Quick and Easy Chicken Enchiladas Recipe

You wanted more recipes along with restaurant tips, you got ’em. (They just take a little more time to write but hopefully you’ll try this out and let us know what you think!) Thanks go to Chef Sanchez for sharing the now not-so-secret recipe for an Americanized version of chicken enchiladas.

The ingredients are simple – we got them all at Safeway:

1 fresh hot rotisserie chicken
1 pack of 30 or so tortillas – you’ll have some leftover
1 large can of Cream of Chicken soup
2 regular-sized cans of Cream of Asparagus soup
2 small cans of salsa verde (also known as tomatillo salsa or green chile sauce)
1 bag of shredded cheese, Mexican 4-cheese style
1 casserole dish
1 large mixing bowl
nonstick cooking spray

Serves 4-8 depending on appetite.
Total cost – about $20.
Time to prepare (if there’s 2 of you): About 20 minutes. 30-45 minutes to bake.

Steps:
Preheat oven to 400 F.
Spray the casserole dish with the nonstick spray.

1. Debone the chicken. Obviously this is quicker if you’ve got two people on this project (and you trust that person enough to not get grossed out by their hands ripping the chicken off of the bone). As you peel the meat off, try to separate it into bite-sized strips, about 2-3 inches long.

2. In the mixing bowl, combine the cans of soup with the salsa. Take a spatula or a whisk and do your best to mix in the glop. It will be a bit thick. (The asparagus is the secret ingredient that tones down the saltiness of the usual canned chicken soup flavor.)

3. Take the mixture and spread it as the first layer in the casserole dish. (I was surprised that the moist layer went first, instead of the next tortilla layer, but this works out really nicely.) Not too thick, not too thin!

4. Halve 6-10 tortillas to start with, and start layering them over the mixture. Halving them give you more flexibility to cover up as much surface area as possible. You don’t want to see the bottom of the casserole dish!

5. Spread more mixture on this first tortilla layer.

6. Now sprinkle on the chicken, make sure the corners are covered. Don’t skimp, but you don’t have to dump all the chicken on there yet. Remember, you’ve got a few layers to repeat.

7. Sprinkle the cheese on top of the chicken.

8. Repeat steps 4-7 until you reach the top of your dish! You should end with the cheese sprinkling – not with a layer of tortilla.

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Pull it out and check on it….has the cheese and the mixture softened to a creamy lovliness? If not, you can put it in for about 15 minutes more but obviously keep your eyes on it.

When the top is golden brown, take out of the oven and have it cool for about 5 minutes – it’ll be hot!

Serve soon after and see the look on people’s faces when they realize they’re eating something scrumptious! You’ve basically created a tortilla lasagne that tastes even better in leftover form. And for about $20, that’s pretty grub for such huge portions.