How To Make Your Own Ground Chicken for Chicken Stuffed Peppers Mexican Style

My daughter, Cassandra (Bargain Birdie Blog), and I thought we'd put a twist on traditional Italian hamburger stuffed peppers by making them with ground chicken and some Mexican flavorings.

When checking the per pound price of ground turkey: $6.99 lb. and making your own ground chicken $1.99 lb. it makes sense to do this on your own. If you prefer ground turkey, and can get a good price on a whole turkey, have the supermarket butcher cut a turkey in half for you. Take the breast of each half, and freeze them along with the remaining turkey. Partially thaw breast when you are ready to make this recipe.

Gadgets used: Food Processor, Crock Pot, Cutting Board, Victorinox Knife, Kitchen shears, Fork Food Thermometer. (See links below to gadgets.)
Most of these gadgets are Cooks Illustrated approved.
If you don't have a good chef's knife, I highly recommend the Victorinox Knife. It will make your cutting chores enjoyable.

4 Partially frozen chicken breasts, trimmed of excess fat, skin.
2 14 oz cans of enchilada sauce
(or make your own from scratch or with powdered packets to equal 24 oz.)
2 10 oz cans of Original Rotel diced tomatoes
1/2 tsp. cumin (if you like it hotter, add 1 tsp.)
10 medium peppers washed, tops cut, center cleaned. (8 to stuff, 2 to dice) red, yellow or green.
1 egg
1/4 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Begin by cutting the partially frozen chicken breast into cubes. Add two cubed breasts to food processor  along with one of the diced peppers, pulse until the chicken looks a bit thicker than hamburger.
Remove and reserve in a large mixing bowl.  Add the other two cubed breasts and repeat.
Add the egg, bread crumbs, salt and pepper. Mix together. Use this mixture to stuff the peppers. You may have extra ground chicken, I made chicken patties and cooked them in a skillet. You could also make some mini meatballs and add them to the Crock Pot to cook with the stuffed peppers.

If you want to put your own spin on the seasonings, this is much like a meatloaf or meatball recipe, use what you think you like.

In your Crock Pot, add the enchilada sauce and the Rotel diced tomatoes and cumin. Place the peppers into the Crock Pot, cook on High for 3 hours or Low for 6 hours.
Serve with white rice.

Some of the ingredients

Diced pepper reserved, to be added to the chicken mixture,

Garbage bowl with discarded chicken fat, leaving perfectly trimmed chicken.

Partially frozen chicken chunks.

Partially frozen chicken breasts almost ready to be cubed.

The consistency you are looking for .

Eight chicken stuffed peppers with some chicken leftover.

Eight medium stuffed peppers fit perfectly in the large, oval shaped Crock Pot.
Halfway through cooking time, I rolled each pepper over on it's side to absorb some of the sauce flavors.

Chicken patties in Calphalon non stick. I did use a light spray of  Pam.

Started cooking the patties on med-high heat to get them browned, then turned heat to medium.
I used a kitchen fork thermometer to test for doneness in both the patties and peppers.

Chicken stuffed peppers, with rice and sauce.
They are delicious!