The BEST EVER Enchiladas
Hands down, this is the BEST EVER Enchilada recipe. I’m totally serious! Make them, you’ll see. They can be made with chicken, beef, or pork!
It’s Flashback Friday, y’all! Â That time of the week where I re-share a recipe from the archives here on the Mrs. Â This week, I’ve gone back to October of 2012 to talk about my favorite enchiladas. Â And not just any enchiladas either! Â These are the BEST EVER Enchiladas!! Seriously. Â At least, that’s what everyone who’s ever tried them claims. Â And I have to agree – no other ones even come close. Â So, give them a try – you’ll see!
I created this recipe some years ago, and they are my favorite enchiladas by far. And, I’m not alone in that group. Â Everyone that has ever came to my house & had these have raved about how delicious they are. Â This is also my brother in law’s favorite meal – ever. Â Each time he comes to visit us, he calls several times before he is scheduled to arrive just to remind me to get the ingredients to make it.
The most beautiful thing about this dish is the meat inside. Â It’s my Mexican Style Meat, and if you’ve been following along with me for a while, then you know that I use this meat for a wide variety of dishes. Â While these enchiladas are my number 1 thing to make with it, you’ve got to check out the original post on the meat for more craveable ideas to use it in. Â I usually make up a large batch of it & divvy it out for several different meals. Â It freezes beautifully so I love to put some back for future use.
You really can’t get much simpler than these. Â The Mexican style meat cooks in the crockpot & you can choose whether you want to have beef or chicken. Â In the pictures, I’ve used beef – but I use chicken just as much as I use beef. Â Whatever is on sale at the time is what I use, and it’s equally good with either one. Â With the exception of the cheese – it’s the only filling for these.
The sauce is super simple too. Â Of course, you can buy the store-bought enchilada sauce if you’re really in a pinch for time – but like with anything else, homemade is so much tastier.
I’ve noticed that in so many recipes, they only put cheese on top of the enchiladas and rarely ever inside of them. Â I don’t get that. Â Don’t you people love cheese? Â I know I do. Â I crave cheese. Â When I go to the fancy restaurants & the waiter comes around with the fresh cheese grater, I often get funny looks as I don’t tell them ‘when’ until I’ve literally got a cheese mountain sitting on top of my food.
You definitely don’t have to worry about any lack of cheese here. Â There is cheese inside as well as on the top. Â I mean, look at the pictures & see for yourself.
Have I mentioned that I love cheese?
You must not wait any longer to make these. Â You’ve got to inhale try them. You’re life will not be complete until you have a plate of these before you.
Click here for the recipe for the Crockpot Mexican Style Meat to fill these with.
The BEST EVER Enchiladas
Ingredients
- For the enchiladas:
- 1 recipe Mexican Style Meat printable recipe below this recipe
- 3-3.5 cups shredded Pepper Jack or Mont. Jack cheese
- 10-12 flour tortillas burrito size
- For the enchilada sauce:
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- ½ cup minced onions
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 3 8oz cans tomato sauce
- 2 4oz cans chopped green chiles
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 1 tablespoon ground cumin
- a few splashes of hot sauce to taste optional
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
- For the enchilada sauce:
- Heat the olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the onions until soft & translucent. Add the garlic & saute for 1 minute. Stir in the tomato sauce, green chiles, chili powder, cumin, & hot sauce (if using). Cook on medium/low heat for 10 minutes, stirring often.
- For the enchiladas:
- Pour a little bit of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 pan, just enough to cover the bottom. Lay out the flour tortillas & spoon in a few heaping spoonfuls of the Mexican Style Meat. Then spoon in a couple heaping spoonfuls of shredded cheese, to your liking. Roll like a burrito & place in the baking dish. Repeat until all the tortillas are used.
- Cover completely with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese on top. Bake, uncovered, for 25-30 minutes.
Mexican Style Meat
Ingredients
- 4 pounds of beef pork, or chicken (cheap cuts of meat work well for this)
- good amount of salt & pepper to season meat with
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 large onion chopped
- 3 7oz diced green chile peppers, undrained
- 2 tablespoons chili powder
- 2 tablespoons ground cumin
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- 1 5 ounce bottle hot pepper sauce (I like Frank's hot sauce or Cholula)
- ¼ cup of water
Instructions
- Trim the meat of any excess fat, and season well with salt and pepper. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Place the meat in the hot skillet, and sear it quickly on all sides.
- Transfer the meat to a slow cooker and top it with the chopped onion. Season with chopped green chiles, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, & hot pepper sauce.
- Cover, and cook on low for 8 hours or until meat is tender & falling apart, checking to make sure there is always at least a small amount of liquid in the bottom of the cooker (add more liquid if need be).
- Transfer the meat to a bowl and shred it using two forks.
Printing!!!!!! Yum!!!!!!!!!
Made these again last night using your Mexican meat recipe, this time with chicken, and it was as good as the beef version. This is seriously one of my family’s new favorites. As a matter of fact, my husband’s first words after trying your version was “Rest in peace Cheryl’s old enchilada recipe” Wonderful!
Oh, I love it! I’m so thrilled to hear how much y’all like it! Thanks for coming back to share!
These were great! I used your meat recipe as well. So good! I’m going to use that meat recipe for all sorts of other meals as you suggested. We eat tacos once a week so I’m definitely going to use some of the meat for tacos too! I may sub corn tortillas next time just because that’s what I’m used to eating but these were really good! Thanks for the recipe!
I’m so glad you liked it! The Mexican Style Meat is one of my very favorite recipes ever, it’s so versatile! We just love it! 🙂
You should post the Mexican meat recipe with this recipe also.
Amy- it’s there! Just click where it says Mexican style meat and it will take you to the recipe.
https://www.mrshappyhomemaker.com/2012/10/mexican-style-meat-a-base-for-a-ton-of-meals/
Have you ever used corn tortillas?
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These are amazing!!! I have made them the past two times I had company over and they LOVED it!! I love that everything is HOMEMADE even the sauce. I did not change a single thing. The sauce was enough for me to make 2 trays.
I’m so glad you loved it!!
What brand of diced green chiles (7oz) do you use.?
I have never seen diced green chiles in a 7 oz can.
Me either!! HELP! Is it three 7oz cans or is it three cans that equal 7 oz?
I believe its three 7oz cans – just guessing by the amount of meat used one small can wouldn’t really provide that much flavor
I found 7oz can in the Meijer brand today.
This is a staple in my household forevermore! The homemade sauce is hands down the best I’ve had yet & your mexican meat recipe is equally outstanding! Thank you for a tantalizing recipe my whole family LOVES!!
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I’m making this tomorrow. Well, making the chicken today, and putting the enchiladas together tomorrow after work. Looking forward to it! I was surprised, the green chiles for this recipe actually cost more than the 4 lbs of chicken! Granted, I got a really good deal on the chicken, but the chiles were $1.29/7 oz can here in Mt Vernon, IL. Seems like they’re higher than the last time I’ve bought them. Anyway, still really looking forward to this and if we love it, I’ll have to keep my eyes out when the chiles go on sale so I can stock up. 😉
Yep, we ate these tonight and they’re certainly the best I’ve ever made. The meat is so tasty! I used chicken thighs, because they were on sale for $0.79/lb. Fantastic! So moist and flavorful.
Are these really spicy with the hot pepper sauce?
So authentic..and so worth the time to prepare! Big hit with my picky family, which includes a meat and potatoes hubby, 14 year old son, and a 86 year old mom! The only modification was that I used 3/4 of a bottle of hot sauce…but there’s was no extreme hotness to the dish. I also used a 4# chuck roast for the meat and it came out fork tender delicious!!
Made this for my family using beef and corn shells so it would be gluten free. Excellent. For DD who is not eating tomatoes I used Chicken Cheese Enchilada Soup for her sauce. I have five bags of meat in the freezer from using a 3.9 lb beef roast.
I have been waiting for a comment from someone who didn’t use all 4lbs of meat… How did you measure when you froze your extra? I had just under 4lbs of beef roast… Thank you!
Hello! I’m planning on making these for 18 people (several of those are young children).
Is the meat really spicy? And if I am going to double the recipe, do I need to double the meat, or do you have a lot left over?
Thanks for the amazing recipe!!! I found it on Pinterest and made them with chicken. This enchiladas are the real deal. I made them for my husbands potluck at work (and some extra ones for us) and everyone was asking him to bring them again for the next potluck they have. I wish I could post a picture of how beautiful they came out… And the smell!!! Will be making them again for sure!
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I am doing a blog series, “Pinterest Recipe Reviews” and reviewed these as one of the recipes. OMG! Fabulous. Here is the link to my rave review: http://lifewithdee.com/best-ever-enchiladas-pinterest-recipe-review/
I made these last night for a dinner party. AMAZING. So so good.
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Have you ever frozen the casserole (ready to be baked at a later time)?
If so, how did it do?
Using flour tortillas, can these be made a day ahead of time? I was hoping to just slip them into the oven tomorrow! Thanks for an awesome recipe!!
This has become my favorite beef filling recipe for enchiladas!! My family loves it. I have signed up for a seasoned shredded chicken filling for a teachers luncheon… Is this good with chicken as well?
What kind of meat did you use? looks like brisket?
Chuck roast!
I have some seasoned carne asada. Think that will work with this recipe?
Sure will.
Ahh..I really want to try your recipe but I don’t have a slow cooker/crock pot – how do you suggest I cook the beef/chicken for this dish?
Have my beef in the slow cooker now, and making enchilada sauce! Having these tonight!
I have my beef in the slow cooker right now and I am making the enchilada sauce to go with it! Yum I will be having this tonight
Pressure Cooker from frozen:
I was wanting to try this, but had no thawed meat in the house. I used 5 frozen chicken breasts, (the flash frozen ones from Sam’s), added the 1/2 cup of water suggested for cooking from frozen, and proceeded from there, adding all other ingredients listed for the Mexican beef recipe. I set my electric pressure cooker time to 25 minutes and it came out wonderful! There was a lot of liquid and I used that for the sauce since I had no more green chilis in the house to make the homemade enchilada sauce. It was a real crowd pleaser. This will go into my rotation. Thanks much for posting this. Fantastic! Next time, I’ll be sure to have all ingredients on hand and follow to the letter, but I cannot imagine these enchiladas tasting any better. I can’t wait! These HAVE to really be “The Best Shredded “Meat” Enchiladas Ever”. A real keeper!
I made these last night and I didn’t change a thing. The only trouble I had was putting too much meat inside each tortilla. I just can’t gage it! I did the same thing for the cheese and ran out. I also thought that the sauce from the meat was making the filling soupy so I started cutting down on the juices. For anyone wanting to make these, don’t worry about the juices! The tortillas soak them up and they aren’t a problem at all. I should never have worried about this being soupy. The next time I make this, I will assemble this as a lasagna style, layering everything so I can gage the amounts closer. You can easily get two 9×13 pans if you double everything except for the meat. It’s delicious! I used franks original hot sauce for the meat, the full five ounces, and didn’t add any to the sauce. It had some heat, but I didn’t think it was strong at all.
This was soooo good! Thanks for the recipe! I followed the directions- only difference was that I cooked my beef in the Instant Pot (took only 45 mins) and I only had a 2 lb chuck roast. But I found it was still plenty of meat to fill 10 tortillas. I lay all the tortillas out then divide the meat and cheese up equally among them. Â I will definitely be making them again!Â
Yay! I’m happy to hear that you loved it, Nicole. Thank you so much for taking the time to come back here and share with me!
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Made this last night. Easy Peasy and sooo good! I used boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cooked them on low in the crockpot for about 4-5hrs…I also froze the leftover meat for future use in tacos or nachos…This was so flavorful and easy! Thank you for the recipe!