When I was growing up, leftovers were my mom’s golden ticket. It didn’t matter what it was, leftover chicken, beans, casserole, seafood, etc. I knew it was just a matter of days before it became one of two things, enchiladas or soup. She could take anything, add a few spices, roll it in a tortilla top it off with enchilada sauce and voila it’s a new recipe. Take those same leftovers, add a potato or rice, pour in chicken broth and you have a “new-ish” soup. I’m not complaining, it turned out delicious 99.99% of the time. As I got older and was on my own I realized I couldn’t just turn everything into an enchilada because well, to be honest, I was getting fat. My mom was not btw, I’m convinced because of her constant cleaning, moving furniture and walking up and down 2 flights of stairs. After many years of trial and error, changing my eating habits and developing a real love of food and cooking I’ve become very spoiled when it comes to cooking. Years of cooking shows have trained me to want every texture and temperature in my dishes. Warm, sauce smothered enchiladas just wasn’t going to do it for me anymore.
So this week when I had leftover baked sweet potatoes and chicken from meal prepping, I was excited to see what Top Chef recipe I create from what I had in the pantry and my leftovers. I needed this to be a healthy, filling dish that would keep up my energy for the day but leave me feeling more satisfied than my previous day’s sad meal prepped lunch of a baked chicken breast, veggie, and starch. It came out delicious! If you’re meal prepping, you should make this recipe as your mid-week replacement for the everyday mundane lunch you prepped ten of for the whole week. It offers protein, flavor, healthy fats and vitamins but with loads of flavor!
So skip the boring lunch or your go-to dinner and make your own delectable loaded sweet potato with cilantro lime sauce. Yum!
Ingredients
- 1 sweet potato
- 1/4 cup shredded chicken
- 1/2 avocado
- 2 small hot red peppers
- 1 large handful kale
- 1 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- SAUCE
- 1/2 cup cilantro
- 1/4 cup sour cream
- 2 tbsp olive oil plus extra for sauteing
Instructions
- Place all sauce ingredients in a food processor and blend until well combined. Place in the fridge until ready to use.
- If your sweet potato is already baked, wrap it in tin foil and heat in the oven at 325 degrees F just until warmed through. If your sweet potato is raw, place on a baking sheet in the oven at 400 degrees F and bake 60 minutes or until tender.
- When sweet potato is almost done baking, heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat add kale and saute for a few minutes on one side, toss and saute for another couple minutes until you see some browned crispy sides then remove from heat. Cooking the kale this way keeps it bright green with some crunch. (Nobody likes brownish soggy kale.)
- Stuff sweet potato with kale and shredded chicken, top with cilantro, avocado slices, and cilantro lime sauce. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds, serve and enjoy!
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