Easy chicken enchilada casserole features homemade enchilada sauce, fresh chicken, plus it is done in 60 minutes. That equals a great Mexican recipe for a healthy dinner "from scratch.” No pre-cooked chicken or canned enchilada sauce is needed.
Introduction
So, are you bored with your New Year's diet yet? I'm here to rescue you from boredom at only 300 calories per serving.
We all love good Mexican, but it can be evil on the health-o-meter. But it doesn't have to be. By using lower fat cheese, corn tortillas, and well-trimmed chicken, this recipe comes in at about 276 calories and 8 grams of fat per serving.
My wife will give me hints about what to cook next. Mild hint requires looking at her Pinterest posts. Strong hints I will refer to as "Yum-o-grams," which are emails starting with the Y-U-M phrase.
The best yum-o-grams will have a link to a blog I usually read anyways. This one linked to Jo Cooks, a blog I have enjoyed. Similar recipes have been around the blogs, and all use canned enchilada sauce. I much prefer my homemade enchilada sauce. So I adapted the recipe to my tastes and made it a little healthier at the same time.
I usually make enchiladas with a rolled method. Much fussier and messier. This is so much easier.
My Rating
A 5 from my wife. I was between a four and a five, but I'm good with the 5. She even said she might make it herself, so you know it's good.
📋Ingredients
Chicken
I suggest using fresh skinless boneless chicken breast for this recipe. I then trim and simmer the chicken in the homemade sauce until 165°. Shred, and you are ready to proceed with your chicken and sauce, both ready to use.
You can also use chicken thighs, but that destroys the "low fat" part of the recipe.
You can use precooked chicken. If you're aiming for low calorie, obviously use chicken breasts. You need about 3 cups, which will be about 1 ½ pounds. If you do the precooked chicken, you only need to simmer the sauce for about 10 minutes before assembly.
Sauce
Most similar recipes will suggest canned enchilada sauce - that is disgusting. We are going to make our own with my Homemade Enchilada Sauce, which is as easy as it is tasty.
One huge positive is that you can cook the chicken in the simmering sauce. I do love a recipe that flows.
If you insist, you can use the canned sauce, but please don't do that.
Cheese
I suggest using lower fat Mexican blend cheese. The lower fat cheese saves about 4 gms of fat per serving, so about 36 calories. That is not a huge amount, but I was aiming for low fat here.
So, use the cheese you want, non-low-fat is fine. I never suggest fat-free cheese. It never acts right in cooking.
✔️Tips
Tortillas: I suggest corn tortillas, but flour is fine.
Add-ins: corn, black beans, or whatever you want.
Storage: Good refrigerated for 3-4 days. It should also freeze well when sealed well for 3-4 months.
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This recipe is listed in these categories. See them for more similar recipes.
🖼️Step-by-Step Photo Instructions
Start by preheating the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
Trim two skinless boneless chicken breast and cut into three pieces each. These vary a lot in size. Aim for about 1 ½ pound, but anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds total should be fine.
In a medium saucepan, add one 15 oz. can tomato sauce, one tablespoon chili powder, one teaspoon paprika, one teaspoon onion powder, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon cumin, one teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper. Mix well. Add the chicken and bring to boil over medium-high heat—cover and decrease to simmer for 20 minutes.
Check the temperature of the chicken to be sure it is 165° or more. Remove to cutting board and shred. Divide into three equal piles.
Prep an approximately 10X7 baking pan with PAM. Spoon two tablespoons of the sauce over the bottom of the baking pan—layer two 6 inch corn tortillas over the sauce.
Add ⅓ of chicken. Then ⅓ of the sauce (about ⅔ cup). Then ⅔ cup cheese. Repeat this layering twice more.
Bake until a golden brown top - about 20 minutes.
📝Full Recipe
Easy Chicken Enchilada Casserole in 60 Minutes
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
- Start by preheating the oven to 350° convection or 375° conventional.
- Trim two skinless boneless chicken breast and cut into three pieces each. These vary a lot in size. Aim for about 1 ½ pound, but anywhere from 1 to 2 pounds total should be fine.
- In a medium saucepan, add one 15 oz. can tomato sauce, one tablespoon chili powder, one teaspoon paprika, one teaspoon onion powder, ½ teaspoon garlic powder, ½ teaspoon cumin, one teaspoon salt, ½ teaspoon pepper. Mix well. Add the chicken and bring to boil over medium-high heat—cover and decrease to simmer for 20 minutes.
- Check the temperature of the chicken to be sure it is 165° or more. Remove to cutting board and shred. Divide into three equal piles.
- Prep an approximately 6X9 baking pan with PAM. Spoon two tablespoons of the sauce over the bottom of the baking pan—layer two 6 inch corn tortillas over the sauce.
- Add ⅓ of chicken. Then ⅓ of the sauce (about ⅔ cup). Then ⅔ cup cheese. Repeat this layering twice more.
- Bake until a golden brown top - about 20 minutes.
My 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 or corn.
- You can use flour tortillas if you want
- Use cheese of your choice.
- 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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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.
Karen
Hi Dr. Dan -- looking forward to trying this recipe. I want to make the homemade enchilada sauce and see this is double the size can of tomato sauce. I assume you would only use half in the recipe as it is -- would that be correct?
Dan Mikesell AKA DrDan
Hi Karen,
Welcome to the blog. The sauce in this recipe is a half version of the full enchilada sauce recipe. But due to some testing, I felt the chicken was taking up some of the spices, so you will see it is not exact, just very close with the spices kicked up a bit. But either would do just fine.
I have used that sauce recipe for about 20 years. It from a paperback book I got in southern CA that is for everyday Mexican cooking - not us gringos. It is in both English and Spanish. Only about 40 pages but covers the basic recipes with out being fancy. A wonderful $10 book.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Charisma
Dr Dan, this is the third of your recipes I’ve made, and every one has been incredible.
To be fair: I already have a general chicken enchilada recipe I enjoy, but never had an approach for the chicken I found just right, often resorteding to store-bought rotisseries or frozen, pre-cooked garbage.
The chicken preparation you’ve got herein could not be more flavorful, tender, or juicy. It really is, like everything else, just incredible (and still simple!).
Thank you for what you do.
DrDan
Hi Charisma,
Welcome to the blog.
This is one of my favorite recipes. I think because I love the sauce and it does double duty in this recipe. A braised chicken like this is always good.
Glad you liked it and thanks for the note.
Dan
Donna
Wow! This was amazing. We love the sauce. We added some black beans, corn and peppers to the chicken layer. We also made our own corn tortillas. We recently got a tortilla press, and wanted to try it. This is definitely one to make again. Thanks for sharing this recipe.
Donna
I totally appreciated this recipe! Made/Assembled the casserole this afternoon and popped it in the oven at 5:00. This was hubby approved by his “you can make this again” comment. DrDan comes through again! I think I’m 4:4 make-again recipes. Now to get my main dishes on next week’s calendar for weekly grocery store trip.
DrDan
Hi Donna,
You have again picked one of my favorites. The reward to work ratio is great for this one. The homemade enchilada sauce just makes this dish. Most people I know double this one for leftovers.
I have some friends who are "cooking the book". Meaning they find a recipe book they love and cook every recipe in it. You seem to be heading down the "cook the blog" path. I warn you, I'm coming up on 500 recipes soon.
I'm so glad you are enjoying the blog and please let me know if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.
Dan
Lori Raborn Gibson
I made this last night and it turned out amazing. I'm new to cooking, my husband is a great cook and has done all the cooking for the past 30 years. He loved how this turned out. I love the cooking for two concept. I only had 1lb of chicken and I used home grown tomatoes that I pureed last most. It still turned out great. So glad you reposted this recipe.
DrDan
Hi Lori,
This is still one of the recipes that I love. It just was so logical and worked so well
Thanks for the note.
Dan
marms
I have no idea when it comes to Mexican food. I don't even try but once ate something called green sauce? Tomatilloes? It was fantastic. Now if you could give us a recipe for that I'd do it. I saw them in the grocers this week, but really so expensive I have to have a guaranteed recipe to chance it.
Got one for us?
DrDan
Hi Marms,
I have never really used tomatillos to any great extent. I have had some excellent green salsa at restaurants and they are used in other sauces. Maybe I will experiment some with them this summer if they appear at my local farmer markets. They start this weekend. They never look good at my local store.
Dan
Kim
This was absolutely awesome. I did only use four tortillas because I like a lot of sauce, and it was also great left over. I was skeptical if it would have enough flavor, but it was amazing. Kind of reminded me of those Amy's enchilada bowls but they are vegetarian, but this is better. Thanks for the wonderful recipe.
DrDan
Hi Kim,
I do love this recipe.
Thanks for the note.
Dan
Amanda
I'm a native Texan, and my husband is from Maine. It took him living in El Paso for 2 years to give real Mexican food a try (e.g., not Taco Bell), and that's mostly because I made cheese enchiladas from scratch one night and said eat it. :) It's been on the monthly-ish rotation ever since, but I saw your recipe and had to try it.
My husband loved it!!!! He agreed with you, the recipe is a 5 rating. When I informed him a 5 means "I could live on this," he didn't change his answer! I agree with the 5 too, even though I was initially skeptical about the sauce (it's just not the way I was taught). It was VERY good and easy to whip up. Thanks for a keeper!!
DrDan
Hi Amanda,
Thanks for the note. Feel free to do your enchilada sauce but this is my standard sauce and cooking the chicken in it while simmering just made sense.
Dan
Cheryl Mckenney
Gonna give this a try. Can I use chicken in a can? Or would that not come out the same?
Katie
I made these last night and they were delicious! The sauce was absolutely amazing and so easy to make. I will never again buy premade enchilada sauce which, honestly, I don't really care for anyway. My husband gave this rave reviews and said he liked the sauce even more than the enchilada sauce at most mexican restaurants. This is definitely a keeper and will be on our menu frequently.
DrDan
Hi Katie,
I do love this sauce. It is a modification of a sauce from a recipe book that I found in California. Just a little paperback bi-lingual book but almost everything is a winner in it.
Dan