Ancho Chicken Tacos With Some Awesome On Top

Last week a friend of mine sent me a recipe, and it just so happened to pop up a couple of days later in my newest Cooking Light magazine. As the stars aligned and Julie Andrews sang in my heart, I knew it was meant to be. I had to make ancho chicken tacos. STAT.

But, um, I don’t have any ancho chili powder. Actually, what IS ancho chili powder? I have some dried ancho chili peppers in my pantry, does that count?

So after googling “how the heck do you make ancho chili powder” it was Tyler Florence who shed some light for me. Oh that Tyler! I loosely followed his recipe for this dish tonight and the results deemed nothing less than OMG.

Ancho Chicken Tacos with Avocado Cream and Cilantro Slaw:

(from Cooking Light and Brenna’s suggestion!)

* 2 chicken breasts, sliced into 1/4-inch strips

* 1 Tbs. ancho chili powder (recipe below)

* good sprinkle of garlic salt

* good sprinkle of cumin

* cooking spray

* 1/8 tsp grated lime zest

* 2 Tbs. fresh lime juice, divided

* 1/4th cup sour cream

* 2 Tbs. low-fat milk

* 1/2 avocado, diced

* 2 cups cabbage, thinly sliced

* 1/2 cup scallions, thinly sliced

* 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

* 1 Tbs canola oil

* peench of salt

* 4 corn tortillas

* For the ancho chili powder: Take 2 dried ancho chilis and seed them. Break them into pieces and toast in a small skillet until fragrant. Pulse in a mini-food processor or spice grinder until it forms a powder. Toss in a good pinch of cumin, cinnamon, sweet paprika, sugar, chili powder and ground coriander. Pulse again until combined. I eyeballed this. *

Prep your chicken by sprinkling the ancho chili powder, cumin and garlic salt over all sides.

Heat a medium skillet over medium heat and coat with cooking spray. Add the chicken to the pan and cook about 4 minutes, stirring frequently. Remove chicken from the pan.

In a food processor, combine lime zest, 1 Tbs. lime juice, sour cream, milk and avocado. Process until smooth.

Combine the other Tbs. lime juice with the cabbage, scallions, cilantro, oil and salt. Toss to coat.

Heat the tortillas to your liking. Divide chicken mixture among the tortillas and top each one with the avocado cream and slaw mixture. Dig. in.