Corn Starch is Your Friend + A Crack at Some Tex Mex Chicken Morsels

My cooking tip today. Corn starch is your friend. It's very useful when you want to thicken a sauce quickly. Tex Mex things like taco filling, or Asian sauces benefit from this. Just be sure to combine it with water in a separate container with water before adding it to avoid lumps. When you put it in a hot liquid as a slurry it will thicken a sauce quickly and well.

Today I'm test cooking some super spicy burrito style (sauced) tweaked 1/2" chicken meat for use as a nacho plate topping. Chili powder, garlic, cumin (a wee bit), cayenne (a lot), salt, onion powder, corn starch. It should turn out well, but I'm curious as to how the vast amount of cayenne I added will work out overnight as it's refrigerated.

It's pretty basic Tex Mex, brown and braise, but the corn starch speeds matters up depending on how much you add. I always make a decent amount of the corn starch slurry and set it aside, adding some immediately, but reserving some to balance heat/thickening time and desired consistency. You will find that at higher heat settings the thickening can sneak up on you.