This Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans recipe has a nice spicy kick. A Gewürztraminer from Alsace, with taste of honey and pear fruit, makes a great wine pairing for the recipe. Read on for more information about the recipe and the wine we paired with it, or click here to jump down to the recipe.
Typically I like to try a new wine for blogging events like the French Winophiles. But when I heard the French Winophiles would be visiting Alsace today, I decided quickly I’d be opening one of my favorite wines to go with spicy food, which hails from the region. The question was, what would I make.
The Gewürztraminer I’m referencing here today has been paired successfully with Indian food several times. This Gewürzt also paired nicely with a carrot ginger soup that has some good kick. But today I decided to go with chipotle flavor, and the tasty result was this Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans recipe.
I originally was planning to make a vegetarian black bean chili to pair with the Gewürzt. But last weekend I wound up cooking up more chicken than I knew what to do with. So I changed my direction a bit, making a skillet meal that has onions, garlic and chipotle pepper cooking up with black beans. The cooked chicken gets tossed in toward the end. So make note, this Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans is a good recipe to go to when you have extra chicken.
I’m sure you could make this dish by adding uncooked chicken earlier than I call for in the recipe, to give it time to cook. I’ll try that at some point and update with my timing notes.
The Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans get served over rice. The dish came out with a fairly high chipotle spice level, so you definitely want to have the rice with it to take the edge off a bit. Of course, the wine helps with that too. Speaking of which, it’s time to talk wine!
Wine Pairing for Chipotle Chicken
As I noted, we had our wine picked out before we had come up with the Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans. The 2012 Sipp Mack Gewürztraminer Tradition ($20, 13% ABV) has a nice floral nose, with taste of honey, pear, and some cinnamon spice. The wine also has a touch of minerality, always nice for food pairings. The sweet honey aspect of the wine certainly was a good offset for the heat of the chipotle peppers in the dish, and I was certainly happy for each sip of the refreshing wine. Definitely a good pairing.
The Alsace wine region located in northeastern France, on German border. I recall learning about Alsace in history classes due to the conflicts between France and Germany that saw the region under German rule at various points. You can definitely taste the German influence in the white wines from Alsace.
The Alsace wine region is broken into two main areas, Bas-Rhin to the North, and Haut-Rhin to the south. The Sipp Mack winery is located near the top of the village of Hunawihr, which is toward the northern end of the Haut-Rhin region. According to Wine Folly, 19% of the wine form Alsace is made with Gewürztraminer, just a bit less than Riesling and Pinot Blanc. So trying a Gewürztr with our Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans certain gave us a good example of the Alsace region’s wine.
Time to check out the Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans recipe details!
Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans
Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans have some good kick! Tasty and easy way to use extra cooked chicken. Served over rice.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Total Time: 30 mins
- Yield: 6 servings 1x
- Category: Main
- Cuisine: Fusion
Ingredients
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 1/2 colored bell peppers, chopped
- 2 garlic, minced
- 1 tsp cumin
- ½ tsp allspice
- 1 14 oz can diced tomatoes
- 1 14 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 chipotle chile in adobo sauce, finely chopped
- 1 tsp adobo sauce
- 2 cups cooked chicken, cut into bite sized pieces
- rice for serving
Instructions
- Heat the olive oil on medium in a large skillet. Add the onion, cook until it begins to soften, about 5 minutes. Add the bell peppers, cook for another few minutes, then add the garlic.
- Add the diced tomatoes to the skillet. Stir in the black beans.
- Add the chile, adobo sauce, cumin and allspice to the skillet. Stir well to coming.
- Simmer the beans and tomatoes with the spices for 5 minutes, then stir in the chicken.
- Cook for another 5 minutes to warm up the chicken. Stir occasionally to help combine the flavors.
- Serve the the chipotle chicken and black beans over rice, along with a white wine with a bit of sweetness and spice, such as a Gewürztraminer from Alsace.
More Alsace food and wine pairings
Be sure to check out all the tasty Alsace wine and food pairings from the French Winophiles!
- Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla is sharing “Pinot Blanc-Braised Duck Over Caramelized Fennel and Mushrooms”
- David of Cooking Chat shares “Chipotle Chicken and Black Beans with a Gewürtz” (you are here!)
- Jeff from Food Wine Click is sharing “Choucroute Garni: Fancy French Kielbasa & Sauerkraut”
- Jill of L’Occasion shares “Wine for a Spring Meal: Camille Braun Auxerrois 2013”
- Martin of Enofylz Wine Blog is sharing “Cross-Cultural Food and Alscace Wine Pairings with Trimbach Riesling”
- Michelle from Rockin Red Blog shares “Rockin Alsace Riesling with #Winophiles”
- Wendy from A Day 0n the Life of a Farm tempts us with “Gewurztraminer with Fried Chicken”
- Christy from Confessions of a Culinary Diva is sharing “The Versatile Wines of Alsace”
Join us Saturday, February 18th for a live Twitter Chat at 8 am PST/11 am EST using #Winophiles.
I’m always looking for ways to use leftover chicken and this recipe sounds perfect. I enjoyed my bottle of gewerztraminer too.
Great looking dish David! How dry was the Gewurz? I’m thinking if it had some RS, it would have helped with the spice of the dish a bit. Sound like maybe it did…Cheers!
Hi Martin, definitely has a bit of residual sugar, which worked out nicely with the heat.
Chipotle chili in adobo sauce. So yummy.
This makes me think of summer, the pairing would be fun to pack up for the boat or beach. Fantastic!
I love finding new meals for Gewürztraminer. I love the varietal, so the more meals the merrier!!