I am not a good meal prepper. In fact, I would say that I absolutely stink at it. Praise to those of y’all who can diligently sit at a table and plan your meals and shopping lists, because that is not me! That being said, I’m trying. I’ve been taking my lunch the past few weeks, but there are only so many sandwiches and salads you can bring before it all becomes very, very boring. When I cook during the week, usually Rugjen will take the leftovers, so I am not left with many choices. I just have to plan better.
Today (Sunday), I pre-cooked some plain meatballs for Monday night’s dinner and my lunch for Tuesday. This is also a test. Rugjen has been getting the mad vurps (vomit burps) when I make meatballs. The only thing I can think of is the excessive amount of onions I put to make it taste good. So, this batch, I completely cut out the onion. They are completely bland, but if that gives me lunch options, so be it.
In my last post, I talked about the buffalo chicken grilled cheeses we saw on Sam the Cooking Guy’s channel. This is actually a Disney recipe they released, but we wouldn’t have heard of it without Sam’s channel. I had lofty plans on making it a hot dip with baguette slices, but guess what? We forgot the baguette when we went grocery shopping on Sunday. So, I’m calling another audible. Instead, we had the hot dip with garlic naan that we had leftover.
We did end up cutting the recipe in half since it was just the two of us.
Ingredients:
- 1 cup shredded chicken;
- 1/2 cup whipped cream cheese;
- 1/4 cup Monterey jack;
- 1/4 cup cheddar (Or you can be like us and use a 1/2 cup of whatever blend you already have);
- 3 slices of non-smoked provolone;
- 1/4 cup of buffalo sauce.
Method: I threw everything EXCEPT the provolone into a bowl and beat it with a hand mixer. It isn’t quite what the original recipe describes, but it has the same result. I wanted the hand mixer to shred the chicken a bit more. I put the mix into a baking dish and then topped with the slices of provolone.
Then, I baked at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for roughly 10-15 minutes. I wanted it bubbly and the cheese melted. You might be wondering why I didn’t follow the recipe as written. Well, we just thought it sounded better as a dip. We had chicken leftover that was cold. I didn’t want to rely on the grilled cheese method to warm the chicken up. I didn’t want my experience tarnished by hot, melty cheese and cold AF chicken. If you cook the chicken fresh and it’s hot, the sandwich method may be a better choice, but it wasn’t a good choice for us. This is why I decided to bake it so that everything had a chance to melt and heat through.
It wasn’t half bad. It was very cheesy and had a nice kick from the sauce that I used. We both agreed that we didn’t think we would like it in a sandwich format. It was way too messy and fluid. If you watch Sam’s video as he makes his version of the recipe (CLICK HERE TO WATCH THAT VIDEO), you’ll understand what I’m talking about. Even with the toasted naan, we ended up eating it with forks due to the potential hazard of it falling in my lap as I took a bite.
What we both decided is that it could benefit from something crispy. I don’t think grilling the sandwich is going to cut it. We both opine that it needs sturdy toasted baguette slices, or something similar like pita chips. The contrast of the gooey and that hard crunch would make it much more satisfying. I also tossed the idea of some ranch dip to add something to break down the cheesy buffalo flavor. It can get to be too much in large quantities. That is why I don’t think a sandwich format is the best. You can only have so much richness before it isn’t pleasant anymore.
Anyhow, we recommend it as a dip and not as a grilled sandwich. If you want to see the original recipe, you can find it HERE.
Filthy Casual for Life 