SHEET PAN QUESADILLAS RECIPE

OK, this is one of our new favorite quick meals.  I'm not sure who to give credit to, versions of this recipe have been online for a couple of years at least.  The first time I saw it I think it was a "Tasty" video.  They are all variations on a theme but learn the basic premise and the world is your, um, quesadilla, ha.

Ingredients:

8 burrito sized tortillas

4 cups shredded cheese, divided in half

3 to 4 cups cooked shredded chicken

Whatever else you want to add to this

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Bake 20-25 mins, remove top sheet pan 5-10 mins

Sheet pan quesadillas

You're going to start with six flour tortillas.  These are the large "burrito size" tortillas.  You could use regular size but just know you'll need more.  Maybe 10 to cover the bottom and 2 for the top center.  Now in most recipes I've seen, they just put the tortillas on a butter coated sheet pan.  See the end of this post for some more notes about that.  You put six around the edges, letting them hang off because you are going to fold up the excess later, like an origami project.

Sheet pan quesadillas

Put the seventh tortilla in the bottom to cover the empty spot where they all meet.

Chicken, cheese, green chilies

Then just start filling.  It's at this point that really, you can do anything you want.  Start by putting down a layer of shredded cheese, 2 cups.  Any flavor you like.  This is a Mexican blend cheese.  Next I put in some shredded, cooked chicken that we had in the freezer.  The meat from a rotisserie chicken works great for this.

Chicken and spinach quesadillas

We had some leftover baby spinach and a can of green chilies so I scattered that over the chicken.

Quesadillas with spinach and chicken

Whatever filling you use, put the remaining 2 cups of cheese on top, they are quesadillas after all and cheese is the star ingredient.

Next you just fold it up.  In this picture you can probably see the mistake I made.  First put the eighth and final tortilla in the gap in the middle just like you did with the one on the bottom earlier.  Fold over the long sides and then each end.  My mistake was putting the last one on top after folding the other sides in.  I should have put it on top of the filling and THEN folded in the sides.  But as you can see, it still works fine.

Buttered and filled chicken quesadillas

Brush the top of this with melted butter.

Sheet pan cooking

Then put another baking sheet on top of the buttered quesadillas.  You can see that again I put foil and parchment (on the bottom) to keep 2nd Man's pans pristine, ha.

Pressing down quesadillas

Push it down, it's all there, underneath the top sheet pan.  At this point, some people put a weight on top, like a cast iron pan.  I will do this the next time.  You want to do this so they they are compressed together like quesadillas should be and it forces the bottom to get more browned.

Baking sheet pan quesadillas

After about 20 or 25 minutes, the cheese should be gooey and melted and the tortillas starting to brown.  Take the top sheet pan off and bake for about 5 to 10 more minutes at the same temperature or you can switch to broil, watch it, and let it brown for a couple of minutes.  Watch it carefully though, it will happen fast with the flour tortillas exposed to the heat like this.

Cutting sheet pan quesadillas

Slice them up (a pizza cutter works great) and serve!

Sheet pan Quesadillas

Here they are...cheesy and delicious.  We topped ours with some sour cream and guacamole.  Definitely one of our favorites.  It's also so flexible...any type of cheese....add any veggies such as peppers, onions, spinach, mushrooms, olives...add any protein, cooked ground beef, rotisserie chicken, shrimp, turkey, etc...just be sure cheese on the bottom and end with cheese on the top.

Side note from above. Yes I used foil and parchment  but it's not necessary. I only did it to keep the pan clean. See how clean the inside of that pan is? Those sheet pans are about 8 years old. They have roasted chickens, turkeys, sausages, briskets, made countless sheet pan meals, roasted potatoes and even berries.  Yeah...he keeps his stuff clean and I'm not about to mess that up, ha.  This recipe works best on a hot sheet pan with some butter, you'll get the crispy brown spots but this worked too, just a bit more effort.