Intro: Hey. Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Happy Thursday everybody. Okay. We’re here for another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, and I’m super excited this week because I just figured out that we are on episode 90.

I cannot believe that I have 90 podcast episodes behind me. When I first started this thing, I thought, this is crazy. We’ll see if this works. If this is what I want to be doing. It absolutely is. Obviously, here I am. I’m at episode 90 and I have absolutely loved doing this podcast and connecting with an audience in a totally different way.

So here we are, episode 90. We are making Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas, and it just couldn’t be a better recipe for my 90th episode. I feel like I’m treating 90 like it’s a hundred, but I’m super excited about the round number. Enchiladas are one of my very favorite foods to eat just in general. You know, people say, if you were stuck on a deserted island, what’s one food you would eat the whole time? Enchiladas, a hundred percent, no question. I hope you love enchiladas too. 

Tips and Tricks: I hope that you have the ingredients to make these cream cheese chicken enchiladas for dinner tonight. So let’s get into some tips and tricks for your enchiladas. First of all, let’s talk about your tortillas. You can absolutely go with a flour tortilla when you make enchiladas. It’s not traditional, but it will work. Flour tortillas are so much easier to work with than corn tortillas. But on the flip side, corn tortillas are traditional. They’re way more flavorful than flour tortillas, and they’re just a little bit more delicate. They make a better enchilada. If you choose to use corn tortillas, here’s what I’m going to tell you. Number one, buy a quality corn tortilla. If your grocery store has ones that are refrigerated, that are maybe made locally, buy those. Those are going to be your best bet. Second of all, buy the yellow corn tortillas, not the white corn tortillas. Yellow corn tortillas are going to have way more flavor than the white version.

Second tip. If you are making any type of chicken enchilada, this is an excellent time to take advantage of that rotisserie chicken at Costco or at your local grocery store. Take off both breasts and some thigh meat. Whizz it up in your stand mixer, shred it up, and use that. It just cuts an entire step out of making these enchiladas.

Third tip. Either make your own enchilada sauce or find one in the store that you really, really love. For a long time, we loved the Target brand market pantry enchilada sauce because it was really tangy, it had a lot of vinegar in it. But now I tend to make my own enchilada sauce. So I actually have a recipe on Mom’s Dinner that I will link for you in the show notes and you can check out that recipe. It is so simple. Let me just tell you, to make your own enchilada sauce, you literally just need vegetable oil, flour, a bunch of spices from your spice cabinet, and some chicken broth. You could also throw some tomato paste in there if you want, but that’s it. It is so simple. Oh, and I will say you do need vinegar and some lime juice as well. But it literally comes together in five minutes.

The next tip is about your cream cheese. This recipe obviously is Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas. The filling is going to be a mixture of cream cheese and sour cream, so you want to make sure that your cream cheese is at room temperature. I will tell you that cream cheese comes to room temperature pretty quickly, and if you need it to happen a little bit faster, what you can do is cut your cream cheese into little one-inch cubes, leave it out at room temperature, and it will soften in less than 30 minutes. It happens very, very quickly. 

So I think those are all of my tips for the ingredients and making the Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas. So let’s go ahead and get into the full recipe.

Cream Cheese Enchiladas Recipe: All right. When you’re making these enchiladas, there are going to be basically three separate steps or portions to this recipe. You’re going to make your enchilada filling, then you’re going to assemble the enchiladas, and then you’re going to bake. 

We’re going to start with the enchilada filling. Dial it back a few. You need to preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Now let’s get to the enchilada filling. So you need a big skillet because we’re going to saute some veggies to add to the chicken and the cream cheese. In a really large skillet, over about medium heat, you’re going to add a little bit of vegetable oil or olive oil, and you’re going to saute half a cup of chopped onion, three fresh garlic cloves, and some chopped jalapeno. Use as much jalapeno as you like. So if you like a lot, if you want a lot of spice, get up in there, use a couple of jalapenos. If you like, no spice at all, you could actually sub in poblano peppers for the jalapeno peppers. So you’re going to saute that for about five minutes just to get it to start to soften.

Now, while that is sauteeing, in a large bowl, you’ll want to combine the shredded chicken, which actually you need two and a half cups of cooked shredded chicken. Eight ounces of cream cheese at room temperature, four ounces of sour cream, a four-ounce can of chopped green chilies, and half a teaspoon of kosher salt. So stir that all together and then once that jalapeno and onion mixture is ready, you can stir that in there as well. So that’s it. That’s the filling for the Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas. 

Now for assembly, anytime I’m making enchiladas, I like to do kind of an assembly line to make my enchiladas. I like to have my prepared baking dish, which actually I just use a 9×13 casserole dish. I spray it lightly with a little bit of non-stick spray, and then I put about half a cup to three-quarters of a cup of enchilada sauce across the bottom, just to coat the bottom so your enchiladas don’t stick to the pan. Then have your tortillas, the chicken filling, some cheese, and the red enchilada sauce.

Let’s pause the recipe for just a minute. If you are using corn tortillas, you absolutely have to prep them first. You can’t just use them straight out of the package. They’re super delicate and they will rip and tear and be a hot mess. What you have to do is heat them in some way. So if you have your own way to heat corn tortillas, go for it. What I like to do is take my cast iron skillet, and put it over medium heat. I usually will put a little bit of oil in the bottom and then wipe it out with a paper towel. Just get that pan-hot. Then I put a corn tortilla in for about one minute per side, and then use that tortilla. While I’m using that tortilla, I put another tortilla in the pan to warm up while I’m rolling that first enchilada, and so on and so forth. Warm up your tortilla. You’re going to put about three tablespoons of that chicken mixture down the center of the tortilla, sprinkle with a little extra cheese, and then roll the tortilla up and you’re going to place it in that prepared baking pan seam side down. Now, you’ll repeat this until all of your tortillas are used, all of your fillings are used and your pan is full.

I think this recipe is going to make somewhere around 12 enchiladas. So once you have them all rolled up, you’re going to pour the remaining enchilada sauce over all of the rolled enchiladas, sprinkle all of the remaining cheese over top, and then cover your pan with foil and bake it for 20 minutes. At the end of that 20 minutes, you’ll pull the foil off and bake it for another 15 minutes so that the cheese on the top gets nice and melty and gooey. You’re going to let the enchiladas cool for about 15 minutes. So just like any type of casserole or lasagna, you want them to cool for a little bit because all of the filling and the cheese and all of that is going to set up just a little bit, just enough so that you can dish it out without everything falling apart.

When we serve these enchiladas, we love to do just two enchiladas per person. Then I love to have some little topping garnishes. For these enchiladas, we’ll either do fresh, diced avocado, a little bit of chopped cilantro, or maybe some green onions. You could do shredded lettuce or pico de gallo. Then of course your traditional Mexican side dishes, so like Mexican rice, refried beans. I just published a great recipe for corn salsa that would be a great garnish for these enchiladas. I also have an excellent pineapple side dish that’s pretty much for Mexican food. It’s fresh-cut pineapple with this honey orange cilantro lime glaze that goes over it. It’s an excellent side dish that I don’t think a lot of people expect when they’re having enchiladas. You expect rice and beans, but pineapple is a wonderful fresh side dish you can add to the mix. Then one more side dish that we love is a cilantro lime slaw, which actually would be a great garnish to the top of these enchiladas as well. So of course I will link all of those recipes, all of those side dishes, and I’ll link my favorite margarita recipe in there too, if you want to have a little margarita. You can check all of those recipes out. Just so you know, you can find all of these recipes that are on this podcast on my website, momsdinner.net. That’s where I share all of my recipes. You can print them, or cook them from the website. You can actually even text yourself the ingredient list and a link to the recipe. You can pin it, print it, or do whatever you need to do when you’re ready to make any of these recipes.

If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow or rate and review our show in your preferred podcast player. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Double Dip: All right guys, now it’s time for your double dip. Thank you so much for sticking around. So in the double dip, if you’ve never been here before, it’s where we talk about the recipe that’s coming up next week so that maybe you can get prepared and get the ingredients you need to cook along with me next week, next Thursday.

So what are we making next Thursday? We are making Baked Barbecue Meatballs. I love a meatball. This barbecue meatball is no exception. It has great flavor for this time of year. You know, we all start thinking about a little bit of barbecue here and there, but this one you don’t have to have a grill. You don’t have to be outside. You can just make your barbecue meatballs and enjoy. 

Okay, so here’s what you need to grab for next week’s episode on Thursday. One pound of ground beef, one pound of ground pork, and two cups of bread. So this could be French bread, white bread, ciabatta, any kind of bread will work as long as it’s not super seedy Bread, half a cup of milk, one large egg, one and a half tablespoons of your very favorite barbecue sauce. One tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, two teaspoons of chili powder, one teaspoon each of garlic powder and onion powder, a little sprinkle of smoked paprika, kosher salt, and then, of course, some more of your very favorite barbecue sauce to glaze the outside. So I hope you’ll join me next week and make these. Let me tell you what goes really, really well with these are my garlic mashed potatoes. You can do them on the stove or you can do them in the instant pot. They are perfect. My mouth is watering. They go perfectly with this Barbecue Meatball and then maybe some green beans on the side is mwah! Perfect. I hope you’ll join me then, and until next week, have a wonderful week ahead.

Intro: Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: What’s up everybody? Hello. Happy Thursday. I’m so glad you’re here. I have to tell you, I am on Cloud nine lately because Spring has sprung here in Kansas City. The flowers are blooming. All of the trees have sprung forth all of their green leaves. It’s just beautiful. I feel like when you go outside, it just looks like it looks like a park everywhere you go. It’s gorgeous. So in light of that, I feel like it is time to start transitioning to some more spring dinner recipes. Some things that are a little bit lighter, maybe cooked on the grill. Things that you can prep ahead of time so that you have more time to play outside and be out in the sun. So today, this Thursday, we are making a delicious baked Caesar Chicken. I have to tell you that this recipe is actually based on an Ina Garten recipe. You know, Barefoot Contessa, the Queen mother. She has a recipe for a Caesar Swordfish that looked absolutely delicious. I don’t eat a ton of seafood. I’ll eat some, but I don’t eat a ton. So I thought, how can I take this recipe and kind of tweak it for chicken? So that’s what we’ve done here. It’s basically a baked chicken with this delicious lemony Caesar cream sauce with capers over top, and then it’s baked in the oven. It is wonderful. You can pair it with some real springtime vegetables like roasted asparagus and maybe some garlic couscous. There’s a brand of couscous called Near East. They have a roasted garlic couscous that is amazing. And if you’ve never made couscous, it takes five minutes to make. It’s crazy. It’s a perfect side dish. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s get into a couple of tips and tricks for this recipe for a Baked Caesar Chicken. First of all, the chicken. Every time we have chicken and a recipe, I talk about this, and I like to buy Air Chilled chicken. It is a process they use to chill the chicken down for packaging. The traditional method is that the chicken is actually dunked in cold chlorinated water to bring it to temperature for packaging. With Air Chilled chicken, it’s actually hung and processed through cold air rooms, so it’s coming to temperature slower, and you’re not adding extra water to the chicken. So anytime you’re in cooking and talking about cooking methods, water equals less flavor, in dehydration, less water is more flavor.

So with that air-chilled chicken, you’re getting super flavorful chicken that has the perfect texture every time. Have you ever bought chicken, baked it, and then you’re like, why does this chicken chew like rubber? Super bizarre. I don’t know what that is, but when I buy Air Chilled chicken, never had that happen. I will say air-chilled chicken is more expensive, but it is absolutely worth it.

They have Air Chilled chicken now at Costco, so you can get it there in those big packages. In the Midwest here, there’s a brand called Smart Chicken that I prefer to purchase. You can get your organic free range. All of those things, those are great. But the biggest difference between flavor and texture is buying Air Chilled.

Okay, the next tip and trick, for this recipe, you need lemon zest and you need lemon juice. Anytime a recipe calls for both of those, you want to make sure that you zest the lemon first. That’s taking that bright, delicious peel off of the lemon. You use a zester, a rasp, and a Microplane. Then cut the lemon in half and squeeze the juice out. It will be way easier to do it that way than the reverse. 

All right, two more ingredients I want to talk about. The Greek yogurt in this recipe is part of that Caesar cream sauce. With baking and Greek yogurt, I love to buy whole-milk Greek yogurt instead of fat-free Greek yogurt. You also want to make sure that you’re buying plain Greek yogurt, not vanilla or flavored. The other option here is to use sour cream. So if you don’t want to use Greek yogurt, not your thing, just buy sour cream and use it in its place. 

The other ingredient is mayonnaise. We’re using mayonnaise, not Miracle Whip. They are not the same thing, so make sure you use mayonnaise. I’ll tell you some brands that we love to use. Hellmanns of course, is king of mayonnaise. Dukes are actually coming right up on Hellmanns. I’ve never used Dukes, but people love it. The other one I gotta tell you, I buy Aldi mayonnaise and it is a great DUP for Hellmans. 

Baked Caesar Chicken Recipe: Let’s go on to making the full recipe for this Baked Caesar Chicken. This recipe will actually make four chicken breasts. You could make up to six, but what I usually like to do here is buy two larger boneless skinless chicken breasts and then cut them in half lengthwise so you end up with four thinner chicken breasts. Now if your chicken breasts are already not those crazy, huge chicken breasts, then go ahead and just buy four chicken breasts. Then you’re going to take those salt and pepper them on both sides. So of course, use kosher salt here and get them nice and seasoned. 

Set those aside. Then you’re going to make your Caesar cream sauce. So in a bowl, you’re just going to whisk together half a cup of mayonnaise, a quarter cup of that whole milk Greek yogurt, one tablespoon of dijon mustard, and one teaspoon of lemon zest. Two teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, two minced garlic cloves, a quarter cup of capers that have been drained, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, and then black pepper to taste. Whisk that all together. Then what you want to do is reserve about a third of that sauce that you will actually serve on the side at the table.

Then with the remaining sauce, you want to take about three tablespoons and spread that down into the bottom of a glass baking dish. Pop the seasoned chicken right on top of that sauce and then take the rest of the sauce and pour it over top. You’re going to bake this uncovered for 25 to 30 minutes until your chicken reaches 165 degrees at its thickest point. That’s the most important part. This cook time, is 25 to 30 minutes, it could go all the way up to 40 minutes if you have really thick chicken breasts. 

Now at the very end of this recipe, I like to turn the broiler on and cook that chicken for an additional two minutes. That Caesar sauce will start to brown on top. Really delicious. Another option here is to grate some fresh Parmesan cheese over top and let that melt under the broiler. Really delicious. So that’s the full recipe. I mean, so easy. So what I will say, in that time, you can absolutely make some couscous. I’ve got a great recipe for a Parmesan risotto that you make in your instant pot that would be excellent on the side. Then either roasted asparagus, roasted broccoli, or some green beans as a side vegetable would be perfect. 

So this was kind of a quick little episode today. That’s all I’ve got for this recipe. If you are loving this content here on Let’s Make Dinner, then I would love to have you subscribe to the newsletter that goes out every Thursday and Sunday. I send out a newsletter on Thursday for this podcast, and then on Sunday I send out a newsletter for Mom’s Dinner, the website where I share all of these recipes, where I go over any new recipes, any appearances or things that I have coming up and dinner ideas for the week. You can go to momsdinner.net/subscribe and you will find a little page where you can subscribe to the newsletter there, or I will put a link in the show notes for you. 

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Double Dip: All right guys, now it’s time for your Double Dip. Thank you so much for sticking around. So if you’re loving these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, then always stick around for the double dip at the end of the episode because I’m going to go over what we’re going to be making next week. Then you can add it to your meal plan for next week and have the ingredients all ready when the episode comes out and you can cook right along with me.

So next week on Thursday, we’re making Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas. So if you listen to these in real-time, then you know that Cinco de Mayo is coming up. So we got to try all of our yummy Mexican recipes. This one is absolutely delicious. Cream Cheese Chicken Enchiladas. Here’s what you’re going to need to make these: olive oil, yellow or white onions, fresh garlic, jalapeno, and two and a half cups of cooked shredded chicken. This is a great time to use that rotisserie chicken from Costco. Eight ounces of cream cheese, four ounces of sour cream, a four-ounce can of chopped green chilies, kosher salt, 10 to 12 flour tortillas or yellow corn tortillas, 20 ounces of red enchilada sauce, and then an eight-ounce block of cheese. You can use Monterey jack, Kobe jack, pepper, jack, cheddar, or whatever you like on top of your enchiladas.

Then for serving, I love to do some fresh avocado, cilantro, green onions, and maybe some shredded lettuce or pico de gallo. Then on the side, think about like refried beans and Mexican rice. 

So I will also put a link to this recipe in the show notes so you can go and check out the ingredients and the full recipe if you’re going to make it with me next Thursday. 

So until then, I hope you guys have a great week and we’ll see you later.

Intro: Hey, hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: What’s up everybody? Welcome to the show. Happy Thursday. I hope you guys are all having a wonderful week. I have had a great week here in Kansas City. The weather has been top-notch, absolutely perfect. If you’ve been following along with the Mom’s Dinner newsletter or even on this podcast, you know that we’re finishing our basement and the progress is coming along so nicely. I think they’re like two weeks ahead of schedule, which is absolutely crazy, but we’ll take it. It’s beautiful. It’s coming together. So if you want to see pictures of the basement and know more about the whole project, you can sign up for my newsletter. You go to momsdinner.net/subscribe and sign up for the newsletter there. I will also put a link in the show notes to the subscribe page, so you could just check it out there.

But let’s get to making some dinner. It’s Thursday. What in the hell are you going to make for dinner? Well, what we are making is Instant Pot Carnitas for dinner tonight. So if you make these carnitas, you’re going to have dinner for a while. You’ll not only have dinner tonight, but you can also recreate it into something else tomorrow night, the next night. You can even pop these carnitas in the freezer and then use them at a later date. I’ve got a ton in my freezer right now, and actually, instead of making them, I might just pull them right out of the freezer and use that and make carnitas enchiladas for dinner. 

So if you’ve ever been to Chipotle or a Mexican restaurant, you’ve probably seen or heard of or had carnitas. Basically what it is, is seasoned Mexican pork, a Mexican shredded pork. Sometimes it’s really juicy and tender, and then sometimes it gets caramelized, so it has little crispy edges on it that are so delicious. We like the crispy edges here. It’s made with a very inexpensive cut of pork. It’s made with a pork shoulder, sometimes also known as a Boston butt or a pork butt, and it’s the same cut that is used for smoked, pulled pork. So if you go to a barbecue joint and you have pulled pork, it’s probably made from a pork butt. Now it’s not the butt of a pig. The pork butt, pork shoulder, Boston butt, it’s all the same thing. It is a cut of pork from the shoulder area. It is not the butt. I’m not sure why they call it the butt, actually. Maybe we’ll do that at the end of the episode, I will look up why a Boston butt is called a butt. 

So a few tips and tricks for making your Instant Pot Carnitas. First of all, let’s talk again about that pork shoulder. When you buy pork shoulder, you’ll probably have a couple of different options. It will be called all of those different names, Boston butt. Pork butt, pork shoulder, pork roast, any of those things will work. Now, it’s also going to probably give you an option of bone-in or boneless, or your grocery store may only have one of those options.

My grocery store usually carries the bone-in option, which is great. Totally works. You can cook it with the bone in the instant pot, and then after it cooks, the bone literally just slips right out and all the meat falls off of it. Another tip about using that Boston butt pork shoulder. It’s going to probably have a large fat cap on the top or the bottom, whatever, however, you flip it, and some really big chunks of fat throughout. Now, when you’re cooking low and slow, like on a barbecue or a smoker, that fat renders down and creates really juicy, yummy pulled pork. When you’re cooking in the Instant Pot, it doesn’t have that long slow cooking time for the fat to render down. So you do want to trim a lot of that fat away and discard it, or you could save it and render it down for pork fat if you wanted to. I usually cut most of it down and then discard it because when it cooks down in the Instant Pot, it just becomes jiggly fat. It doesn’t become juicy juicy juice for your pork. 

When we make this carnitas recipe, we’re going to cut the pork into large two to three-inch pieces, and then we’re going to sear it and brown it on a couple of sides. You have a couple of options for this. You can do it in the Instant Pot, but what I have found is that it can take a really long time for the Instant Pot to get hot enough on that saute mode to actually caramelize the outside edges of the pork. So what I usually do, and this is counterintuitive to cooking in the Instant Pot, but usually take my large cast iron skillet and put it over medium-high heat on the stovetop, and then I can cook that pork in two batches and it’s much faster and is way more efficient at getting that really caramelized outside edge that just lends a ton of flavor to your carnitas.

So we’ll talk more about that when we go through the full recipe. All right. A couple more ingredients that I want to talk about before we step into the recipe itself. There is an ingredient called Mexican Oregano that is in the spices and seasonings for this carnitas recipe. Mexican oregano and oregano are not really the same thing. The oregano that you get in the spice aisle is more like a Mediterranean oregano. Mexican oregano is going to have a little bit of a different flavor profile. Where I find my Mexican oregano is usually in the produce section. There’ll be a wall that has dried chilies and a lot of traditional Mexican spices. That’s where I find my Mexican oregano. It’s usually really inexpensive and it’s really delicious. It adds a great flavor to this carnitas recipe. 

Now also you’re going to be using a lemon-lime soda. So for that, you can use Sprite, 7-Up, Starry, any of those lemon-lime sodas will work perfectly. 

Instant Pot Carnitas Recipe: So I think those are all of my tips and tricks for this recipe. So let’s go ahead and get into making the Instant Pot carnitas for dinner tonight. You’re going to want to take about a four to five-pound pork shoulder, pork butt, Boston butt, whatever it’s called, and cut it into about two to three-inch large pieces. As I said, you do want to cut away any large fat cap or any large fat pieces and discard those before moving on. Then you want to take about one and a half tablespoons of kosher salt and one tablespoon of black pepper and season all the sides of the pork so that everything is coated in that seasoning. Then, like I talked about in the tips and tricks section, you can either brown the pork in the instant pot on saute mode, but what I like to do is use my large 12-inch cast iron skillet and do it on the stovetop. It’s so much faster. So I add about three tablespoons of canola oil to my cast iron pan, and then I brown a couple of sides and actually caramelize a couple of sides of the pork pieces. I usually do this in two batches, because like I say, with any recipe, when you want to roast or caramelize or brown, you don’t want to overcrowd the pan because then it will steam instead of brown.

While those pieces are caramelizing and browning, either in the skillet or in the instant pot, next, you’re going to make your deglazing cooking liquid. So what I like to do is take a large four-cup glass measuring cup, or you can just grab a bowl. You’re going to add in one cup of lemon-lime soda, that’s the Sprite, 7-up, whatever you want to use. Six chopped garlic cloves, half a cup of fresh squeezed orange juice. A quarter cup of fresh squeezed lime juice. One teaspoon of either ancho chili powder or chili powder, will work. One and a half teaspoons of Mexican oregano. Half a teaspoon, each of garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, and smoked paprika. Whisk or stir all that together. Then wherever you browned and caramelized the pork pieces, you’re going to deglaze it. So if it was that cast iron skillet, you’re going to pour that liquid into the cast iron skillet and scrape up any of the brown bits. If it was in the Instant Pot, do it in the Instant Pot. You’re just grabbing all of that flavor that you created when you caramelized the pork pieces.

A little warning here. Every single time I have done this though, I set off my smoke alarm. So be careful. If you have a really sensitive smoke alarm as I do, it may set your smoke alarm off when you pour the liquid into the cast iron skillet and it just billows steam. 

All right, now it’s time to set everything up in the Instant Pot. So if you did your browning and deglazing in a cast iron skillet, then pour that liquid into the instant pot. Then you’re going to nestle all those caramelized pork pieces down into the Instant Pot. You’ll take one large white onion, cut it up into large chunks, nestle that down in with the pork, and then put one bay leaf down in there.

You’re going to close the Instant pot and set it to cook for 30 minutes, normal heat and high pressure. Just let it do its thing. Then at the end of that, you’re going to do a 15-minute natural release, and then at the end of the 15 minutes, you’re going to finish by releasing all of the pressure by turning that little valve to vent. Then you’re going to take that lid off, remove the meat from the Instant Pot, and just shred up that meat. You can do it with two forks. You can do it with clean hands, or I actually like to put mine in my stand mixer and run it with the paddle for about 30 seconds and it shreds it up perfectly. 

Now at this point, you can take some of that liquid from the Instant Pot and drizzle it over the meat. You can use it just as it is right now. You can make tacos and enchiladas. You can make nachos, or burrito bowls, or put some shredded carnitas on top of a baked potato. The options are endless here. This is a good one too. You could make carnitas grilled cheese sandwiches. Woo. So good.

But the other option here is to turn your broiler on in your oven and crisp up the edges of the carnitas. So if you want to do that, you’ll get a really large-rimmed baking sheet. Turn on that broiler in your oven, and then take the carnitas, put it on that rim baking sheet, and sprinkle it with some of that juice from the Instant Pot. Pop it under the broiler for about three minutes. Then you’re going to pull it, and flip the meat over as best you can. Sprinkle a little more juice on it and broil it for another three to five minutes. At this point, you want to watch it and make sure that it’s not burning, that it’s just caramelizing. All right, so if you do it that way, your little caramelized carnitas are so good in a taco. You can warm up a little yellow corn tortilla. Put some carnitas down in there, some diced white onion, some pico de gallo, maybe a little guacamole, a squeeze of lime juice. Woo. So good. Such a delicious dinner. So, like I said, you can use it right away. You can store it in the fridge in an airtight container for up to five days. Or you can freeze it for up to three months. 

When I freeze my carnitas, I like to freeze them in two cup portions so that you don’t have to thaw out five pounds of carnitas to use two cups. That way you have easier little portions in your freezer. So of course, no matter how you serve these, if you’re serving them taco, Burrito, enchilada, or burrito bowl, I’ve got some great side dishes on momsdinner.net, the site where I share all of these recipes. You could do a bowl of Mexican rice, you could do Instant Pot Mexican rice, refried beans, salsa, guacamole, or pico de gallo. I have an excellent recipe for this pineapple side dish. It’s fresh pineapple with this honey orange cilantro glaze that goes over the top. Delicious. I also have a really great cilantro lime slaw that makes a wonderful side dish to any Mexican dinner.

So that is the full recipe for your Instant Pot carnitas. That does it for this episode of Let’s Make Dinner. If you’re enjoying these episodes, as I said before, I would love to have you subscribe to our newsletter. You can find a link to subscribe right in the show notes. 

Outro: So until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your Dinner Time a little easier. See ya.

Double Dip: All right, guys, now it’s time for your Double Dip. If you are enjoying these episodes and they’re really helping you get dinner on the table, then always stick around every week for the double dip. That is where I tell you what we’re making next week, on Thursday, when you are out of dinner ideas, you will have somewhere to come and be like, oh yeah, that’s what I’m making for dinner.

So next week on Thursday, we’re making a Baked Caesar Chicken. This one is so delicious and I feel like I almost forgot about this recipe, that I had this delicious recipe sitting on my website. It’s a little bit older, but it is scrumptious. So this recipe is based on a really great Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa, the Queen, one of her recipes. She has a Caesar Swordfish, and I don’t eat a ton of seafood, so I’ve kind of adapted it for chicken. Delish people. 

All right. Are you ready for the ingredients that you’re going to need to make your Caesar chicken for dinner next week? All right. Obviously, you’re going to need boneless skinless chicken breasts. You can buy two large boneless skinless chicken breasts and cut them in half lengthwise, so you have four thinner ones, or you can just buy four chicken breasts. You’ll need kosher salt and black pepper. Mayonnaise, Greek yogurt, Dijon mustard, lemon zest, lemon juice, garlic, cloves, and capers and that does it. Then you’ll just need something for a side dish. Right now asparagus is hot people. It is inexpensive and delicious. Highly recommend maybe some couscous and some roasted asparagus. We will make this next week on Let’s Make Dinner. Until then, I hope you guys have an awesome week. See ya.

Intro: Hey, hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can always get on the table. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Okay, we’re going to have a real-time discussion. So if you listen to this episode in real-time, then we literally just had Easter. So Easter Sunday was this past Easter. 

Also, if you’re a part of my newsletter community from Mom’s Dinner, then you know that we are in the process of finishing our basement. We had a nice large basement space that was unfinished, and we have kids that are just on the verge of becoming teenagers and we want to be the cool house that all the teenagers want to hang out at.

We decided to finish our basement space. The plan is, is that we will also have a three-quarters kitchen down there, and so I will do a lot of work down there for this podcast, Let’s Make Dinner, and my website Mom’s Dinner. I guess the point of me telling you that is that there’s really good potential that you’re going to hear some construction noise in the background. I normally try to record this when they are not here and they’re not pounding and banging. But I waited a little bit too long this week to record my podcast episode, so here we are. You might hear some nail guns and some pounding, but that’s okay. 

All right, so let’s get onto this recipe that we’re making. So, just like I said before, we just had Easter. If you have a traditional Easter brunch or dinner or lunch, you probably have some ham left over. We talked about this last week in last week’s episode of the Double Dip to save that ham and use it for dinners either this week or pop it in the freezer. You can chop it up, pop it in the freezer, save that ham bone, pop that in the freezer, and then you can make some really delicious recipes with that leftover ham.

But today we’re making scalloped potatoes and ham. I did not mess around with this recipe, you guys. I tested this recipe probably 15 times. By the end of all of the testing for scalloped potatoes and ham, I had had it. I was like, I don’t ever want to eat scallop potatoes and ham again. But, what I will tell you is that I did perfect the recipe. What I wanted was really creamy and flavorful scalloped potatoes. So I wanted a really good ratio of potatoes to cream sauce. I didn’t want it to feel like a dry potato dish. I definitely wanted that flavor of ham mixed in. Then, sometimes when you have scalp potatoes and ham and you get that kind of golden crust on top that is so delicious. I wanted that on the top and the bottom of this dish. I think that we really nailed it. 

Tips and Tricks: So let’s go over a couple of tips and tricks for making scallop potatoes and ham. We’re going to talk about a few different ingredients. First of all, the potatoes that you’re going to use. You definitely want to use a russet potato.

A russet potato is going to hold up to the cooking time, so we have a really pretty long cooking time here. You don’t want your potatoes to crumble and cook down into a mashed potato or a casserole. You want them to stay in their cut shape. A peeled Russett is going to be perfect. Now if you’re listening to this and you’re like, I don’t have any leftover ham, what I like to do in that case is to buy a ham steak at the grocery store and then chop that up, dice it up, and that works perfectly too.

This recipe also calls for heavy cream. Do not substitute skim milk. You need the heavy cream. You need the fat in the heavy cream that will thicken with the starch of the potatoes during the cooking time, and it will make that creamy sauce that you want in your scalloped potatoes and ham. 

Another ingredient that may not be totally traditional in scalloped potatoes is adding onions. We actually add two medium to large-sized yellow onions that you’ll slice, and that just adds a layer of flavor. So instead of just being cream, potatoes, and ham, you just add a little extra flavor in there that enhances the whole entire experience. 

All right. Now, before I told you that I like to have my scalloped potatoes and ham be really creamy. We’re going to achieve that with obviously like a cream sauce where we’re using butter, flour, chicken broth, and heavy cream. We’re also going to add a little bit of cream cheese into the mix and it makes it so creamy and so perfect. So don’t skip that one and make sure that you get a full-fat cream cheese. Not that I don’t even know what it’s called, like Neufchatel cheese. That’s not what you want here. You want the full-fat cream cheese. Then the last two things. Number one, if you can stand it, shred your own cheese. It’s my least favorite kitchen job, but I will still fresh shred my cheese because it will make your dish way more creamy and way more flavorful, and that cheese just melts a little bit smoother.

Number two, you have to cut your russet potatoes really thin. About an eighth of an inch thick. When you’re making a potato dish like this, you want all of your potatoes to basically be the same thickness so that the dish cooks through evenly, and you don’t have one thick potato in the middle of your dish that didn’t get cooked, and then you’re crunching down on potato. That would be terrible. 

So what my recommendation is, is that you use a mandolin. I resisted getting a mandolin for a very long time because I thought they were very expensive and maybe even difficult to use. That is not the case at all. So the mandolin that I got, I believe was $30, and it’s an OXO brand and it works perfectly. I will link the mandolin that I have, right in the show notes for you so you can click through and check it out. If that’s something you want to have in your kitchen, go for it. Otherwise, just try to slice your potatoes the same size. The best way to do that is to cut a little piece off the bottom of your potato so it sets firmly. Then use your fingers to guide that knife to cut even potato slices. 

All right, so those are all of my tips for this recipe. So let’s go ahead and talk about making your scalloped potatoes and ham. First of all, you want to allot quite a bit of time to make scalloped potatoes and ham because they do cook for quite a long time.

You’re going to need almost once the prep is done, you’re going to need almost three hours for your scalloped potatoes and ham. I know it’s a lot. It’s a long time. It’s just like a lasagna. It’s a labor of love and a labor of deliciousness. 

What you’re going to need is a nine by 13 baking dish. You’re going to need some kind of saucepan, and what I do recommend is using a large rimmed baking sheet underneath your baking pan in case your scalloped potatoes and ham boil over in the oven. Then, as we talked about in the tip section, Amanda Lynn is a great tool to chop your potatoes. 

So let’s go ahead and get started. You’re going to preheat your oven to 400 degrees, and then you’re going to take one tablespoon of softened butter and smear it all over your 9X13 pan. What I like to do is either just use clean fingers and do it, or I’ll grab a paper towel and put that butter in there and then just spread it all over the pan.

Now you can set that aside and then you’re going to peel and slice your potatoes. Three pounds of rustic potatoes to about an eighth of an inch thick. If you’re using a mandolin, use the eight-inch thick slicing blade. Place all of those sliced potatoes into a bowl. What I like to do is toss them with half a cup of that heavy cream. This will basically coat the potatoes and help to prevent them from browning while you make your cream sauce. 

So over on the stovetop in a skillet or a saucepan over medium heat, you’re going to go ahead and melt the rest of the butter. So that’s four tablespoons of butter. You’ll add the sliced onions and saute them for about five minutes so that their softened and even slightly browned is delicious. So if you want to take them longer than five minutes and get a little caramelization on them, you can absolutely do that. Then you’re going to add three chopped garlic cloves and two teaspoons of Lawry’s seasoned salt and one teaspoon of black pepper. Then you’ll sprinkle in three tablespoons of all-purpose flour and stir that around the pan for about one minute. 

Now you’re going to add some ingredients to make your cream sauce. You’re going to whisk in one cup of chicken broth and two and a half cups of heavy cream. Give that a whisk, then you’re going to add four ounces of cream cheese and whisk that in and let it melt into the sauce.

You want to stir this occasionally and let it simmer for just a couple of minutes until it’s nice and thickened. Now it’s time to assemble your scalloped potatoes and ham. For assembly, you also will need two cups, two heaping cups really, of cooked diced ham and then two cups of shredded cheddar cheese.

So to layer the scalloped potatoes, what you want to do on the very bottom of that prepared nine by 13 baking dish, you’re going to put one cup of that onion cream sauce across the bottom. Then you’re going to top that with a layer of potatoes. Then you’re going to spread another generous cup of that onion cream sauce across the top of the potatoes. Then sprinkle on half of the ham. Then you’ll do another layer of potatoes, another generous cup of that onion, and cream sauce, and then finish with the remaining ham.

Then you’re going to finish everything with all of the remaining potatoes, and all of the remaining cream sauce, and then top it with the two cups of freshly shredded cheddar cheese. Now your pan is going to be really full, but it’s going to make it really delicious. So what you want to do, either with clean hands or with a piece of parchment paper or a spatula, just press down lightly on the dish so that it all lays flat in the pan and fits into the pan.

Now what you want to do is take a large piece of foil. I like to spray the underside with a little non-stick spray so that the cheese doesn’t stick to the foil. Cover up that pan really tightly because you want that steam and that heat to stay in the pan to cook those potatoes. Like I said before, I highly recommend that you place that 9×13 pan on a really large rimmed baking sheet because I can almost promise you it will slightly boil over, all that cream sauce, will boil over a little bit in the oven. Now you’re going to bake it for a really long time. You’re going to bake it for 70 minutes. Then you’re going to remove the foil and you’re going to bake it an additional 30 minutes at least. You want to be able to slide a knife into the center of the dish and meet no resistance. I mean, there will be some resistance just because of the thickness of the potatoes, but you shouldn’t have to really press, and there definitely should not be any crunch. So if you’re finding any crunch or any hard resistance, you want to place your dish back in the oven for about 10-minute increments until you feel like it’s cooked through.

Now, if you feel like the top is browning a little bit too much after you’ve had to put it back in the oven, you can cover the top with just a little bit of foil, and that will prevent the cheese on top from burning.

I know we keep comparing the scalloped potatoes in ham to lasagna, but they’re very, very similar. So when these scallop potatoes come outta the oven, you do want to let them cool for about 20 minutes. It is going to be like molten lava when it comes out of the oven. It is so incredibly hot and it’s going to be really bubbly. It may even be a little soupy, but as it cools, the sauce is going to thicken up and get so creamy and delicious. It will all kind of come together. 

All right, so when we serve scalloped potatoes and ham for dinner, what we like to do is just kind of cut it into squares like you would a lasagna. Here we go again, talking about lasagna. This dish will serve six to eight people. It actually makes quite a bit. 

Then as far as side dishes go, we usually just like to do maybe a roasted vegetable or a salad, maybe some dinner rolls. If you want to do a bigger dinner, you could do this, roasted broccoli or roasted asparagus, or a broccoli bacon salad would be delicious. I’ll link that one in the show notes. Then a raspberry jello fluff salad would be great as well. 

So that does it for this full episode of Let’s Make Dinner. I hope you guys make this recipe. It is just, it is one of my favorite recipes on my website, momsdinner.net. So if you do make it and it turns out spectacular for you and you just absolutely loved it, I would love to have you give the recipe five stars and comment that you made it and how it turned out, and how much you loved it. That would be great. 

Outro: So I will link all of these recipes for you in the show notes. Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier. See ya.

Double Dip: Oh my gosh, you guys, now it’s time for the Double Dip. All right, so if you’re enjoying these episodes and they are helping you get dinner on the table, then wait around for the Double Dip every week, and I will tell you what we’re making the next week. You can be prepared with the groceries that you need to make dinner and cook along with me on Thursday.

So next week, this is going to be for all of my instant pot lovers. We are making Instant Pot Carnitas so that you. So good, so, so, so good and so simple. This is not like making Carnitas in the oven. We’re making it in the Instant Pot. So fast, so delicious, and has really simple ingredients. It is made with pork butt or pork shoulder, which is a super economical cut of pork. Low cost too, which is great because groceries are stupid expensive right now. 

Okay, so let me tell you what ingredients you need to get to make your carnitas next week. This one has a super surprising ingredient in the mix. All right, you ready? You’re going to need a four to five-pound pork shoulder, kosher salt, black pepper, and canola oil. That’s standard. Then you’re going to need one cup of lemon-lime soda. So this is going to be Sprite, 7Up, or something in that family. Six garlic cloves. You’ll need an orange and a lime. Chili powder or Ancho chili powder, Mexican oregano. Now Mexican oregano and Oregano are not the same thing. I find my Mexican oregano near dried chilies and things in the produce section at my grocery store. Then you’re going to need garlic powder, onion powder, cumin, smoked paprika, a bay leaf, white onion, and your instant pot. You’re going to absolutely love this recipe. Now, we love to eat our carnitas either in enchiladas, in tacos, on a salad, in a rice bowl, you know, something like that. You could even just make nachos with your carnitas. So I hope you guys will join me next week when we make Instant Pot Carnitas for dinner. 

So until then, I hope you guys have a great week. See ya.