Salsa and Chicken Lime Nachos #32 & #33

This recipe is truly my happy place. For some reason at restaurants, I'd say 90% of the time my favorite part of the meal is the appetizer. I love tailgating/football type food too. Pretty much anything you can eat with your hands while standing can go in these categories- dips, wings, stuffed mushrooms, potato skins, calamari, cheese sticks, etc. My favorite recipe parties have been the appetizer exchange and tailgating recipes.  The salsa recipe is the Pioneer Woman's and the rest is a combination of several nacho recipes I found.  The best thing about this is you can easily adjust it to your taste.

The case:
Ingredients:
* 1 can (28 Ounce) Whole Tomatoes With Juice
* 2 cans (10 Ounce) Rotel
* ¼ cups Chopped Onion
* 1 clove Garlic, Minced
* 1 whole Jalapeno, Quartered And Sliced Thin
* ¼ teaspoons Sugar
* ¼ teaspoons Salt
* ¼ teaspoons Ground Cumin
* ½ cups Cilantro (more To Taste!)
* ½ whole Lime Juice

Instructions:
Combine whole tomatoes, Rotel, onion, jalapeno, garlic, sugar, salt, cumin, lime juice, and cilantro in a blender or food processor. Pulse until you get the salsa to the consistency you’d like—I do about 10 to 15 pulses. Test seasonings with a tortilla chip and adjust as needed.

Refrigerate salsa for at least an hour. Serve with tortilla chips or cheese nachos.

Now you could stop there if you want!  I promise you won't be disappointed.  Warning: This makes A LOT.  I ended up spilling it everywhere when I poured it into a bowl that wasn't big enough.  Next time I will simply half the recipe.  I know, I'm a smart one!

Now for the nachos!

First the chicken.  This recipe came from Recipezaar.

Ingredients
2 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1/2 cup lime juice
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon chili powder

Directions:
1. Cut chicken into small strips.
2. Combine lime juice, pepper, chili powder and olive oil and use it to coat chicken. Marinate chicken for at least half an hour.
3. Cut chicken in a pan on medium heat with juices until cooked throughout.  Shred chicken more if desired.

 

Now build your nachos on an oven-safe plate.  This is the fun part and where your creativity and preferences come out. Here are the three simple ingredients I used as a "base"- chips, refried beans, and cheese.

I individually spread bean dip on each chip.  Not much, on maybe half of the chip.  I put down a layer of those and sprinkled cheese over the entire thing.  Then, I did another layer the same way.

Live and learn- I should've put more cheese!  

Next, put the nachos in the oven @ 375 for 5 minutes, or until cheese is melted.

 

See what I mean about more cheese? You can never have enough cheese!

Then I sprinkled the chicken, spooned salsa, tore cilantro leaves, and dolloped sour cream over the top.

Why doesn't my "dollop" ever look like on the commercials? 

 Michael is going to so mad at me for making these while he is at work!  There is sooo much flavor in every bite! To die for!  I tried the chicken straight out of the pan and thought "Oh No" this is way too limey, but its not on the whole package.  Its perfect!

 

Looks like I should've had a friend over.  

The ruling:

These were phenomenal!  I honestly don't think I would change a thing.  I read in a nacho article online how important it is to have a warm and cool contrast with the nachos, and I agree 100%.  There was not only a temperature contrast here, but a flavor one as well!  I loved these in case you didn't already figure that out!