Easy Chicken Enchilada

Chicken enchiladas are one of our favorite family meals. They are easy to make, really versatile, and always a crowd pleaser. The way I make this most of the time is actually more of a layered casserole, or what some people will call Mexican lasagna, but we just call it enchiladas.

You can make this with any kind of meat you like, shredded chicken cooked in enchilada sauce is our favorite so that’s what you’ll see below, but I’ve done it plenty of times with pork or beef as well. It’s nice to mix it up. Or you can leave out the meat altogether and use black beans instead. Or just layer the sauces and cheese for cheese enchiladas.

My favorite way to make enchiladas is with my homemade mild enchilada sauce. You can make this of course with any favorite enchilada sauce from the store, but if you really want to make them in a way that your whole family is sure to love, you’ll want to start with my super easy mild enchilada sauce recipe. I came up with this recipe because I love enchiladas but my little kids weren’t fond of anything spicy, so I needed to come up with a flavorful sauce that wasn’t spicy. I love the results so much that I make it all the time, and even make extra to keep in the freezer.

After you’ve got your sauce, the next step for these amazing homemade enchiladas is to cook chicken in the enchilada sauce. This method of cooking chicken is one of my favorites and I make it probably twice a month. You can again do this with a canned sauce, I do it all the time, or you can use my homemade sauce. All you need to do is pile a bunch of chicken pieces, fresh or frozen, in your favorite cooking vessel, and cover them with enchilada sauce, and cook until the chicken is falling apart. You can do this in a pot on the stove, in a dutch oven or casserole dish in the oven, in the instant pot or a slow cooker. And as I mentioned above, you can use the same method with any cut of pork or beef. It’s a great way to use less expensive cuts of meat, as they need to cook longer to get really tender.

Now lets make enchiladas!

I rarely make “real” enchiladas with the filling rolled inside tortillas- all that rolling is just too time consuming for my lifestyle.  You of course can do it that way, but I find this method much faster and easier and just as delicious.

What we make here is an enchilada casserole.

It's basically everything you would put in enchiladas, but layered in a casserole instead of rolled up. 

Easy Enchilada Casserole Recipe

Author: Lisa Marsh, WhatLisaCooks.comPrint Recipe

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Easy Enchilada Casserole

A simple layered enchilada casserole that the whole family will love. Kid pleasing, and great for a crowd.

ingredients:

• 2 cups enchilada sauce
• 3 cups grated cheese (a blend of cheddar and monterey jack)
• Cooked meat: browned ground beef, or shredded enchilada chicken
• 2 cans cream soup (cream of mushroom, cream of celery, etc.), or about 2 cups homemade white sauce (optional)
• 1 can diced green chilis
• about 2 dozen corn tortillas

instructions:

This is a simple layered dish, and the ingredients are very flexible. Use your choice of cheeses (we often just buy a bag of shredded "Mexican blend" cheese. 

Mix the green chilis in to the cream soup or white sauce if using, otherwise just spread them between the layers. Or leave them out.

We use a standard casserole dish.

Spread a bit of sauce on the bottom of the casserole dish to prevent sticking.

Cover sauce with a layer of corn tortillas. Break up tortillas to fill in any overlaps or gaps. 

Top with meat, if using. Then sprinkle with cheese. 

Repeat layers of tortilla, filling, sauce(s), cheese... until the dish is full. 

Top with shredded cheese and bake at 350 for about an hour, until the whole thing is bubbly and cheese on top is browned. 

This can also be done in a slow cooker. Follow directions the same as above, and cook for 4-6 hours on low until bubbly and melted. 

Serve with sour cream, extra cheese, salsa, shredded lettuce, diced avocado & tomato. 

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Mild Enchilada Sauce Recipe

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This easy mild enchilada sauce recipe is one of my most favorite original recipes.

Necessity is the mother of invention.

I love Mexican and Latin style foods and I love making them for my family. But my kids, being typical American kids, didn’t like sauces with any kind of spice at all. And it’s not easy to find a pre-made enchilada sauce that isn’t at all spicy but is still really flavorful. It seems like you either get spicy, or you get bland.

So I came up with my own enchilada sauce recipe. This is a kid friendly, family friendly, easy enchilada sauce recipe that the whole family will love.

It’s basically a flavored and spiced gravy - so if you know how to make a gravy, this will be super easy for you. It makes a big batch, and I often even double this, because it keeps well and it freezes easily.

This one is a long post because I’ve combined a few recipes into one. Below the Enchilada Sauce Recipe I’ve also include my recipes for how I make enchilada shredded chicken, and how I use that chicken and the enchilada sauce in my easy enchilada casserole.

Once I gave up on buying enchilada sauce for a while, I needed to come up with my own. After looking at a bunch of different recipes online, I decided to come up with my own version of a simple sauce that suits us just perfectly.

It's really flavorful and gives a nice southwest style flavor to dishes, but it's not spicy at all. I love to use this for enchiladas, or more often just an enchilada casserole, but it's also great for simmering chicken or other meat in, to shred up and use for tacos, burritos, salads, etc.

I make no claims about this being any kind of authentic - 'real' enchiladas would definitely have a sauce made of chilis. But we're not in Mexico and I'm not Mexican, so this is just my American girl version of this style of dish.

I also love that this doesn't require any special or unique ingredients - I can whip up a pot of this sauce very quickly with just ingredients that I pretty much always have in my pantry. 

It seems like a lot of spices, and it is.  

But what we're doing here is making up for the lack of spice from peppers by adding a lot of other flavor. And, as with all of my recipes, this one is super flexible.  The quantities of spices are just a guideline, and honestly most of the time I don't even really measure. I recommend you start out with measuring, and then as you go along and make the sauce you taste it and you can add more spices as needed.

Not sure how to use this sauce? Try my favorite enchilada casserole recipe. This is a regular favorite on our family menu.

Recipe: Lisa's Homemade and NOT Spicy Enchilada Sauce

Author: Lisa Marsh, WhatLisaCooks.comPrint Recipe

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Mild Enchilada Sauce

An easy recipe for a very mild enchilada sauce that the whole family will love.

ingredients:

• 1 quart of chicken broth
• 1 15.5 oz can of tomato sauce
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 3/4 cup flour
• 2 teaspoons garlic powder
• 2 teaspoons onion powder
• 4 teaspoons cumin
• 2 teaspoons paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
• salt, to taste

instructions:

If you know how to make gravy with a roux:

1. Basically, you’re making a simple gravy with a butter & flour roux, and chicken broth + tomato sauce for the liquid, and spices added for flavor. Add all the spices (except salt) at the beginning with the butter and flour, so they toast a bit and get more flavorful. Then whisk in the liquid as usual, and taste to adjust seasoning.

If you don’t know how to make gravy:

1. Put the butter, flour and all the spices except the salt in a medium stock pot over medium heat. Stir until the butter is all melted and you have a well blended paste.
2. Once the butter and flour are well combined, slowly add your broth, whisking the whole time to avoid lumps.
3. Then add the tomato sauce.
4. Let it all simmer for about 10-15 minutes, not boiling, stirring frequently.
5. Taste as you go and decide whether you think you like the flavor, or you want more garlic, or more chili powder, etc. I hold off on the salt until I have everything else combined, because the saltiness of any particular batch of chicken broth or tomato sauce can really vary.  So get it all mixed up and then add salt if you feel like it needs it. 

Notes:

1. This recipe is very flexible.  The spice quantities are just a guideline and you should totally play with the amounts.  If you actually want to make this spicy, add a little cayenne pepper, or a bunch more chili powder.
2. You can also make this without the tomato sauce, I’ve had it that way and it’s great too - like an enchilada spiced gravy.
3. This freezes great.  This recipe makes more than you’ll need for one recipe of enchiladas. Set aside half and freeze for next time. 
4. Use vegetable broth to make a vegetarian sauce.
5. Make it gluten free by using gluten free flour.

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