Cafe Rio Chicken

Apparently there's a chain restaurant in Utah called Café Rio which has a great following.  I had run across a couple of copy-cat recipes in which everyone raved about their food.  I had to try it.

An odd combination of zesty Italian salad dressing and an envelope of Ranch Dressing mix, plus some other seasonings, it was an intriguing recipe to try.

A local market has some split chicken breasts on sale for $.99/lb so I picked up a package and used it to make a batch.  It's a really interesting flavor combo which you could use for tacos, quesadillas, enchiladas, or salads.  This batch gave me four 8-oz servings (I froze three of them for quick meals in the future) and used this batch to make chicken tacos.

It's a great recipe to make and leftovers freeze very well for future quick dinners.

P.S.  I also have a recipe for their salad dressing which is great for a green salad to serve with Tex-Mex meals.  I'll post that soon.

CAFE RIO CHICKEN

2 lbs chicken breasts

1/2 cup zesty Italian salad dressing

1/2 Tbsp minced fresh garlic

1 packet Ranch dressing mix

1/4 cup water

1/2 Tbsp chili powder

1/2 Tbsp ground cumin

Place chicken in a crock pot. 

In a bowl, whisk together the remaining ingredients and pour over the chicken.

Cook on high 4-6 hours on low 6-8 hours. 

Remove the chicken from the crock pot and shred (have you tried using a hand-mixer?  Great trick!!!  Just start on low and check often or it'll turn into chicken mush!)

Remove half of the liquid from the crock pot and put in a bowl.  Add the chicken to the crock pot and combine with the liquid left in the crock pot.  You want the chicken to be nice and moist.  Add more of the liquid if needed.

Serve in tacos, burritos, salads, quesadillas, etc. 

Recipe Source:  RealMomKitchen.com