Healthy chicken enchilada casserole is quick and easy to make. Featuring homemade enchilada sauce and fresh chicken, it is done in 60 minutes.
This casserole will fit a healthy diet like a low-calorie or low-fat diet or even a low-carb keto diet. With less than 200 calories and 5 grams of fat per serving, it is also relatively low in carbohydrates for a low-carb/keto diet.
🐓Ingredients
Chicken—raw breasts or rotisserie chicken
Tomato sauce
Corn tortillas
Cheese—Shredded Mexican blend or cheddar cheese.
Pantry ingredients—chili powder, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt, black pepper
Optional add-ins—corn, black beans, green chiles, or whatever you want
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Featured Comments
Donna: "Wow! This was amazing. We love the sauce."
Leslie: "I have made this before really good and easy, 5-star recipe."
This delicious healthy enchilada casserole recipe has a great Homemade Enchilada Sauce, tender chicken, and cheese. Everybody will love this layered casserole that is super easy to assemble.
It's much easier to make and less messy than rolled enchilada casseroles. It has an easy homemade enchilada sauce that is much better than the canned alternative. You can use raw chicken cooked in the sauce or rotisserie chicken to speed things up.
👨🍳How to make Healthy Chicken Enchilada Casserole—Step-by-Step
1. Preheat the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
2. Trim two skinless boneless chicken breasts and cut them into three pieces each. These vary a lot in size. Aim for about 1 ½ pounds, but anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds total should be fine.
3. In a medium saucepan, mix one 15 oz. can of tomato sauce, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon onion powder, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper. Add the chicken and bring to a boil over medium-high heat—cover and decrease to simmer until the chicken is 165°—about 20 minutes.
4. Remove to cutting board and shred. Divide into three equal piles.
5. Prep an approximately 9X6 baking pan with PAM. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the sauce over the bottom of the baking pan—layer two 6-inch corn tortillas over the sauce.
6. Add ⅓ of the chicken. Then ⅓ of the sauce (about ⅔ cup). Then ⅔ cup shredded cheese. Repeat this layering twice more.
7. Bake until a golden brown top - about 20 minutes.
For more details, keep reading. See the Recipe Card below for complete instructions and to print.
Other Tex-Mex and Low-Fat Recipes to Try
Try some other easy Tex-Mex recipes. Start with this excellent Taco Casserole, then move on to Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas or classic rolled ChickenEnchiladaCasserole. Check out a few crock pot recipes with Chicken Enchilada Casserole, Southwest ChickenCasserole, or Fiesta Chicken.
For some great full-flavor low-fat recipes, try Healthier Carrot Cake, Healthier Low-Fat Sausage Gravy and Biscuits, or make some Low-Fat Homemade Dog Treats.
🐓How to Use Rotisserie Chicken
You can use precooked chicken. If you're aiming for low calories, use chicken breasts. You need about 3 cups, which will be approximately 1 ½ pounds.
For the precooked chicken, you only need to simmer the sauce for about 10 minutes before assembly. The nutrition will change since all the rotisserie chicken is not breast meat.
How to serve
Top with the usual Tex-Mex condiments. Common are chopped tomatoes, sliced green onions, sour cream, sliced black olives, shredded lettuce, or cilantro.
Side dishes of refried beans, Mexican Rice, or tortilla chips with salsa are excellent compliments.
❄️Storage
Good refrigerated for 3-4 days. It should also freeze well when sealed well for 3-4 months.
❓FAQs
You can use canned enchilada sauce, but you will suffer significantly in taste. This recipe uses my Homemade Enchilada Sauce, which is as easy as it is tasty.
If you use canned sauce and raw chicken, use it for cooking the chicken like the recipe. If you use it with rotisserie chicken, start at assembly.
Some tortillas seem to get soggier than others in a casserole. If you find this is a problem, you can briefly fry the tortillas for a few seconds in hot oil on each side. This works for both flour and corn tortillas—but it will add a bit of oil and change the nutrition.
Yes, it should be with the corn tortillas. But like everything, read all the labels of anything you use.
🖊️Nutrition notes
- Corn tortillas will save about 2.5 grams of fat and 40 calories per serving.
- Lower-fat cheese saves about 4 gms of fat and 40 calories per serving. But please do not use non-fat cheese, which will not melt the same.
- The complete nutrition summary is in the recipe card.
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📖 Recipe
Healthy Chicken Enchilada Casserole—Easy and Quick
Ingredients
- 2 skinless boneless chicken breasts
- 15 oz tomato sauce
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 6 corn tortillas - 6 inch
- 2 cups cheese - Lower fat suggested
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
- Trim two skinless boneless chicken breasts and cut them into three pieces each. These vary a lot in size. Aim for about 1 ½ pounds, but anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds total should be fine.
- In a medium saucepan, mix one 15 oz. can of tomato sauce, 1 tablespoon chili powder, 1 teaspoon paprika, 1 teaspoon onion powder, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon cumin, 1 teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper. Add the chicken and bring to a boil over medium-high heat—cover and decrease to simmer until the chicken is 165°—about 20 minutes.
- Remove to cutting board and shred. Divide into three equal piles.
- Prep an approximately 9X6 baking pan with PAM. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the sauce over the bottom of the baking pan—layer two 6-inch corn tortillas over the sauce.
- Add ⅓ of the chicken. Then ⅓ of the sauce (about ⅔ cup). Then ⅔ cup shredded cheese. Repeat this layering twice more.
- Bake until a golden brown top - about 20 minutes.
Your Own Private Notes
Recipe Notes
Pro Tips
- Easy to double in size using a standard large casserole dish or cake pan.
- You need anywhere from 1-2 pounds of chicken, depending on how much meat you want.
- I call for fresh skinless boneless chicken breasts, but thighs will work.
- You can use precooked chicken. You will need about 3 cups. Don’t add it to the sauce, and cut the simmering of the sauce down to 10 minutes.
- You could use canned sauce, but please don’t do that.
- You can add some drained cooked beans, corn, or green chiles.
- You can use flour tortillas if you want, but this will increase the fat and calories slightly. Also, it will no longer be gluten-free.
- Use a lower-fat version of cheddar or Mexican blend shredded cheese.
- Will be good refrigerated for 3-4 days or frozen for 3-4 months.
To adjust the recipe size:
You may adjust the number of servings in this recipe card under servings. This does the math for the ingredients for you. BUT it does NOT adjust the text of the instructions. So you need to do that yourself.
Nutrition Estimate
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The inspiration by Easy Chicken Enchilada Casserole from Jo Cooks. I adapted the recipe to my tastes and made it a little healthier at the same time.
Originally Published February 3, 2015. Updated with expanded options, refreshed photos, and a table of contents to help navigation.
Susan
Delish! Thank you! I kept to the basic recipe (but increased the amounts/servings lots). The homemade enchilada sauce got big raves.