Spicy Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Casserole

I love enchiladas, and I really love chicken enchiladas. Of course I have always made them individually rolled up in homemade flour tortillas with enchilada sauce and shredded cheese put over top, but then I thought, why not layer it and make it a casserole?

Homemade flour tortillas

Traditional enchiladas

Well I did that and this is the result. You actually get more pieces using less chicken this way, or so that was my result. 

Recipe

Ingredients
2 cups chicken broth
2 lbs boneless, skinless chicken breasts
A few pickled jalapeno peppers (more or less to taste)
1 medium onion, chopped
½ cup milk
1 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend
4 oz cream cheese
1 cup  Enchilada sauce
4 - 9" homemade flour tortillas
½ cup shredded sharp cheddar cheese

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Put chicken broth in a large saucepan and bring to a boil. Add chicken, reduce heat and simmer 15 minutes or until chicken is done.

Remove chicken from cooking liquid and set 1 cup of cooking liquid aside for later use. Let chicken cool. Once cooled, shred chicken with two forks and set aside.

In the same skillet used to cook the chicken (with the 1 cup leftover cooking liquid), heat the pickled jalapenos and onion over medium-high heat. Cook for about 3 minutes or until onion is getting soft.

Add milk and cream cheese, stirring until cream cheese is melted. Add shredded Mexican cheese blend and stir until cheese is melted. Stir in enchilada sauce and shredded chicken and mix well.

In 9 x 13-inch baking dish, lightly coated with nonstick cooking spay, place 2 tortillas, side by side (slightly overlapping). Top with half of your chicken mixture. Repeat with two more tortillas and the other half of your chicken mixture. Top the last layer with sharp cheddar cheese.

Cover with foil and bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake for an additional 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated.

Let stand for 5 minutes before serving. Serve with sliced black olives, sliced pickled jalapenos, diced tomatoes and sour cream if desired.

Check out Chicken Zucchini Enchiladas from Sumptuous Spoonfuls and many more Mexican dishes from our blogger friends. Simply click the links.

Enjoy,
Mary


© Cooking with Mary and Friends. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cooking with Mary and Friends with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Tomato Sauce Canning Made Easy!

Simple Marinara Sauce

I have been canning a variety of tomato products for many years. When I first made tomato sauce I cooked them down some in a stock pot and used a food mill to process the tomatoes to remove the skin and seeds.

Food Mill

Later I graduated to the fruit and vegetable strainer attachment for my Kitchen Aid to process the tomatoes, and it does a great job straining out the skin and seeds, but the resulting "sauce" is thin and needs to cook down several hours to thicken for use as tomato sauce, pizza sauce, enchilada sauce, a base for salsa, and more.

Vegetable and Fruit Strainer attachment

Recently, in a conversation with my daughter, she told me a friend had mentioned their grandmother used to just roast the tomatoes, then mash or blend them for sauce. 

At first I was a bit skeptical ... it didn't seem like that would work very well, but I tried this "new to me" technique, and it puts all of the above methods on the back burner! Yep, seriously, what I found out is it's so simple it's crazy, and the resulting products are crazy good! Really good!

Roma Tomatoes

Are you ready? Roast the tomatoes, then cool slightly to slip off skins, and toss the tomatoes in a blender and process until smooth. That's it ... it's that easy. No more cooking down and processing in a food mill or fruit and vegetable strainer for me! A real benefit to me is you SAVE TIME, oodles of time, which is a precious thing when you have a lot of product to process, or other things to do. When you roast the tomatoes the natural sugars in the tomatoes become more concentrated/caramelized which offsets that potential sourness of the seeds and skins. It's AWESOME!!!

Note - Save the skins and turn them into tomato powder. 

Roma Tomatoes split in half and ready to roast

Roasting Tomatoes

Tomato Sauce

Now I am sure there are many, many great preservers out there who will read this and say "where has she been all these years" and I'll say "I know, right?"  Of course the "old ways" are many times the best way, and so long as you follow today's SAFE canning methods you will have a winner-winner on your hands for your family to enjoy!

Pizza Sauce, Marinara Sauce and Enchilada Sauce

Pizza Sauce

RECIPES

Tomato Sauce

Ingredients
9 lbs. fresh, ripe tomatoes
Bottled lemon juice or citric acid

Method
Preheat oven to 425. Wash tomatoes well in a vinegar bath. Cut in half and place in a large, deep roasting pan, over-lapping as necessary. Roast in oven 30-45 minutes, or until tomatoes and soft and skins blistering, stirring occasionally to prevent them from burning.

Remove from oven, let cool slightly so you can slip  off skins, and ladle into a blender, a little bit at a time, and blend until smooth. Repeat until all tomatoes are blended.

**Reserve the liquid from the tomatoes that will be in the roasting pan after roasting to use later to "thin down" your sauces if desired. 

Pour sauce into a large stock pot and cook sauce over med-high heat until sauce thickens more, stirring to prevent sticking. This should only take about 30-60 minutes, depending on how thick you want  your sauce.

Remove from heat and process sauce one more time in blender to make smooth.

**Add 1 tbls. bottled lemon juice or 1/4 tsp citric acid to each pint jar, 2 tbls. bottled lemon juice or 1/2 tsp citric acid per quart jar, leaving 1/2-inch head-space.

Ladle hot tomato sauce into canning jars. Process half-pints and pints 35 minutes, quarts 40 minutes, in a boiling water bath or steam canner.

Yield:  varies depending on how many tomatoes you have
.

Tomato Sauce

Marinara Sauce
Add to Tomato Sauce:
1 large onion, diced
1 tbls. Oregano
3-4 tsp. minced garlic
1 tbls. Italian seasoning
salt and black pepper, to taste
2 teaspoons citric acid OR 1/2 cup / 4 oz bottled lemon juice 
Cook on stove top and adjust seasonings to taste as cooking, and cooking down to desired thickness. Finish Marinara Sauce by following directions above.

Pizza Sauce
5 cups fresh tomato sauce
1 small onion, minced
3-4 tsp. minced garlic
1 tsp. course-ground black pepper
1/2 tbls. sugar
1/2 tbls. parsley
1 tbls. oregano
1/2 tbls. Italian seasoning
1 tsp. salt
2 teaspoons citric acid OR 1/2 cup / 4 oz bottled lemon juice 
Cook on stove top and adjust seasonings to taste as cooking, and cooking down to desired thickness. Finish Pizza Sauce by following directions above.

Enchilada Sauce
5 cups fresh tomato sauce
3 chili peppers (jalapenos, poblanos, long green chilis)
1 small onion, minced
3-4 tsp. minced garlic
1 tbls. chili powder
2-4  tsp. ground cumin
2-4  tsp. Mexican oregano
1/2 cup vinegar (I used white distilled vinegar)
2 teaspoons citric acid OR 1/2 cup / 4 oz bottled lemon juice 
Roast chili's and onion until tender. Place in the blender with a little tomato sauce (about 1 cup) and blend until smooth. 

Add this mixture to the remaining tomato sauce and cook on stove top, adjusting seasonings to taste as cooking, and cooking down to desired thickness. Finish Enchilada Sauce by following directions above.

Enjoy,

Mary

© Cooking with Mary and Friends. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cooking with Mary and Friends with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 

Chicken Enchilada Soup

Updated August 2020

To me nothing says comfort food like a piping hot bowl of soup. Delicious, slightly spicy and warming, this Chicken Enchilada Soup is comfort food in a bowl.

Easy to make, a little "feisty" with some herbs and spices, and simple ingredients found in most well-stocked kitchens.

RECIPE

Ingredients
2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into 3 or 4 strips each, then cut into cubes
2 tbls. olive oil
4 cups chicken stock
1 cup milk
1 onion, diced
1 - 10 oz. can enchilada sauce
1 - 14.5 oz. can petite diced tomatoes, drained
1 - 14.5 oz. can niblet corn, drained
2-3 tsp. chili powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. course-ground black pepper
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. cilantro or oregano
shredded cheddar cheese to sprinkle on top
*optional - diced bell peppers, black beans

Method
Place oil in a large saucepan; add onion and saute' over med-high heat until onion is getting soft. Add cubed chicken and continue cooking until chicken is cooked through.

Add all other ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer 30 minutes.

Serve while hot with shredded cheddar cheese sprinkled on top.

Tortilla Chips - make your own with a flour tortilla. Brush some olive oil onto the tortilla, and cut the tortilla in half and each half into half again. Cut each quarter into triangle strips. Place strips on a baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and bake in a 325 degree oven 8 minutes or until crispy. Serve tortilla chips with the soup.

Enjoy,
Mary

© Cooking with Mary and Friends. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Cooking with Mary and Friends with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.