🇲🇽 Mexico · Family: La Quesadilla
Add chicken to a sincronizada and you get the most popular branch of the whole family. The base is unchanged: two flour tortillas, ham and melting cheese, pressed on a hot comal until cohesive and golden. The chicken slides in alongside, usually shredded and seasoned, turning a light snack into something closer to a meal without losing the format's speed. It is the version most cafeterías sell more of than the plain one, and for many people it is simply what a sincronizada is.
The chicken is the variable that decides the whole thing. A careful kitchen uses shredded pollo deshebrado, poached and pulled then warmed with onion and a little tomato or a spoon of salsa so it is moist and actually seasoned, not bland white meat dropped in for bulk. Grilled and sliced breast works too if it stays juicy. It goes in a thin, even layer with the ham and a generous melting cheese, Oaxaca, asadero, or Chihuahua, so the chicken binds into the melt rather than sitting as a dry stratum. The comal technique carries over exactly: medium heat, light fat or none, steady contact, and enough time for the cheese to fully run before the tortilla scorches. A good one is golden and holds together in wedges with the chicken distributed through every bite. The failure modes stack with the added protein: dry, underseasoned chicken; a cold center because the extra filling slowed the melt; or a split, sliding mess from overstuffing. Salsa, avocado, or crema on the side does the final balancing, cutting the richness of cheese plus ham plus chicken.
From here the additions keep going. Refried beans add body and help glue the layers; rajas of poblano bring a vegetal, mildly hot note; sautéed mushrooms or grilled onions deepen it; a little chipotle in the chicken pushes it smoky. Some cooks drop the ham entirely for a chicken-and-cheese build, which edges it toward a stuffed quesadilla and back into an old argument about where one ends and the other begins. That boundary question, quesadilla versus sincronizada, is a debate of its own with regional camps, and it deserves its own article rather than being crowded in here.
More from this family
Other La Quesadilla sandwiches in Mexico: