Cheat's Chicken Birria Tacos

You will be making this on repeat! Easy veggie sauce, succulent chicken (you can use leftover chicken if you have it) packed into tortilla wraps with creamy feta. Chipotle paste adds just the right level of heat and smokiness, but feel free to play around with your flavours and adjust to how you like it. Please note you will need a blender or food processor to make this recipe.

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Ingredients

chicken thighs 500 g (quartered)
tomatoes 3 (halved)
red onion 1 (quartered)
bell pepper 1 (quartered)
garlic cloves 4 (peeled)
dried oregano ½ tsp
ground cumin 2 tsp
ground cinnamon ¼ tsp
paprika 1 tsp
chipotle paste 1 ½ tbsp
tomato purée 1 tbsp
onion ½ (sliced)
plain tortilla wraps 4
fresh coriander 1 (chopped)
feta 200 g (crumbled)
lime 1 (quartered)

Method

Cook the chicken and vegetables

Preheat the oven to 220°C/200°C fan. Quarter the chicken thighs. Place the chicken onto a baking tray, drizzle with oil and place in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes or until cooked through. Leave to cool slightly then shred with two forks. If you prefer you can use leftover cooked chicken instead, just shred it up into small pieces.
Halve the tomatoes, peel and quarter the red onion, quarter and deseed the pepper. Peel the garlic. Place the tomatoes, red onion, pepper, and garlic onto another baking tray, drizzle with some oil and season with salt. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes.

Make the sauce

Add the roasted vegetables to a blender or food processor with the oregano, cumin, cinnamon, paprika, chipotle paste and tomato purée and blend. You may need to add a splash of water so that the sauce is slightly loose and pourable.
Add the sauce to a small pan and heat. Pour half of the sauce into a bowl, which you will use to dip the tacos in when serving (this is your dipping sauce). Keep back some of this sauce to use to brush the tortillas, then add the shredded chicken to the remaining sauce in the pan and heat through gently.

Assemble the tacos

Finely chop the onion and coriander. Quarter the lime.
Preheat a dash of oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat.
You will need to work in batches. Brush one side of each tortilla wrap with the reserved sauce and place the tortilla into the frying pan. Top with some of the chicken and sauce mix, crumble some feta on top with a sprinkle of coriander.
Fold the tortilla in half and fry for 2 minutes on each side until heated through. Repeat until all the sauce has been used.

Plate up

Serve the tortillas with the dipping sauce, chopped onion and lime wedges.

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