Easy enchiladas: Putting Old El Paso recipe to the test
A can of Old El Paso red enchilada sauce intrigued me with its Easy Beef Enchiladas recipe. Listing four ingredients and three steps supports the recipe’s “easy” claim.
The No Budget Cooking Series is a big fan of easy, but it takes more than reading a recipe to judge its merits. To that end I’m adapting PolitiFact’s Truth-O-Meter to hold Old El Paso’s accountable.
Welcome to RecipeFact TruthSayer: a test and rating of recipe claims to be easy, quick, delicious, etc. (”Biscuits on fire” will be used for the most egregious falsehoods.) Let’s just see how easy it is to make these beef enchiladas.
Insights
Playing to the tastes of the HigginsEats family, I chose the mild version of the enchilada sauce. It delivered as advertised. A teeny kick of heat with equally mild enchilada sauce flavor. Despite being short on tortillas and cheese, the enchiladas turned out fine and earned the coveted “make these again” request.
It’s a good bet that nobody from Wisconsin would write a recipe that splits one pound of hamburger 10 ways. I filled only eight tortillas because a family member snagged two of the tortillas before I tested this recipe. I had no beef with the amount of beef in each enchilada, and even if I’d made 10 I suspect it would have been just as satisfying.
If you make 10, roll them tight so they all fit in the baking dish.
I was about a 1⁄2 ounce short on the cheese. I used mild cheddar because that’s what I had on hand, though a Mexican blend would be a nice touch.
Frying the beef, mixing in sauce and cheese, scooping into tortillas and baking are all steps that fully qualify for “easy” status. Achieving equal(ish) portions of filling in each enchilada is the biggest challenge, but that problem is solved by using a large serving spoon to dole out one scoop per tortilla.
Making these enchiladas wasn’t just easy, it was barely an inconvenience when compared to prepping, cleanup and storing of shredded lettuce, sliced black olives, diced tomatoes and other typical taco toppings.
RecipeFact TruthSayer says: Old El
Paso’s claim of Easy Beef Enchiladas is true.
Dan Higgins tests recipes found on food packages in his very average kitchen with moderately above average cooking talent and meh presentation skills. Contact him at dphiggin@gannett.com. Follow @HigginsEats on Twitter and Instagram and like on Facebook.