Easy Chicken Enchiladas

These easy chicken enchiladas are a great hearty option for a dinner menu.

It goes perfectly with a salad and some chips and salsa, and they have been a recent enjoyment of mine.

I make enchiladas with hamburger meat all the time but have slowly lost interest in them.

My mom however made some chicken enchiladas a short while ago and I have been craving it ever since.

So I decided to make my own version and see what I could come up with out of the ingredients in my kitchen and I must say, it worked out very well.

My husband and I ate the whole pan within three days so I am officially putting it on my dinner planning schedule.

 

If you would like to try some of my other recipes you can take a look at my Avocado hole in the middle recipe as another meal or my Peanut Butter Chocolate Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies as a dessert.

 

Tips

This recipe has instructions for cooking the chicken in an crock pot.

This does not mean that you have to cook the chicken in the same way.

If you have already cooked chicken, you can just add that to the recipe and follow the rest of the steps.

Or you can cook the chicken however you would like and then add it in at the correct time.

Just know that the process I have written here helps the chicken cook for a long time with the peppers and green chiles.

So the longer you cook the chicken with the other ingredients will give you a deeper flavor.

This can be a rather spicy dish.

So if a lot of spice is not the goal, then the chipotle peppers can be left out.

Please take note that in the above picture, there is not a lot of cheese on the top of the enchiladas.

Please put as much cheese as you would like and don’t follow the amount in the picture unless you would like to.

Because of my dairy allergy, I have to buy a particular type of cheese and it just so happens to be expensive enough for me to not want to put a whole block of it on my enchiladas. So I have learned to eat it without the cheese, but I am sure this recipe would taste even better with a lot more cheese.

 

 

Easy Chicken Enchiladas Instructions

Cooking the Chicken

Begin by plugging in the crock pot and pour in the following:

1. the can of diced tomato’s and green chilies
2. the can of chipotle peppers

Please note that the picture below does not have the chipotle peppers in it.

I apparently forgot to take a picture of it included.

So please just take my word for it and know that I did add them.

 

Next, add a few shakes of salt and pepper and one or two tbsp of minced garlic.

 

 

Mix it all together and then add the chicken breast.

Mix everything together again and make sure the chicken breasts are coated in the sauce.

 

Put the lid on and turn on the crock pot to medium heat.

Cook for several hours or until the chicken is cooked.

I cooked mine on medium heat for six hours but generally chicken is completely cooked after about ten to twenty minutes in an instant pot.

It mostly just depends on how much chicken is being cooked.

If you want the flavor to be stronger, I highly recommend letting it cook slowly for several hours.

 

Preparing the enchiladas

Preheat the oven to 350 and take out the casserole pan.

There are two options for the next step:

1. If you are planning on serving the enchiladas shortly after making them, I would recommend using a pan on the stove top at low or medium heat to shred and mix the ingredients.
2. If you are serving the dish later in the day or at a different time and can cook it in the oven for a bit longer, then i would just use a bowl so that you don’t have to worry about stirring the pan every once in a while.

Take your bowl or pan and put your chicken and the chipotle peppers (if you don’t want then to be large chunks) in and shred them using two forks or whatever utensil is comfortable for you.

 

Once everything is shredded, add the rest of the tomato’s, green chiles, and peppers to the bowl.

Add the can of black beans and mix everything together.

 

First, lets dip each tortilla into the enchilada sauce by pouring a can of the sauce into a smaller bowl.

Immerse the tortillas into the sauce to saturate it entirely.

Place the tortillas on the bottom of the pan to cover the entire pan.

It would also work to spoon the sauce onto the tortillas.

Though this may not cover as much of the tortilla so the dish might be a little more dry.

 

Spoon a layer of the chicken and bean mix and spread it out evenly.

 

This is a good time to sprinkle a bit of cheese if you would like to.

Repeat the process of a layer of tortillas and then chicken until there is enough layers to fill the pan.

Make sure the top layer is tortillas.

 

Finishing up

Pour as much of the left over enchilada sauce and leftover juice from the chicken as you would like over the top layer.

 

Cover again with cheese and place the pan into the oven.

We want to serve the casserole hot and with the cheese melted, so leave it in the oven until then.

Don’t worry, it should only take between ten to twenty minutes in the oven.

Once melted and steaming, remove from the oven, cut and enjoy!