Easy, cheesy chicken enchilada
Enchiladas are one of the ultimate throw-together meals. Roll up meat or veggies in corn tortillas with some cheese, bathe the whole assemblage in sauce, add more cheese (always more cheese) on top, bake and eat.
It’s a great way to repurpose leftovers into a dish that doesn’t feel like an afterthought.
But I don’t always want to leave my enchilada enjoyment to chance. So I set out to find my ideal balance of cheese, sauce, spice and bright flavor. I also wanted to walk the line between making everything from scratch and making the dish relatively quickly and easily.
A homemade sauce is great, hands down. If you want to go that route, please do. For this effort, though, I conceded the point to store-bought: I rolled with Frontera from chef, restaurateur and cookbook author Rick Bayless — doctored with hot sauce and lime juice to taste, which really made it shine.
Store-bought sauce gets a major flavor upgrade when you poach the chicken in it, a tip I picked up from a different enchilada recipe from America’s Test Kitchen. The thighs cook in just 15 to 20 minutes, during which you can prep the other parts of the recipe, such as the grated cheese. The dominant cheese here is mellow, melty Monterey Jack. The filling includes cheddar for sharpness, along with cilantro.
Heating your tortillas in a skillet beforehand yields triple benefits: First, there was the toasted corn flavor. Second: They were easy to roll without splitting. Third: They were less susceptible to turning soggy.
Enchiladas
Serves 4to 6
INGREDIENTS
3cups homemade or store-bought enchilada sauce Hot sauce, to taste
Fresh lime juice, to taste
1pound boneless, skinless chicken thighs, excess fat trimmed
8 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, grated (2 cups) 4ounces sharp cheddar, grated (1cup)
½ cup cilantro, finely chopped, plus more for garnish 12 corn tortillas
DIRECTIONS
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish.
Pour the enchilada sauce into a medium saucepan. Taste it and stir in a little hot sauce and lime juice, as needed. Bring the sauce just to a boil over medium-high heat, then nestle the chicken thighs in the pot so they are mostly submerged. Reduce the heat to medium; partially cover and cook for 15to 20minutes, turning the thighs over halfway through, so the chicken cooks evenly. (Their internal temperature should register 165degrees on an instantread thermometer.) Remove from the heat.
Use tongs to transfer the chicken to a cutting board. When it’s cool enough to handle, use your fingers or two forks to shred the chicken, placing it in a mixing bowl as you work. Add half the Monterey Jack, all the cheddar and the cilantro, tossing until well incorporated. This is your enchilada filling.
Heat a nonstick skillet over medium heat. Lightly grease both sides of the tortillas with cooking oil spray (hold them over the sink for easy cleanup). Heat them in the skillet just long enough to make them pliable, 15 to 20 seconds per side, then transfer to the cutting board.
Place 1⁄3 cup of the chicken mixture in the center of each tortilla. Roll tightly into cylinders and arrange them seam side down in the baking dish. Pour the sauce over the top of the rolled tortillas. Scatter the remaining Monterey Jack over the top. Bake for 15minutes, until the cheese has melted and just started to brown in spots. Sprinkle more cilantro on top; serve warm.
— Loosely based on an America’s Test Kitchen recipe