cheesy chicken and veggie enchilada skillet
enchilada time!
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Someone messaged me this past week and said, “I make the al pastor enchiladas once a week, but I’m too lazy to roll them so I just smoosh the tortillas down into the skillet, cover everything with cheese, and bake it!”
That is some serious What To Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking ingenuity, people. Think about it — when you serve enchiladas, they totally fall apart. You don’t end up eating a perfectly rolled enchilada anyway. So why not just smoosh the tortillas in there and serve it more like a casserole situation?
So I tried it out. My first test used rotisserie chicken and, while I loved it, shredding the cooked chicken actually took longer than just cooking ground chicken, so I used ground chicken for my second run, added a lot more vegetables, and… dang! This is delicious. (But if you don’t mind a few extra minutes and would rather have whole pieces of chicken versus ground — check the notes, of course!)
This recipe is as easy as it comes. We sauté veggies and ground chicken, stir in some diced chilis and enchilada sauce, then throw in the tortillas, which we’ve cut into strips to make things easier to serve and eat. Top it off with shredded cheese, bake for 20 minutes, and there we go: enchiladas (kinda) in about 30 minutes!
how to style ugly food
Last week with the roasted harissa chicken and sweet potato bowls, we talked about the importance of how we plate our food. We eat with our eyes, so don’t give up at the end and slop the food onto the plate! (Or, ya know, if it makes your life easier and you had a day, you can totally slop the food on the plate.)
When it comes out of the oven, this skillet looks, eh, pretty ugly. But that’s nothing a bit of garnishing can’t fix! Throw some sprigs of cilantro, a dollop of sour cream, and some sliced avocado on top and bam — suddenly it’s food magazine-cover worthy!
halve it!
This recipe makes a BIG OLE skillet full of enchiladas, so plan to have leftovers (they’re good for up to 5 days). If you don’t need that much food, you can halve the entire recipe — just use a 10 instead of 12-inch skillet. Since using half of a zucchini and bell pepper is annoying, just pick one and use the entire can of black beans. And buy a 15-ounce jar of enchilada sauce!
cheesy chicken and veggie enchilada skillet
Serves 4 to 6
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