Quick Grilled Summer Quesadillas!

Quick Grilled Summer Quesadillas! Grilled quesadillas are one of our favorite dinners to make in the summertime. The grill gives the tortillas a crisp outside and the heat from the grill makes the cheese melt in your moth. And school’s almost out, I am itching to fire up the grill and serve these!!   So here’s a quick and easy recipe for some amazing, quick, tasty and healthy Quick Grilled Summer Quesadillas!  

Here’s what you’ll need:

• One package burrito-sized large tortillas (mine had 16 tortillas in it) (I chose plain flour ones; you can choose whatever your family likes)
• One package grilled chicken strips — mine were just the basic ones from Costco
• One large (4-cup) package of shredded Mexican cheese (the four-cheese variety, not the seasoned kind. If you’re into the seasoned kind, get that. I won’t judge.)
• (Optional) One package of shredded quesadilla cheese
• 2 avocados, ripe
• One package fresh pico de gallo (or whatever salsa you prefer)
• One bunch of green onions
• Sour cream or Crema Mexicana (we prefer the latter)
• Anything you want to serve on the side, like tortilla chips
• Butter or oil and a brush or paper towel to grease the grill (we used 1-2-3 oil)

And here’s how to go from fridge to fed in 20 minutes!

1. Assemble all the ingredients; light the grill and put it on medium low to low heat.
2. Skin, seed and slice the avocados as thinly as you can (for me, one avocado filled about three quesadillas)
3. Arrange tortillas on your counter (we made 3) and cover with shredded cheese. Unless you want to clean a lot of cheese out of your grill, you may want to leave 1/4″ or so around the edges. When in doubt, add more cheese.
4. Arrange the chicken strips and avocado slices  in a sunburst pattern around each quesadilla, alternating. (You can do this and the next two steps in any order)
5. Add some green onions on the top. While you can slice them in advance, it’s just as fast to use a pair of scissors to snip off the ends of the green onions over the quesadillas. That’s my cooking tip of the week!
6. Add pico de gallo, evenly distributed, in each quesadilla.
7. Add a bit more cheese to the top
8. Place another tortilla on the top of each quesadilla.
9. Take quesadillas to the grill. My grill only fit two of these large tortillas at a time.
10. I cooked my quesadillas only about 5 minutes total. After about 2 1/2 minutes, I flipped my quesadillas. Watch them closely!
11. Let the quesadillas rest for a few minutes, then use a pizza cutter to cut them into slices.
12. Serve with crema Mexicana/sour cream, salsa, chips, or anything you like!
13. Enjoy!

You can imagine many variations on this — leave out the chicken for vegetarians; add cilantro if you like that, and so on. And of course, it’s always better with chips and salsa! (Check out my pico de gallo recipe!)

What do YOU love to grill??

Share your ideas in the comments!! 

xoxo