Easy Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce are a perfect weeknight meal that can be made ahead or even stashed in the freezer for busy days. Flour tortillas are stuffed with fresh chicken and cilantro and covered in a flavorful tomato and chile sauce.
There are times in our lives when we come to realize just how much this “adulthood” thing really stinks. At this point in my life, I can almost smell Murphy’s law coming down the road. Anything that can happen, will happen, and at the worst possible moment. This has happened to us enough in our marriage that I try to be as prepared for it as possible. We always seem to get through these rough patches although I’m sure that we lose a little piece of our sanity every time it happens.
Thankfully, I work at a winery…so that helps.
This particular round of “when it rains it pours” started after we closed on our new house. I held tight to our money, knowing that Murphy could hear the sound of someone spending their life savings. And he did hear and now he has really overstayed his welcome. Since the middle of June our day-to-day lives have been like an unlucky turn of the Game of Life. We have bought a new house, paid for a neighbor’s dead prize-winning registered Nubian goat, paid to fix a vintage motorcycle that I may or may not have accidentally bumped with my car, ponied up handsomely for new shoes and backpacks for the kids, and scrounged around for enough money to have a chicken coop and a trampoline carted across town. As if this wasn’t enough, in the last week Murphy has decided what we really needed now was for my poor husband to have back surgery and be put on short-term disability for 6 weeks.
I really hate Murphy and his stupid law.
It’s times like this that I look for comfort and control wherever I can find it. I often find my solace in the kitchen where things usually turn out the way I intend and if they don’t, at least the dogs and chickens will eat it.
These Easy Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce are a staple in our house. They are filling and comforting and blessedly inexpensive to make. I used to make this recipe back in my catering days when I sold take out lunches from a fridge. I had tons of people rave about my Easy Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce and even more tell me that they would by more than one container and stick them in the freezer for a rainy day.
If you want to freeze these Easy Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce then fill them and bake them without the sauce, then cool completely and then pour the sauce over the tortillas before you wrap them in a foil baking dish and stash them in the freezer.
Feel free to swap out the meat in these Easy Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce too! Pulled pork, ground turkey or shredded beef would work great in here as well.
Ingredients
- 1 T vegetable oil
- 1 medium onion diced
- 1 jalapeno pepper seeded and diced
- 1 small can diced green chilies
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1 medium tomato diced
- 3 T chili powder
- 2 T cumin
- 2 T sugar
- 1 t . oregano
- 1 t . salt
- ½ t . pepper
- 1 quart tomato sauce
- 1 cup chicken broth
- ½ cup minced cilantro
- 4 split chicken breasts skin removed
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 10 inch soft flour 8- tortillas
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350. Line a 9 x 13 casserole dish with aluminum foil and spray with cooking spray, set aside.In a large saucepan, heat the vegetable oil over medium heat. Sauté onions, peppers, and green chilies for 5 minutes or until onions and peppers are softened. Add in garlic and tomato and sauté for another 2 minutes. Stir in the chili powder, cumin, sugar, oregano and salt and pepper and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato sauce and chicken stock and bring to a simmer. Submerge the chicken breasts into the sauce and poach for about 30 minutes or until the chicken reaches 165 degrees. Remove the chicken from the sauce and set aside to cool. When cool enough to handle, remove the chicken from bone and shred it with a fork.
- Boil the sauce for another 5 minutes to thicken. Set a fine mesh strainer over a bowl and pour the sauce through making sure to separate the solids from the sauce. Deposit the solids into a bowl with the shredded chicken. Stir in ½ cup of the enchilada sauce, cilantro, and half of the cheese. Divide the filling between the tortillas , roll up, and place seam side down in the prepared pan. Spray with cooking spray and bake in the oven for 5 minutes or until the edges of the tortillas start to brown. Then, pour the enchilada sauce over the tortillas (you probably will only need half of the sauce) and top with the remaining cheese. Return to the oven and bake until enchiladas are bubbly and cheese is melted.
- Serve and enjoy!
Leave a Reply