A cheesy pan of chicken enchiladas verdes with a tangy tomatillo green sauce can be on your dinner table in 30 minutes. Plenty of time for a margarita!
I love all things Mexican food, especially enchiladas. There’s something about the cheesy sauciness of it that appeals to my inner fat kid, which is becoming suspiciously outer these days. Seriously though, enchiladas aren’t terribly unhealthy. Made with corn tortillas, lean white meat chicken, a fresh and fat free green sauce and topped with a modest amount of cheese they’re quite healthy even if you eat four or five. Not that I’ve done that. {shifty loss of eye contact}
It’s more the five baskets of chips and pitcher of margs at my favorite restaurant that push these into special occasion land. Luckily they’re super easy to make at home and you can have authentico Enchiladas Verdes on the table in no time. The ultimate short cut is the Magic Chicken you have in the fridge just waiting to be transformed into an ooey gooey pan of enchilada deliciousness.
Put a stack of corn tortillas on a plate, cover with another plate and microwave for 20-30 seconds. This makes them warm and pliable so that you can easily roll them up instead of having them be dry and fall apart.
Of course it will taste the same in the end so do what you gotta do!
The tomatillo, onion and jalapeno are charred under the broiler for an extra punch of flavor but you can totally skip that. Salsa verde is made several ways including charred, boiled or served raw and all are delish they’re just a little different. So feel free to skip the charring if you want to get straight to it.
And if you want to fill these Enchiladas Verdes with extra cheese and stir a half cup of sour cream into the salsa verde before pouring it over the enchiladas, who am I to tell you to hold back?
Side Dish Recommendations: rice with some cilantro and lime stirred in, black beans with some cumin stirred in, refried beans, Tommy’s Fiesta Quinoa in the freezer section, Spanish rice, cooked veggies sprinkled with Mrs. Dash Fiesta Lime seasoning
Drink: MARGARITAS, beer, michelada, chelada, mojito if you want to get crazy and mix countries
There Jennifer how’s that for side dish recommendations and pairings?!
Chicken Enchiladas Verdes
Ingredients
- 2 cooked chicken breasts shredded - about three cups
- 8 corn tortillas or fajita size flour tortillas
- 2 cups shredded jack cheddar or whatever you like
- Optional: sour cream cilantro for serving
Salsa Verde- 6 to matillos paper husk removed and washed thoroughly
- 1 white onion peeled and quartered or 1 cup frozen diced
- 1 jalapeno – use ¼ for mild more for spicy
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup cilantro leaves with stems
- 1 tablespoon lime juice – about 1 lime
Optional: 1/2 cup sour cream or plain greek yogurt to make creamy enchiladas verdes
Instructions
- Move oven rack to top position and turn broiler on high.
- Line baking sheet with a piece of aluminum foil.
- Cut tomatillos in half horizontally and put cut side down on lined baking sheet with onion and however much jalapeno you want to use.
- Broil for 8-10 minutes flipping when first side is starting to char. The cut sides will be very wet and will not char as well so make sure to get it good on the first side.
- While veggies char, spray a 8x12 baking pan with nonstick spray.
- Roll up chicken in tortillas and line them up in baking pan.
- When veggies are nice and charred, put them and remaining salsa ingredients into the bowl of a food processor, blender, food chopper or a deep bowl to use an immersion blender with and pulse until completely combined and finely chopped scraping down sides as necessary. It should almost be a puree.
- Pour over enchiladas and top with cheese.
- Bake until hot about 20 minutes.
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