Wild West Sizzlin' Chicken Tacos

last night for dinner, i made the recipe that is on my betty crocker calender for the month of may, at my husband's request. here's what they looked like fresh out of the oven...

here's the recipe: (Click here for a printable version.)

2 cups cooked chicken strips

1/2 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

4 Old El Paso Stand 'N Stuff taco shells

1 medium red bell pepper, cut into thin strips

1 cup BBQ baked beans

1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese

4 slices bacon, crisply cooked, crumbled

heat oven to 400*. In a small bowl, toss chicken strips with cumin and paprika to coat. In 8-inch square glass baking dish, stand taco shells side by side. Fill each shell evenly with seasoned chicken. Divide pepper strips evenly over chicken. Top each with 1/4 cup baked beans and 1/4 cup of cheese. Sprinkle with bacon. Bake 8 minutes or until thoroughly heated and cheese is melted. If desired, garnish with grape tomatoes.

**a few things to note**

chicken...is easily interchangeable...some other options include: frozen chicken strips already cooked, pulled chicken from a rotisserie from your local grocery store deli, cook a chicken yourself and pull the meat, purchase bone-in chicken breasts ON SALE AT BI-LO through Tuesday for $0.89/lb (reg $2.59/lb) and pull the meat after cooking, etc, etc. there are lots of options for chicken. mine was the Bi-Lo deal, I bought a bunch friday and put it in the freezer. I put 4 frozen pieces in the crockpot yesterday morning with seasoning, turned it on high, left the house for several hours and came home to yummy smells and chicken that was ready to be pulled and used in my recipe for dinner and then again for lunch today.

i used green peppers instead of red.

next time i think i'll add some BBQ sauce in with the chicken and seasonings.

it's probably worth it to buy the bigger taco shells...i just bought the regular ones and it was hard to get everything in them.

i used 4-cheese mexican blend cheese.

okay -- that's all the modifications. overall, we thought they were quite tasty -- a nice change! next time i'll probably try adding some BBQ sauce to the chicken and maybe using taco seasoning instead of the paprika and cumin.

here's the picture from bc's website which look a WHOLE lot yummier than mine...

and the recipe can be found HERE also...