Stuffed Avocados are a yummy, low carb way to enjoy your favorite Tex-Mex flavors this Cinco de Mayo, though we enjoy them all year round.
Avocados are a perfect vehicle for your favorite taco filling – and if you’ve never baked an avocado, you have really been missing out. Baked avocados turn a bright beautiful green and become tender and easily scoopable. In fact, I enjoy eating these Stuffed avocados by scooping out some of the creamy avocado and taco filling and piling in onto a tortilla chip, like individual nachos – while I enjoy a thin, crispy, white corn tortilla chip or a hearty, stone-ground, yellow corn tortilla chip (really, I probably haven’t met a tortilla chip I haven’t liked), there are lots of great grain free tortilla chip options available in your chip aisle now too! This recipe calls for ground chicken, but you can use an equal amount of ground chicken breast, turkey, beef, or pork for your taste.As a quick cheat, I use a store bought taco seasoning pack so I’m not wasting time rummaging through my spice drawer to measure out 12 different spices on a weeknight. Avocados are a little pricey right now, as are most things in the produce section currently, so you might not want to waste the extra avocado flesh you’ll be removing to create larger cups for the taco filling. You can use the extra avocado flesh for a quick guacamole, but be prepared that it will be much lighter in color than the guac you’re used to, almost yellow, as the greenest part of the flesh is closet to this skin and remains in the avocado cup – I was caught a little off guard the first time.
Stuffed Avocados
Ingredients
2 tablespoons avocado oil
1 medium onion, diced small
1 large poblano pepper, diced small
1-2 jalapeños (depending on your heat preference), seeds and ribs removed, finely diced
1 pound ground chicken, white or dark meat
¼ cup dry white wine
4 oz can mild Hatch green chiles
1/3 cup reduced sodium chicken broth
1 packet taco seasoning (I use Siete mild taco seasoning for a grain free option)
6 oz medium cheddar cheese, shredded and divided
4 large avocados
How to make Stuffed Avocados
Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Heat oil over medium heat in a large skillet. Add onions and sauté for about 5 minutes, until starting to soften. Add poblano and jalapeño, and cook until onions are completely softened, translucent and starting to brown, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add minced garlic and cook, stirring constantly, until very fragrant, about 1 minute. Add ground chicken and cook, breaking up the meat with a spoon as you cook, until cooked through and starting to brown, about 8 minutes. Drain any excess fat from the skillet (I usually have about a ¼ cup of fat to drain when using all dark meat chicken, and nothing to drain when using all ground chicken breast). Add white wine, and cook until wine is fully cooked off and absorbed, about 2 minutes. Stir in Hatch green chiles. Add taco seasoning packet and 1/3 cup low sodium chicken broth, stirring until fully combined and reduced, about 3 minutes.
Remove chicken mixture to a medium bowl and allow to cool, at least 10 minutes.
While chicken cools, halve the avocados and remove the pits. With a large kitchen spoon, carefully scoop out the inner flesh around the pit indentation, leaving about ¼ inch thick lining of avocado.
Mix 4 oz shredded cheddar cheese into the cooled chicken mixture. With a large spoon, divide chicken mixture evenly among the prepared avocado halves, about a half cup each, using the spoon to compact the filling into rounded domes. Top with the remaining 2 oz shredded cheddar cheese.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Alternatively, if you don’t have time to allow the chicken to cool, you can layer the bottom of each avocado cup with shredded cheddar cheese and then top with the chicken and more cheddar cheese. If you mix the shredded cheese into the hot chicken, it will completely melt into the mixture.
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