Sweet Chicken (or Pork) Barbacoa

I don't eat fast food. The closest I get, is eating at Cafe Rio and there's only one thing that I get there every time I go: the Sweet Pork Barbacoa Salad. It is amazing. I'd eat it all the time if it wasn't so expensive and if it was a bit more healthier for me. I found a copykat recipe for it and thought I'd give it a try and hope that it tastes the same. It tastes pretty darn close. I've tried making this recipe a few times, a few different ways and each way came out tasting just as good. I tried going the little bit healthier route and using chicken breasts instead of pork. The original recipe in the link, uses pork butt, but my version will use chicken. You can always follow the link for the pork. They both taste great. http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2013/05/my-favorite-cafe-rio-copycat-recipes.html

The last time I tried this, I made the chicken and put it in lettuce leaves for a lettuce wrap feel and added a little bit of cheddar cheese, fresh cilantro, a couple slices of avocado, some cilantro lime rice and a few tortilla strips to give it that little bit of salty crunch. I've also made mine a salad in a taco bowl that I made from using my tortilla bowl molds and putting a tortilla in the oven to make it harden into a bowl shape.

You'll need:
4 chicken breasts
2 cans of Root Beer (I had a 2 liter bottle and used 1/2 of it)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp garlic
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 cup water
1 can diced green chiles
1 14oz can of enchilada sauce (red)
1 cup brown sugar

Marinate chicken in a mixture of 1 can of soda and the 1/2 cup brown sugar, in a reclosable bag. I like to marinate it overnight, but marinating it for a couple hours works just as well if you're short on time.

Drain the marinade and place chicken in your crockpot along with 1/2 of a can of root beer, water, garlic and salt. Cook on high 2-4 hours or low 7-8 hours. Remove chicken from pot and shred. At this point it should be easy to shred using two forks. If it doesn't fall apart easily, let it cook a little longer.

While chicken is cooking, in a blender preferably so you don't have big chunks of chiles, blend together the remaining 1/2 of can of soda, can of diced chiles, 1 cup brown sugar and the can of enchilada sauce.

Put the shredded chicken along with the sauce you just blended together, all back into the crockpot and heat through, for 15 minutes or so.