Chicken Tamale Pie Is Deliciously Spicy and Sweet

by Kristi Reed (Editor)

I kid you not. I could eat this for breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is yet another recipe I discovered while spending hours in a hopeless effort to sort all the beautiful photos on the Internet onto my Pinterest boards.

The first time I made this, I thought it was going to be a complete and total bust. About halfway through the recipe, it had all the makings of a disaster -- the tamale base looked like mush, the chicken looked too spicy (a fortunately happy accident that resulted from misreading the directions) -- but it all came together in the end.

I did make a few minor tweaks to the original recipe (which can be found on my recipe board), but I'd say this one was pretty much good to go.

Ingredients:

1/3 cup milk

1 egg

1 package taco seasoning mix

1/4 tsp. ground pepper

1 14 3/4-ounce can of cream-style corn

1 box Jiffy corn muffin mix

1 4-ounce can of green chiles, drained

1 10-ounce can of enchilada sauce

2 cups cooked and shredded or diced chicken

3/4 cup cheese (I used cheddar)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Combine milk, eggs, 1 1/2 tablespoons of the taco seasoning mix, pepper, cream corn, Jiffy corn muffin mix and green chiles.

Pour corn muffin mixture into an 8x10 casserole dish coated with cooking spray.

Bake at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Corn mixture should still look somewhat soft at the end of baking time.

While the corn mixture is cooking, toss the cooked chicken with the remaining taco seasoning mix (if you do not like things to be too spicy, you can cut this way back -- the original recipe only calls for using 1 1/2 tablespoons total, but I like it with the whole packet). Add the enchilada sauce and stir well.

After the corn mixture is somewhat set, pierce it several times with a fork and top with the chicken mixture. Sprinkle the cheese over the chicken and cook for another 15 minutes.

Now, my picture isn't as pretty as the one on Pinterest, but trust me, it tastes awesome! Give it a try and let me know what you think.