Peppers tend to be one of my top foods to work with, and Poblano and Anaheim peppers are no exception. For me, I like carving out the insides of peppers and stuffing them with whatever assortment of ingredients I come up with. And, the even better part is that the ‘bowl’ (the pepper, in this case) is edible!
For this recipe, I wanted to work with chicken and a summery flavor, so I chose barbecue.
Oven Baked Pulled BBQ Chicken and Cheese Poblano Pepper Recipe
Equipment
- Cutting board
- Knife
- Silicone steamer (Check out this one)
- Large Mixing Bowl
- A metal tray
- A bread loaf tray
Ingredients
- 20 Medium-sized Poblano & Anaheim peppers
- 2 lb Chicken thin sliced breasts
- 2 Cup Shredded yellow cheddar cheese
- 1 10 oz Mozzarella ball
- 10 oz Baby bella mushrooms (small portabello mushrooms)
- 1 Cup BBQ sauce
- Pinch of salt and pepper
Instructions
- Start by preheating your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Cut off the tops of the peppers and scrape out the cores and as many of the seeds as you can get at. Lay the emptied peppers onto the aluminum sheet onto your baking metal tray.
- Place the tray with the peppers in the oven once it reached the desired temperature. Leave in the oven for approximately 30 minutes.
- While the peppers are baking for a while, time to start putting together the filling! We’ll start with the chicken. This is actually more simple than it sounds. Clean the chicken breasts by removing any excess fat and slime, and place them one by one in your steamer. Don’t overfill your steamer as this will cause the chicken to cook unevenly. Once your steamer is filled and the chicken breast slices are evenly spaced out, add the lid and pop in the microwave for 1 to 1 and a half minutes. It is OK if the chicken breasts are slightly under-cooked and you still see some slight pinkish areas. The chicken will fully cook later when in the oven. For now, we want it moist enough to break apart.
- The easiest way for me to pull the chicken is to cut each breast slice in thirds. Then with a knife and fork (or two forks), hold down the piece and begin pulling the chicken apart. This may take some getting used to but you should see that the chicken meat breaks apart a certain way. When you see this you’ll want to break the chicken parallel to how the pieces naturally tear.
- Once all the chicken is steamed an pulled, place in mixing bowl.
- Next, chop up the mushrooms into small cubes. Do the same with the mozzarella. Place these chopped ingredients in the mixing bowl with the pulled chicken.
- Finally add the cups of Cheddar cheese along with the BBQ sauce. Mix well.
- After 30 minutes, take out the peppers from the oven. They should look a bit wrinkly and dried out on the ends. Let cool for a bit. You can even stick them in the fridge to cool faster.
- Once the peppers have been cooled. Add Aluminum foil inside your bread loaf tray. Once by one, start stuffing the peppers and placing them upright inside the bread loaf tray. Doing this will allow the peppers to drain and keep the mixed ingredients intact and prevent spilling.
- Once each pepper is filled to the brim, put those bad boys back in the oven and bake for another 25 minutes.
I know the wait can be agonizing (haha) especially if you’re hungry, but trust me on this. These are definitely worth the wait!
Side note, if you have a bunch of the filling left over, this would make a great filling for a wrap or add some between two slices of bead and you’ve got yourself a nice lunch for the next day
Enjoy!
