Cheesy Salsa Verde Chicken Enchiladas Recipe

Enchiladas are usually a treat saved for a special night out to a Mexican restaurant. Making these tasty rolls of goodness can often be time-consuming and labor intensive. Luckily, if you are willing to break away from true authenticity a bit, you can end up with something delicious, comforting, and not too complicated to churn out on a weeknight.

Recipe developer Taylor Murray says, "this recipe uses flour tortillas, even though many people think the best type for enchiladas is corn. While flour tortillas do soak up more of the sauce, that can be a good thing that leads to gooey, tender bites of enchilada stuffed with chicken and cheese. Higher quality tortillas will be the secret to prevent cracking, as well as warming the tortillas before working with them."

If you're not a salsa verde fan, this recipe can easily be swapped with a homemade red enchilada sauce.

Grab all the ingredients for your enchiladas. Start with a few cups of shredded chicken; a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store is your easiest option. The chicken gets tossed with shredded Chihuahua-style white cheese or Monterey Jack cheese and sliced green onions. You'll also need some tortillas. "I went with flour," says Murray, adding, "I like how a good quality flour tortilla melts into the sauce and cheese. Corn will also work just fine." Go for tortillas roughly 6 to 8 inches in diameter. If the tortillas are too long for your baking dish, just turn them diagonally as we did.

For the enchilada sauce, you'll need poblano and jalapeño peppers, tomatillos, a white or yellow onion, garlic, limes, and cilantro. The final dish gets topped with sour cream, marinated sliced red onion, and a few extra sprigs of cilantro.

Before doing anything, thinly slice that red onion and marinate it in a bit of lime juice. With that set aside, go ahead and place the vegetables under the broiler until browned and tender. The skin on the onion and garlic helps to protect them from getting too charred. The peppers, however should get as much char as possible as it makes the skins easier to scrape off (and adds to the flavor). If you don't have a broiler, you could also roast the vegetables over the open flame of a gas burner, turning often with tongs.

In a large bowl combine the chicken, half the cheese, and the green onion. This is a great opportunity to introduce other elements, if you have a mind for it. Instead of green onion, try charred spring onion. You could also add some extra chopped roasted peppers for more spice.

Once the broiled vegetables are cooled and peeled, add them to a blender. Add the whole bunch of cilantro (stems and all) and blend until smooth. Set aside.

Fill your dish with some of the sauce and dip a tortilla in, making sure to coat both sides. This recipe skips the step of frying the tortilla in oil first, which does change the texture but isn't strictly required. "Because this recipe uses flour tortillas," says Murray, "the tortilla and chicken/cheese filling ends up kind of melting together in a really delicious way." If you want to be more traditional, you could make this same recipe with corn tortillas and dip them in hot oil before filling. 

Once your tortillas are coated in sauce, fill them with about 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture then roll, making sure the seam faces down. The amount of chicken will depend on the size of your tortillas, but the rolled tortilla should be about as thick as a roll of quarters. Repeat with all the remaining tortillas (or as many as will fit).

Top the enchiladas with any remaining sauce and remaining cheese. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes or until the top is golden brown and bubbly. You could also broil this dish to finish it, just be cautious with the cheese in the broiler!

Thin the sour cream with a little bit of water to more closely resemble Mexican crema. Drizzle over the baked enchiladas and top with the marinated red onion and some sprigs of cilantro. Eat and enjoy while hot!