Chicken fajitas are a fun way to turn a meal into a mix-and-match adventure. Keep things macro friendly with juicy, well-marinated chicken breasts and a tangy ranch yogurt sauce.

Time: 3/5
Doesn’t take long for each component, but the steps add up

Effort: 4/5
With side dishes comes great complexity

Pick your own adventure

Fajitas are fun to eat. The mixing and matching you get to do with condiments and side dishes spread all over the table is super fun, and the eating experience itself is so much more interactive than a fork-and-knife situation. Something about eating with my fingers makes me feel more connected to my food.

I’m halfway across the world from the States, but that doesn’t stop me from enjoying its cuisine. Especially after my great American adventure, which enabled me to perform culinary experiences like Old Bay and mayo crusted cod. And of course, OG steak fajitas.

But, I’m more of a chicken man myself. A well-marinated and  juicy chicken breast wrapped in a piece of warm flatbread hits all sorts of spots. And I’m glad I made extra – this big batch of breasts went on to become excellent toppings for rice bowls and salads.

Thankfully, the fajita recipe template is flexible enough to accommodate lots of changes and substitutions. Beef, chicken, fish, tempeh, tofu, it’s all good. Just get the spice mix roughly in the right ballpark, and cook it with love – that’s the secret ingredient that gives home cooks the edge over a commercial kitchen.

(Posts since the last recipe that was actually served with rice: 1)

Dramatis Personae

Served 2.

Chicken breast – 2 pieces, about 350g

Butterflied for greater surface area to hold on to seasoning, and for juicier results. Essentially, a thinner piece of meat cooks in the middle before the outer edges get too dry. Ethan Chlebowski did a great deep dive for those interested in further reading.

Spice mix

Basically two teaspoons of whatever looked good on the pantry shelf. Black pepper, garlic powder, paprika, mixed dried herbs. Plus a tiny dash of Kashmiri chili powder for a bit of spice, because I have that lying around from back when I made Chicken Tikka Masala and never touched it since.

Taking a page from the mayo crusted cod, I used a teaspoon or so of mayonnaise to stick the spice mix onto the chicken. Breast meat is lean enough that it would benefit from a bit of fat, and the proteins and sugars in the mayo helps with browning.

Fajita vegetables

One each of red, yellow and green peppers plus an onion. I only ended up using about a quarter of this, but I wanted all the pretty colours and the leftovers went on to become something wonderful. For a smaller serving, maybe go with just one bell pepper and two shallots for something more reasonable.

Guacamole

Ripe avocado, lime juice and salt. Mash together, adjust proportions until it tastes right. Keeping it super simple, so the chicken can shine. In retrospect, I regret using all 4 avocados instead of just the one that the recipe really needed. But hey, nobody complains about having extra guac hanging around in the fridge.

Tomato salsa

I use cherry tomatoes almost exclusively because I just can’t get proper, ripe tomatoes where I live. Cherry tomatoes are more consistently sweet and flavourful than the wet cardboard situation I often have with full-sized tomatoes.

After halving the cherry tomatoes I mixed in a diced shallot, some salt, and black pepper. Keeping it simple like the guacamole, for the same reason.

Ranch yogurt sauce 

Plain yogurt is a decent substitute for sour cream, while being much lower in calories. I took two tablespoons of plain Greek yogurt, and whisked it together with a teaspoon or two each of lime juice and powdered ranch (which, incidentally, is a great marinade for chicken in its own right).

This turned out surprisingly good! The acidity and richness complemented the chicken very well, and I kept adding extra sauce to my fajitas. A great low effort, high reward upgrade to the whole experience.

Flatbread

How wonderful it is to live in a globalised world where I can go to a Nepali grocer one block away and buy Indian-style Roti that were made in Australia, when I have nothing to do with any of those places.

I’ve tried making tortillas/roti myself for a recipe like this, but decided it was too much hassle. I’m gladly sacrificing quality for convenience, although it does leave me with a slight problem of what to do with the leftover pieces. Which isn’t much of an issue if you go on to make some more fajitas with steak instead of chicken, or meal prep some breakfast burritos.

Executive summary

1. Butterfly chicken breasts. Add a dash of mayo and spice mix, and rub the chicken to coat. 
2. Cut and de-seed avocados. Scoop out the flesh and mash with lime juice and salt. 
3. Wash and cut tomatoes. Mix with diced shallot, lime juice, salt and pepper.
4. Mix together ingredients for ranch yogurt sauce. 
5. Refrigerate the above ingredients overnight.
6. On the day of cooking, sear chicken breasts in a pan with a bit of oil and reserve.
7. Wash and cut up fajita vegetables. Stir fry vegetables in the same pan until desired doneness, salting lightly.
8. Warm up the flatbread in a low oven for several minutes. Leave it in the switched-off oven until ready to serve.
9. Once vegetables are done, cut chicken into small pieces. Set the table, assemble and serve.

Play by Play

Last things first. Cut the breast in half along the thickest part, open like a book and squash it flat with your palm.

Mayo, spice, mix and refrigerate.

These avocados were nice and ripe, so it was pretty easy to extract the flesh and mash. Make sure to salt it well. Just like potatoes, avocados need salt.

If your knife is nice and sharp, you should be able to line up the cherry tomatoes and halve several in one go. I actually find this much easier than the deli container lid hack, since you don’t have to slice sideways. Keep your fingers out of the way, let the knife go partway into the first tomato in the queue and let that guide your slice.

Three ingredient ranch yogurt sauce – just mix together, and adjust proportions until delicious.

Cook day! Everything is ready to go.

I get the roti into an oven preheated on low, switch the oven off and just leave it in there until I’m done cooking. This reheats the flatbread nice and gently and keeps them warm.

Time to cook the chicken. Watch the line of doneness creep up, and flip when it reaches about 60% of the way, as shown in the picture. Keep in mind the edges cook faster than the center.

Wunderbar! What a great sear – courtesy of the mayonnaise. I reserved my chicken to rest on the cutting board.

While the chicken rests, let’s use this same pan to cook the fajita vegetables since it’s dirty anyway and already nice and preheated. I won’t get a lot of char in this nonstick skillet, but a bit is better than none. This is way more vegetable than I need, but that isn’t a problem.

The chicken finished resting while the vegetables were cooking, so the next step is to cut the breasts up.

Assemble and serve! The chicken has no business smelling that good. Time to load up on all the goodies and make ourselves a wrap!

Moment of truth – will I be able to roll it up, or will I succumb to the eternal curse of overstuffing?

The curse strikes again. No way I could roll it up, but a triangle sort of works. Whatever works – I’m here for the food, not for the geometry.

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