Tacos with Pulled Chicken & Salsa
Two forks and a hot chicken breast. That is the only technique this recipe asks of you. Drag them through the meat and it falls into thin, shaggy pieces that soak up a cumin-tomato sauce you build in the same pan. Fill two taco shells, spoon a cold mango-black bean salsa on top, and you are looking at 29 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber in a 497-calorie dinner.
The salsa does the heavy lifting on flavor. Raw cherry tomato quarters, scallion rings, and sweet frozen mango cubes thawed just enough to hold their shape, mixed with rinsed black beans. It sits cold on hot chicken, and the temperature contrast in a crispy shell is the reason this works.
Two forks and a hot chicken breast. That is the only technique this recipe asks of you. Drag them through the meat and it falls into thin, shaggy pieces that soak up a cumin-tomato sauce you build in the same pan. Fill two taco shells, spoon a cold mango-black bean salsa on top, and you are looking at 29 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber in a 497-calorie dinner.
The salsa does the heavy lifting on flavor. Raw cherry tomato quarters, scallion rings, and sweet frozen mango cubes thawed just enough to hold their shape, mixed with rinsed black beans. It sits cold on hot chicken, and the temperature contrast in a crispy shell is the reason this works.
Ingredients
- mango chunks, frozen 3 oz
- chicken breast 3 oz
- scallion 1 piece
- cherry tomatoes 8 pieces
- black beans 2 oz
- taco shells 2 pieces
- onion 0.5 piece
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- tomato paste 1.5 tablespoon
- ground cumin 0.5 teaspoon
- chili powder 1 pinch
- water 4 tablespoons
Method
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Preheat the oven to 360°F (180°C).
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Allow the mango cubes to thaw.
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Cook the chicken breast in a pan of boiling water for about 15 minutes.
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In the meantime, cut the mango into smaller cubes. Slice the scallion into rings and the tomatoes into quarters.
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Rinse the black beans with water and mix them with the mango, scallion and tomatoes to make a salsa.
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Place the tacos in the oven and heat according to the instructions on the packaging.
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Cut the onion into half rings. Heat the oil in a pan and sauté the onion until translucent. Add the tomato paste and cook for 1 minute. Season with cumin and chili powder. Add the water and let it simmer into a tomato sauce. If needed, add a splash more water.
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In the meantime, drain the chicken. Pull the chicken apart into pieces with two forks and add to the tomato sauce. Stir well and cook for 2 minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
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Fill the tacos with the pulled chicken and half of the salsa. Serve the remaining salsa on the side.
Pull the chicken while it is still hot from the pot. The fibers separate easily when warm, giving you those thin, stringy pieces that soak up the cumin-tomato sauce. Let it cool first and you will be tearing at dense chunks that refuse to shred.
Why This Works
Behind this recipe
Is 29 grams of protein enough for a meal?
Research tested whether the body can only use around 30 grams of protein per meal. The conclusion: there is no practical upper limit. Your body processes all the protein you eat, just on a longer timeline when the dose is larger. At 29 grams, this meal delivers exactly what studies tested as a single-meal portion, with most coming from the chicken breast and a few grams from the black beans.
Read the full evidence reviewWhy frozen mango instead of fresh?
Frozen mango is picked at peak ripeness and flash-frozen, which preserves most of its vitamins. Fresh mango at the grocery store may have traveled for weeks and lost some nutrients along the way. For a raw salsa where the mango is not cooked, frozen cubes thawed to room temperature give you the same flavor without the guesswork of picking a ripe one.
Does the mango in the salsa help absorb iron from the black beans?
Mango and cherry tomatoes both contain vitamin C, which research found enhances absorption of plant-based iron. In a review of 299 people, about 50 milligrams of vitamin C per meal produced the strongest effect. This salsa provides roughly 40 milligrams from the mango and tomatoes combined, close to that threshold. The effect happens when you eat the salsa and beans together in the same bite.
