These easy chicken enchiladas are a great meal for busy weeknights that the whole family will love.
Ingredients for the EASIEST chicken enchiladas
- Chicken - Rotisserie chicken is the easiest choice but baked chicken, poached chicken, or any other cooked chicken should work well for this. If I plan ahead I like to put a batch of chicken breasts in the slow cooker and top with salsa for this recipe.
- Veggies - I use diced onion and green pepper in the filling. Black beans are great too. If you like a little spice seeded and diced jalapeno is a good addition.
- Sauce - This recipe calls for canned enchilada sauce. I prefer the red sauce but you can use the green sauce for this as well. If you have a bit more time you can make a quick homemade sauce too.
- Tortillas - Corn tortillas are the traditional choice but my family prefers flour tortillas in our enchiladas. The flour tortillas get soft and gooey when baked with the sauce and they're a bit easier to work with.
- Cheese - For this recipe I go with store bought Mexican shredded cheese. Shredding your own will give you a better melt but we're going for easy here!
How to make chicken enchiladas
Once you have your ingredients the process is really simple. Just cook your vegetables then add in the chicken and spices and about ⅓ cup of the sauce to create the filling.
I recommend covering the tortillas with a paper towel and heating them in the microwave for about 20 seconds to soften then up. Then, start filling your tortillas with the chicken filling and around 1 Tbsp of cheese, roll them up, and put them into a baking dish with about ⅔ cup of sauce in the bottom of the dish.
When you have all of your tortillas filled and in the dish, top with the remaining sauce and cheese then cover with foil and bake.
After around 20 minutes remove the foil and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly.
Make ahead directions
If making ahead, prepare the enchiladas then cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to 1 day. When ready to bake, remove the plastic wrap and cover the dish with foil and bake.
Freezing directions
These also freeze really well. Whenever I make them I usually make a double batch and freeze the extras in foil pans. For freezing cover tightly with plastic wrap then cover with foil and freeze for up to 3 months. When ready to bake add around 10-15 minutes to the baking time.
Other Weeknight Dinner Ideas
- Lemon Dill Salmon
- Chicken Marsala
- Oven Baked Chicken Tenders
- Lemon Garlic Chicken and Potatoes
- Vegetable Lo Mein
- Fettuccine Alfredo
Easy Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 3 c shredded chicken
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup onion diced
- ½ cup green pepper diced
- 1 tbsp garlic minced
- 1 tsp paprika
- ½ tsp cumin
- ¼ tsp onion powder
- ¼ tsp garlic powder
- 2 cans enchilada sauce divided
- 2 cups shredded cheese divided
- ¼ cup cilantro chopped
- 10-12 tortillas
Instructions
- Add oil to pan and saute the onion and green pepper over medium heat until onion is translucent (approx 5 min).
- Add garlic and cook for around 30 seconds until fragrant
- Add chicken, paprika, cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, and ⅓ cup of enchilada sauce and stir to combine, remove from heat
- Pour ⅔ cup of enchilada sauce in baking dish
- Fill tortillas with chicken filling and approx 1 T of shredded cheese, roll and place seam side down in baking dish. Continue with remaining tortillas
- Top with remaining enchilada sauce, then remaining shredded cheese
- Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes then remove foil and bake for another 5-10 minutes until cheese is melted sauce is bubbling
* All nutrition information we provide are estimates based on third party calculators. We encourage you to calculate these on your own for accurate results.
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