Saturday, January 10, 2009

Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

I love these because they're so easily adaptable. I made them Thanksgiving weekend when we were all tired of the standard holiday dinner leftovers, and we had a whole bunch of my husband's family over. I made three pans of them ahead of time and tweaked each one to be a little different in spiciness and added stuff. Everybody liked them and kept commenting on how they couldn't believe they were gluten free. People tend to think that every single thing that is gluten free is going to be foreign and weird. Not so. Eating at home is pretty easy and tasty most of the time.

I started with this recipe from Allrecipes, but it doesn't end up being exactly like that in my kitchen, so here's what I do.

The basic filling:
  • 2 cups cubed, cooked chicken meat
  • 1/4 cup chopped onion
  • 1 cup shredded Cheddar cheese
  • 3/4 cup sour cream
If the kids are going to eat it, sometimes I stop with this. Usually I add more though, since that filling doesn't resemble actual Mexican food at all. It's good with some taco seasoning or cumin added in, or some Rotel, or my favorite, Homemade Gourmet Taco Soup mix. I've also added tomatoes, green chilies, extra cheese, whatever my little heart fancies. That's the beauty of an enchilada. No two are the same and they're really hard to mess up.

If you want them to be gluten free, use corn tortillas. I think the white corn ones taste better. If not, feel free to use flour if you like those best, although I'm told that enchilada purists demand corn, because it's a burrito if you use flour? I'm unclear on that. Anyway, get some tortillas and wrap those puppies up. The recipe calls for 8, but I almost always get at least 10 out of one batch of filling.

Sauce:
  • 3 cups shredded cheese
  • 1/4 cup sour cream
That's all it called for, and I have trouble obtaining my desired consistency, so I usually end up adding some chicken broth or more sour cream or half and half or whatever I have in the fridge.

Pour that over, and then add fun toppings. Tomatoes and sliced black olives are my favorite, but you can get creative and put whatever. Jalapenos, for those of you with spicier, non-wurss palates than mine? Sky's the limit there.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 350 and devour.

These are good to make ahead and refrigerate or freeze for later too.

4 comments:

Kate said...

Those are so good! You made them with flour tortillas the last time I had them at your house (it's been a while) and I usually prefer those, but I bet that corn is even better--for the taste and the texture.

Kate said...

You know, for those of us lucky enough to be able to choose which type of tortillas to use.

shoeaddict said...

So the sauce is just sour cream and cheese?

Blue likes soft tacos (instead of hard) when I make that so, I think he'd eat this too. I'm excited to add something else to my menu.

Thank you!

mamashine said...

Yes, the sauce is just sour cream and cheese! I was happy when I found this recipe because the one I was using had cream of chicken soup in it, which is all gluteny and forbidden now.

I took some pictures, but they're terrible. Maybe I'll update the post with them anyway though.