BBQ Chicken Quesadilla Recipe

Some magic happens when you take a simple tortilla, stuff it with melty cheese and any other ingredients you like, and cook it on a griddle till it's crispy. A quesadilla is a quick, flavorful, satisfying, and versatile meal that is much more than the sum of its parts. As developer Kate Shungu says of the dish, "If I have a little bit of leftover meat in my fridge, the chances are high that it's going into a quesadilla. Quesadillas are an easy way to feed more people with just a little meat or to use up bits and bobs of leftovers from the week."

This recipe for barbecue chicken quesadillas is well suited for using up that ubiquitous leftover rotisserie chicken we're all likely to have on hand at all times (they might revoke your Costco membership if you don't buy at least two per visit!), but any other kind of leftover chicken will probably do just fine as long as it's not too saucy or spicy. The chicken is combined with 2 kinds of gooey cheese, sliced banana peppers and chopped red onion for a touch of freshness, and, of course, BBQ sauce for that smoky, spicy, zing. As for the quesadillas' flavor, Shungu tells us, "Anyone with a little nostalgia for California Pizza Kitchen will love it."

True to its nature, this quick and easy recipe contains only a few, easy-to-source ingredients. In addition to leftover chicken (rotisserie or otherwise), you'll be using bottled barbecue sauce, flour tortillas, shredded gouda and mozzarella cheeses, pickled banana peppers, and red and green onions.

Heat a griddle or large skillet over medium heat.

In a small bowl, toss the rotisserie chicken with the BBQ sauce.

Place a tortilla on the griddle or in the skillet. Sprinkle ¼ of the gouda over half of the tortilla (we are going to be folding it in half, so make sure all the toppings stay on one half of the tortilla).

Place ¼ of the BBQ chicken on top of the gouda.

Top the chicken and gouda with ¼ of the chopped banana peppers, ¼ of the red onion, and ¼ of the scallions.

Top with ¼ of the mozzarella.

Fold the tortilla in half to create a half-moon shape.

Flip and continue cooking until browned on both sides and the cheese is melted, about 2–3 minutes.

Repeat with the remaining tortillas and ingredients.

Serve with additional BBQ sauce, if desired.

While this recipe calls for gouda and mozzarella, it can be easily adapted to using just about any other cheese of your choice. The best results, of course, will come from something that melts easily, a list that includes cheddar, Swiss, Jack or pepper Jack, provolone, and, of course, good old American cheese. (There's also Provel, but you may need to be in or from St. Louis in order to have either the desire or the access to this polarizing cheese product.) You can also opt for a mixture of different cheeses to maximize the flavor potential.

If you do pick a less-melty cheese such as feta or Parmesan, there's a workaround for this: Simply mix the dryer cheese with a moister, meltier, more neutral-flavored one (mozzarella or cheddar would be perfect for this). The only instance in which this might not work out so well is if you need a dairy-free option, since vegan cheeses, unfortunately, don't melt as well as dairy-based ones do. Still, a little lumpy cheese is a small price to pay for being able to enjoy these tasty quesadillas even if you can't consume milk products.

Quesadillas are so easy to make they're practically fool-proof, as long as you're paying enough attention to what you're doing that you don't burn them to a crisp. Even so, there are still a few tips and tricks that can make them even better. One pitfall to avoid is a quesadilla that falls apart or leaks most of its fillings. A hack to ensure that this doesn't happen, which you will see incorporated in this recipe, involves putting the shredded cheese underneath the filling and then sprinkling more on top. That way, the chicken is not only encased in a warm flour tortilla, but also sandwiched in a melty yet slightly crispy layer of cheese that holds the other ingredients inside the quesadilla.

While some quesadillas are made with a tortilla on the bottom and another on the top, those can be prone to come apart as you eat them, particularly if the top layer starts to slide. Here we're getting around that hassle by using a single tortilla per quesadilla and folding it into a half-moon shape — another trick to hold all the delicious fillings inside. As a bonus, if you fold up the sides and top to fully enclose the filling, this will allow you to turn it into a super-quick toaster quesadilla, a trick that could also come in handy for reheating leftovers.