Crispy Chicken Flautas Recipe

Flautas, taquitos, and enchiladas are all popular Mexican dishes that involve filled, rolled tortillas. Typically the first two are deep-fried, with taquitos usually being made from corn tortillas and flautas from flour ones. While enchiladas are also made with rolled flour tortillas, they are baked instead of fried. As the flautas in this recipe are also oven-baked, what, then, keeps them from being enchiladas? A recipe developer Cecilia Ryu explains, "Enchiladas are also rolled and baked, but are always covered in a sauce."

The lack of sauce here is what keeps these chicken flautas crispy despite the fact that they're not fried. Ryu does note, though, that "the crispiness varies depending on the brand of flour tortillas used." As she explains, "Thicker flour tortillas will make them less crispy," so you're going to want to look for a thinner variety. She also advises that "it's important not to overcrowd the pan when baking to avoid them from steaming." Despite these caveats, she calls this dish "an amazing potluck recipe or appetizer or after-school snack."

The primary ingredient in this flauta filling is pre-cooked chicken — "You can use shredded rotisserie chicken," says Ryu, but you can, of course, also use leftover chicken that you've cooked yourself. The rest of the filling is made from onions, garlic, canned green chiles, frozen corn, salsa, cream cheese, and shredded cheese, plus chili powder and cayenne for seasoning. You'll also need butter for cooking, oil for greasing, and small (6-inch) flour tortillas to roll everything up in.

While Ryu uses a Mexican shredded cheese blend in her filling, she does say that you can shred your own block of cheddar if you prefer. You might also wish to use pepper jack or a mixture of the two cheeses.

Preheat the oven to 400 F. As it heats, melt the butter over medium heat, then sauté the onion for about 5 minutes until it is soft and appears translucent. Add the garlic and cook everything for another minute. Combine the cooked garlic and onion with the chicken, cheeses, chiles, corn, salsa, and seasonings.

At this point, it's time to prep the pan. Take a large baking sheet and find a wire rack that fits inside it. You can also line the baking sheet with foil. Ryu says she likes to line the pan with foil to make her cleanup easier, but if you don't want to waste the foil, she says "You can definitely skip [lining the pan] and do some extra scrubbing." Brush the rack with the oil — you could also squirt it with cooking spray if you prefer. This step, Ryu tells us, is meant to prevent the flautas from sticking.

Once the pan is prepped, take each tortilla, spread about 2 tablespoons of chicken filling in the middle, then roll it up tightly. Put it on the rack with the seam facing down. Repeat until all of the tortillas are filled and rolled.

Bake the flautas for 20 minutes. Once they're done, they should be brown and the filling nice and hot. In fact, what with the melted cheese, you should probably wait a few minutes before biting into one. Ryu says of this dish, "I like to serve it with guacamole, pico de gallo and/or sour cream," but admits, "It tastes great without it."

Any leftovers you have can be refrigerated or frozen. In fact, if you like, you can even prepare the flautas in advance, then refrigerate them overnight and bake them when you need them.