Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce
Every layer of these delicious Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce is packed with flavor!
Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce
Corn tortillas filled with flavorful shredded chicken breast, homemade enchilada sauce and two different cheeses, man your going to love this!
As I said at the top of this post, every layer of this recipe has flavor. To start with, your not going to use just cooked shredded chicken breast. Your going to use chicken breast cooked in broth with spices. If your a busy momma or daddy and like to prep ahead for weeknight meals, cook the chicken the night before . Shred it and refrigerate it to use the next day. If you’re looking for a super fast dinner, you could always use a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket.
Making the homemade enchilada sauce is as easy as making a homemade gravy and again, can be made a day ahead and stored in the refrigerator. You start the enchilada sauce by whisking and cooking the flour and oil together like a roux. After it’s boiled and cooked a couple of minutes, add the spices and whisk to combine. The chicken broth is added to the pan and simmered until the mixture slightly thickens. Think of it as Mexican gravy. A rich delicious combination of flavors you can make right at home.
The last flavorful layer but certainly not the least is the cheese. Melting shredded Monterey Jack and Cheddar Cheese covers the top of this delicious dish and it’s enough to make your mouth water just looking at it. The combinations of flavors in this recipe are fantastic. But the best part is, with a little planning ahead if need be, you don’t have to wait for the weekend to make Chicken Enchiladas with Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce, you can have it tonight and ENJOY!
PIN IT FOR LATER!
Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 2 whole chicken breasts, uncooked
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 Teaspoon garlic powder
- one 10 ounce can diced tomatoes
- 1 medium onion , diced
- 12 corn tortillas
- 2 cups grated Cheddar cheese
- 2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce
- 2 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 2 Tablespoons flour
- 4 Tablespoons chili powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon garlic powder
- 1/2 Teaspoon salt
- 1/2 Teaspoon cumin
- 1/4 Teaspoon onion powder
- 1/4 Teaspoon cayene pepper
- 2 cups chicken broth
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees.Place the diced onion, tomatoes, garlic powder, chicken broth and the whole chicken breasts in a large saucepan. Simmer for 30 minutes until the chicken breasts are tender enough to easily shred. Let the mixture cool. Remove the chicken breasts and shred, discard the remaining ingredients in the pot. . Spread 1/2 cup of enchilada sauce onto the bottom of a 13x9 inch baking pan. Spread about a 1/2 Teaspoon enchilada sauce onto the middle of each of 12 corn tortillas. Place 1 Tablespoon of shredded chicken on top of the enchilada sauce followed by a sprinkling of both cheeses. Roll the corn tortilla up and place in the 13x9 inch baking pan. Repeat for the remaining 11 tortillas. Top the rolled enchiladas with the remaining enchilada sauce and both shredded cheeses. Bake at 400 degrees, uncovered for about 20 minutes or until bubbly.Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce directions:Place the flour and oil in a medium size saucepan under medium heat. Whisk and cook the mixture until it starts to boil, then boil another minute or two to remove the flour taste. Whisk in the seasonings until well blended. While still whisking, add the chicken broth to the pan, reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 10 minutes or until slightly thickened.
Video
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Thank you Bunny for this recipe! Super easy and delicious. Loved the sauce. For the chicken, I saved what was left and separated the onions and tomatoes from the liquid and made Spanish rice with it.
Love that idea!
My husband says “OMG, these are next level $h!t”. That pretty much sums it up. AMAZING!!!
The recipe is great but I found the red sauce to be way too spicy using the chilli powder that I had available. I made the sauce 3 different times – once as written (tons of kick in the sauce that overpowered the dish), once with 2 T chilli powder and 1/2 the cayenne, then one time with the 1 T chilli powder, 1 T ancho chilli powder and no cayenne. It was perfect! I live in Germany and the spices are different so I recommend scaling back if your chilli powder has any heat. I love spicy but it just felt like too much. Also I used the left over chicken juice on top of the 2 pans of enchiladas because I didn’t have enough of sauce to wet all the tortillas. It was great. I can’t get monterrey jack here so I used gouda and it was excellent. Also upped the oven temp slightly and covered for the first 15 mins.
Definitely enjoyed the recipe with these modifications to fit our situation and palettes!
So glad you found the perfect balance of what works for you! This is my favorite thing about cooking at home, you can vary it how you like!
While I was cooking some chicken I saw your recipe for the homemade sauce and just had to make it right then! I make my own corn tortillas and used them. The enchiladas came out awesome! I was nervous about using so much chili powder as I don’t like spicy food, but it was perfect! I also am marveling how the sauce is made without any tomato as my former go-to sauce is made with packaged spices that you add tomato paste and water. I am definitely going to make this again!
PS: Saw your bread bowl recipe, too, which looks like another great recipe to try!
I made these tonight and they were a huge hit! I used these tortillas from Trader Joe’s that are combined Wheat/Corn, which makes them a little bit bigger and thicker. They got sooo soft in the oven and held up great even though I stuffed them pretty full! I agree with others in that the leftover onions/tomatoes from cooking the chicken are delicious as filling in the enchiladas. I also added corn and black beans to each of them. I’m 8 months pregnant and not really tolerating spicy foods too well so I only put 4 tsp chili powder and no cayenne in the sauce- everyone still loved it. Thank you for such a stellar recipe- we are adding it to our monthly rotation!
So glad you enjoyed it! I feel like chicken enchiladas is a great thing to have in rotation as a family, and using homemade enchilada sauce means you get to vary it for your liking! Early congratulations!
This recipe was a BIG HIT with my family. I only used 2 1/2 tablespoons of the red chilli powder since my family is picky about spicy food. This recipe is a keeper!
That is awesome- it’s a miracle when the whole family agrees, isn’t it?! LOL!
Made this for Cinco de Mayo & it was truly amazing.
Tasted as authentic as any restaurant & having spent
8 vacations in Mexico, it truly rivaled the best restaurants.
Only change is I added pulverized black beans.
Hi Elle! Happy belated Cinco de Mayo! I’m so glad you liked it. I try to keep chicken enchiladas with Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce as authentic as possible so that is great to hear. I love hearing how people vary the recipe too, thanks!
Yes yes yessssss!!!
Cannot recommend this recipe enough. I was extremely impressed. I’m still telling all my friends about it! Only thing I would recommend is doubling the sauce, it was really yummy, but we had to add extra because it wasn’t quite enough.
Thank you for your kind words and comments! I try to make recipes that can be varied to your liking, I am glad you were able to make it work for you!
Not Impressed
If you’re going to make a rude comment, such as the one that you chose to leave, then it would only be polite if you could do Bunny (who so graciously took her time and effort to provide this incredible recipe for us), as well as ANYONE else reading your nasty comment, the justice of providing at least SOME KIND OF INSIGHT REGARDING YOUR “less than impressed” opinion of this particular dish.
Especially considering the fact that you seem to be the only one who “hasn’t” enjoyed it up to this point, maybe you would like to share what it was that “just didn’t impress you”.
In any case, your comment was unnecessary and most definitely uncalled for. With that being said, why don’t we all work hard to observe the Golden Rule on a more frequent basis and remember, “If we can’t say anything nice, let us just say nothing at all”… I know, it is a difficult one to remember and follow, but kindness makes such a huge impact on others and it truly spreads like wildfire, wouldn’t you rather be responsible for a whole lot of happiness, instead of a whole lot of hurt feelings and people feeling like less of a person than they should be? It’s your choice, but there are already far too many negative, nasty, rude, mean people out there who are spreading hate & unhappiness, why don’t you try to be one of the few who work to change that…
Delicious! My husband and son said these were better than restaurant enchiladas. I thought they were excellent too! And really not difficult. Will definitely be making these again!
So glad you enjoyed them! It’s hard to go back once you do homemade versions!
Too much extra work.
I suppose they would be if you are accustomed to frozen dinners?
This recipe was a huge success! I made it for 8 so I used a 14.5/11 nonstick pan and doubled the recipe! It was just the perfect amount and the pan was licked clean. I wanted to top with cilantro but it had gone bad but we used avocado instead and it was amazing. 10/10!!!
Oohhhhhh, avocado! Amazing! Glad you enjoyed the chicken enchiladas!
First time for me trying to make any kind of enchiladas. This came out really good and I am picky about how chicken enchiladas taste. Will be using this from now on.
Thank you for sharing, so glad to hear they came out the way you wanted!
They were alright 🤷♀️ not the best, not the worst
Nicole figure out what you think you would like to add to the recipe and make it your own. That’s the beauty of recipes, they’re adjustable.
Hey, my family enjoyed these enchiladas, with a bit of tweaking on my part. Tossing out the liquid we cook the chicken in seemed wasteful. I actually cooked 5 breasts so I saved the stewing liquid and used it for a base in chicken tortilla soup. Delicious!
WONDERFUL Tina! We all have different tastes Honey, tweaking the recipe to make it the way your family will like it is absolutely expected. Thank you for taking the time to come back and comment, I appreciate it.
Delicious and easy to make. I saved the broth from boiling the chicken and used it for the enchilada sauce after draining out the tomatoes and onions. I think next time I think I’ll use it without draining it. His will become a regular. We loved it.
Wonderful Fran, and great idea to use the broth Honey!
Is this recipe keto friendly??
Not if I’m understanding the Keto Diet sweetie. You can’t have grains of any kind which would include the tortillas. The keto diet doesn’t allow anything make with flour.
This is an easy, authentic enchilada recipe! I invite everyone who loves Mexican food to try it. Top with a little sour cream!
THANK YOU Lauren!
Seriously the best!!! I like to throw the chicken ingredients in the slow cooker in the morning and then strain it and reuse the liquid for the enchilada sauce. Yum!
Oh I bet the sauce was wonderful using the crockpot liquid!! I’m going to try that Sarah, thank you for coming back to tell us how you made the sauce, it sounds delicious!