Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Chicken enchilada casserole is a wonderful dish of chicken and vegetable-stuffed flour tortillas baked in the most delicious cheesy cream sauce that gets valleys of gooey cheese and tips of toasty crisp tortilla edges. A real crowd pleaser.

Casseroles have a bad rap.  And rightly so if the spokesmodel for the category is that tan viscous, flaccid-noodled, hot tuna dish with potato chip topping.  Oh, the inhumanity.  I know people love the stuff.  I, however, am of the other camp.  Just entering Lent, I have had my share of flashbacks to Fridays when chances were at least a few of them would feature tuna casserole in Mom’s go-to red Pyrex bowl with gold embellishments. 

Lipstick that pig all you want, the stuff was horrid.  No offense to Bunny, generally an awesome cook (discounting the liver and onions fiasco of my youth and her wayward foray into lima beans; bletch).  The upside was that I would always consider eating the casserole as my Lenten penance for the day, freeing up whatever chocolate was around for guilt-free consumption.

Upon further consideration of that humble one-dish wonder the casserole, what at first I remembered to be the only one that was ever served in our house while I was growing up, was, in fact, one of many.  Lasagna is a casserole.  Baked ziti is a casserole.  Two of my favorites. A casserole is any combination of foods baked together in a deep dish (thank you Marriam Webster!).  Too many processed-food-laden combos of the past (red-labeled soup company, ahem) have given this humble yet tasty and easy to prepare category of food and its 9×13 Pyrex vessel an undeserved bad reputation. 

Fresh, tasty ingredients and a happily stumbled upon recipe in the good old checkered Better Homes and Gardens NEW Cookbook lo these several decades ago have reminded me that casseroles are a great addition to my repertoire and yours.  Prep it ahead, heat and/or reheat it, and even freeze it in their container for later baking (no thawing necessary).  You can feed a crowd without a lot of stress or money; add a salad and dessert and voila, instant dinner party.

Enjoy!  I am off to send a very necessary, I’m sure, peace offering to a certain baker of canned tuna.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole in 16 paragraphs and 8 pics …

I start by poaching the chicken with carrots, celery, onions and peppercorns.  I remove the chicken while it’s still tender and juicy (about 40 minutes), get all the meat off the bones and return the carcass and any extraneous fleshy stuff to the pot for an hour or so to make my broth/stock. 

You can just as easily use a store-bought rotisserie chicken and boxed stock (low-sodium) for this enchilada casserole.  I’ve done that plenty of times.  The additional bonus when making your own is that you’ve got plenty of stock/broth left to freeze for other uses.

Chop the onions and peppers and sauté in butter until softened but not browned.

Meanwhile, chop the chicken into about 1/2 inch cubes.  Don’t mince, it’ll get an unpleasant texture during baking… sort of like hot tuna.  Ha!  Put the chicken into a large mixing bowl and add the chopped green chilies.  This is a canned product; however, if you’ve got your own, go for it.  You need to roast and skin them first (hence my use of canned).

There should still be enough time to shred the cheese and have it ready for the sauce which is the next step.  You can use pre-shredded, of course.  Pre-shredded cheese generally has an anti-clumping agent added to it and – to me – doesn’t get the same gooey factor (which I love) that freshly shredded does.

Once the vegetables have softened, add them to the chicken and green chilies in the bowl.

Melt the butter in the same pan the vegetables softened in (once they’ve been removed, of course).  No need to clean the pan. Add the flour, cumin and salt.

You may briefly think you’ve done something wrong because it clumps up and looks like something you’d avert your eyes from if you saw it on the sidewalk.  Stick with it.  Once all of the dry ingredients and butter are incorporated, slowly add the chicken broth.  Nope, still not going to look terrific but stick with it, stirring gently until it bubbles for about two minutes.

Tada!  Smooth and lovely.  Give it a few more minutes. Now turn off the heat.

Stir in the sour cream and 2/3 of the shredded cheese and stir until smooth.

Add one cup of the sauce to the chicken and vegetables and mix in.  Spoon another 1/2 cup to a greased (I use cooking spray) 9×13 casserole pan and spread to cover the bottom lightly.

Now for the fun part!  Fill each tortilla with about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of filling, just enough to go side to side without any falling out (you’ll find out what that means the first time you try to over-stuff one).

Roll somewhere between loose and tight; not being difficult just roll so nothing falls out but not so tightly that the sauce that’s coming can’t soak in. It’s really not rocket science. It’ll turn out wonderfully.  During the baking, the tortillas will soften and the cheese will melt.  If you roll these too tightly, you’ll get an unpleasantly dense texture; sort of like the stuffing cooked inside a bird.  If that’s your thing, of course, rock on.

Put the enchiladas into the pan as you assemble them; if you run out of room, skootch them together to make room for more.  You’ll get 8 to 10 depending on how full you make them.  If you end up with filling but no tortillas, just tuck the extra filling around the sides of the rolled tortillas.  Or just consider it a cook’s treat and enjoy.  That’s my go-to solution.

Ladle the remaining sauce over the casserole and smooth to cover the top and into the crevices. It will come to the top of the casserole but will ebb a bit as it soaks in and makes nicey-nice with the tortillas.

Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese over the top.

Chicken enchilada casserole is a wonderful dish of chicken and vegetable-stuffed flour tortillas baked in the most delicious cheesy cream sauce that gets valleys of gooey cheese and tips of toasty crisp tortilla edges. A real crowd pleaser.

Bake until just gold brown on top.  And for the love of all that is holy, let it rest at least 20 minutes.  Otherwise, you’ll have kids still complaining a week later that the bumps on the roofs of their mouths have not gone away.  Protect the babies! 

A side note, I personally love when the top gets much browner and crunchy.  However, if you don’t eat it right away, that which is overly browned and crunchy takes on an almost concrete-like texture.  I call it brûléed and eat it anyway but others are not such fans.  You can always pop an individual piece under the broiler and get the same result.  Cook’s treat again!

Chicken enchilada casserole is a wonderful dish of chicken and vegetable-stuffed flour tortillas baked in the most delicious cheesy cream sauce that gets valleys of gooey cheese and tips of toasty crisp tortilla edges. A real crowd pleaser.

Chicken enchilada casserole really is a great dish for company; make-ahead, feeds a crowd, and you just need a salad and dessert to make everyone happy.  Almost better (though having company trumps all), leftovers freeze and reheat wonderfully.  Felices comiendo!