Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadillas

Filled with savory chicken, bacon, ranch, cheddar cheese and broccoli, these delicious Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadillas are a delightful twist on a Mexican-inspired favorite!

Why We Love It

We love chicken, bacon, ranch, cheese and broccoli. Any time all those ingredients get together, we get excited. We also love quesadillas. So it's no surprise that we love these Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadillas! Whenever these are made with their zesty, cheesy goodness, it is a special treat, especially when enjoyed with our Mexican Rainbow Coleslaw!

Why You'll Love It

Have leftover chicken in the fridge? This is a great way to use it. Maybe you have a lot of tortillas in your pantry from that last club store visit. Why did you buy so many? So you could try new recipes like this one!

If you also love the wonderful flavors of chicken, bacon, ranch, broccoli and cheese when paired together, then this dish is definitely for you!

Ingredients for Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadillas

• 8 flour tortillas (fajita sized)
• 4 slices cheddar cheese (pre-sliced sandwich size)
• 1 cup precooked chicken breast, diced
• 1 cup fresh broccoli florets, diced
• 4 tablespoons bacon flavored bits
• 4 tablespoons light ranch salad dressing (Hidden Valley recommended)
• 1 cup reduced fat shredded Mexican cheese blend (Sargento's Reduced Fat 4 Cheese Mexican Blend recommended)
• Canola cooking spray

How to make Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadillas

You'll want to gather the following equipment:

• large cutting board
• chef's knife
• frying pan
• large spatula
• pizza cutter

Prep the chicken. Using your cutting board and knife, dice your pre-cooked chicken into bite-sized pieces. Then move those pieces to the side of the cutting board to make room for the broccoli.

Prep the broccoli. Dice the broccoli into fine, tiny pieces as well. Big chunks will make it hard to assemble and hard to eat!

Now here's the fun part! It's Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadilla assembly time!

Step #1: Place one plain tortilla on a separate workspace. This could be a large plate, additional cutting board, or even a piece of wax paper or foil for quick cleanup.

Step #2: Cut one slice of cheddar cheese in half. Then lay the two pieces lengthwise in the center of the tortilla.

Step #3: Place 1/4 cup of the chicken on top of the cheese.

Step #4: Place 1/4 cup of broccoli on top of the chicken and then sprinkle on 1 tablespoon of the bacon flavored bits.

Step #5: Drizzle 1 tablespoon of the ranch dressing over the ingredients.

Step #6: Sprinkle 1/4 cup of the shredded cheese on top. This cheese will serve as the "glue" when it melts to help keep your other tortilla connected (see next step)!

Step #7: Place another plain tortilla on top and spray it (the top of your quesadilla) lightly with your cooking spray.

Step #8: Lightly spray your frying pan. Then, using your large spatula, carefully transfer the assembled quesadilla to the prepared pan.

Step #9: Place your pan on the stovetop. Cook over medium heat for 5-8 minutes. Reduce the heat slightly, then use your large spatula to flip the quesadilla over and cook an additional 5 minutes.

As your skillet gets warmer, you may find that the additional quesadillas you make might not take as long to cook.

Step #10: The quesadilla is finished cooking once you can see that the cheese towards the edges is melted and both sides of the quesadilla are light to medium golden brown.

Don't worry if one side is more browned than the other- it will still taste just fine!

Gather, assemble, repeat. Follow steps 1-10 to create three additional quesadillas!

Kitchen Ready Betty tip: Keep cooked quesadillas warm by either loosely covering them with foil or by placing them in a second frying pan on your stove over very low heat, flipping and reordering occasionally. They can be layered to keep warm without stacking them entirely on top of each other (think of a lopsided pile of pancakes). This is to avoid them getting soggy while the remaining are assembled and cooked!

Ready to serve! Place one cooked quesadilla at a time on the cutting board. Use a pizza cutter to cut it into quarters, then plate!

Love to dip? So do we. Some tasty and fun dip ideas for Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadillas include sour cream, extra ranch dressing, pizza sauce and/or melted cheddar. Yum!

Chicken Bacon Ranch Quesadilla Leftovers?

Store in an airtight container and refrigerate. Enjoy within 3-4 days.

Reheating instructions: Arrange in a single layer on a prepared pan, cover loosely with foil and bake at 300 degrees for 6-7 minutes. Uncover, flip and bake an additional 2-3 minutes or until quesadillas are heated through.

A Note About the Chicken

We love using leftover grilled chicken breast for this recipe. It is our go to every time. But it's understood that you might not always have that on hand, so yes, you can use a rotisserie chicken instead if that's easier for you!

To Fold or Not to Fold? A Note About the Quesadilla Assembly

There are two schools of thought out there when it comes to making quesadillas: Use 2 tortillas and cook according to the method this recipe describes OR use 1 tortilla, fill only one half of it with ingredients, then cook the quesadilla with only one tortilla folded over.

The chefs of the latter will tell you that it is easier to flip and faster because you can fit two in a pan at a time.

I have made quesadillas by both methods and prefer (you guessed it) the method outlined in this recipe using two tortillas unfolded. The main reason is that you can get so much more cheesy goodness bang for your buck with the two-tortilla method described in this recipe.

Think about it: you can fit a lot more yummy goodness on a tortilla when that tortilla doesn't have to be folded over. It also doesn't take as long to cook each quesadilla because you are not dealing with a folded tortilla.

And as for the flipping, well yes, it does take a large spatula and a little bit of patience. But once that first side is cooked, cheese is already melting to glue the whole thing together, so flipping the quesadilla is not really that challenging.