The Sauce Dipping Technique For Crispy Enchiladas

Homemade enchiladas can be a deliciously crispy, saucy, and cheesy weeknight dinner. But one of the caveats of cooking a dish involving a lot of sauce is that the tortillas can become soggy when the enchiladas are baked in the oven. However, there's a simple fix that can prevent your enchiladas from becoming a tortilla soup: dipping (rather than slathering) your tortillas in sauce.

This technique takes a note from the way enchiladas are sauced in Mexico. Before you assemble and bake your dish, take each tortilla and dip it in a little bit of the enchilada sauce so it covers the surface. Flip the tortilla so both sides are coated. Then, fill each tortilla with whatever stuffing you prefer and roll it up. After repeating with the remaining tortillas and topping with cheese, the enchiladas are ready for the oven to emerge creamy on the inside and crunchy on the outside, lightly bathed in sauce.

Even though enchilada means surrounded by chili sauce, lightly coating each tortilla rather than drowning it in sauce maintains the dish's structural integrity. Dipping tortillas beforehand, more evenly distributes it across the enchiladas, so you don't get pools of sauce that will sog out your enchiladas in the oven.

Traditional enchiladas made in Mexico don't necessarily resemble the Tex-Mex version found in America. Tex-Mex enchiladas are stuffed with meat and cheese, sauced with a gravy or chili sauce, topped with more cheese, and baked in the oven. Meanwhile, while there are regional variations, enchiladas in Mexico are typically corn tortillas that been lightly fried, filled, and dipped in sauce. They're rarely baked like the Tex-Mex version. 

The extra step in frying your tortillas prior to dipping them in sauce adds more flavor and will create a crunchy surface for the tortilla to take on more sauce before it falls apart. Also be sure to use corn tortillas over flour as these will help the enchiladas hold up when they're stuffed, rolled, and baked.