aside.

  4. To prepare nachos: Add a single layer of tortilla chips on the prepared sheet pan. Top with half of seasoned chicken, half the can of black beans, half the can of olives, and 1 cup of shredded cheese. Layer the rest of the chips over this and repeat the order, then top with the remainder of the canned tomatoes.

  5. Place sheet pan in oven and bake until cheese melts, between 5-8 minutes. Before serving, add diced avocado, cilantro, and sour cream and sliced jalapeño, if desired.

Buen provecho! Enjoy!

Field tomatoes

I had the privilege of going on a live food tour in 2017 with Pacific Coast Producers and Tomato Wellness where I saw fresh produce physically go from farm-to-can in a matter of a few hours! We followed the food the entire time and it was, indeed, a fascinating experience that I love to share with my patients and clients. The food is fresh, safe and perfectly preserved and ready to be eaten when you’re ready for it. Farm fresh with a much more forgivable shelf life! 🍅🥫

From farm to can in a matter of hours! No lie.

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