Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

Warm gooey cheesy enchiladas - what a great dish for a chilly fall day. Here's a basic chicken enchiladas recipe that is very easy and very tasty.

We've included a recipe for green chile sauce and, of course, we recommend you make your own, seeing as we are all about cooking from scratch. It's not difficult and takes about 15 minutes. Keep some in the freezer. It's also good on scrambled eggs, chicken, a burger. It lacks a lot of unnecessary processed "extras" that are added to canned green chile sauce. And, really, it tastes a whole lot better.

















Green Chile Sauce (makes about 2 cups)

2 tbl Vegetable Oil, or butter
2 tbl Flour
8 ounces Chopped Green Chiles, use hot or mild or a mix of both based on your heat tolerance
1⁄4 cup Chopped Onion
1 3⁄4 cups Water
1⁄2 tsp Salt
1⁄4 tsp Ground Cumin
1⁄4 tsp Dried Oregano
1⁄4 tsp Garlic Powder
1⁄4 tsp Black Pepper

Heat oil over medium heat. Add flour and stir to combine. Add remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.

Note: you can use fresh roasted and peeled chiles, frozen and thawed chiles, or canned chiles. The flavor is best with fresh or frozen but canned chiles are acceptable and readily available.

Chicken Enchiladas
(serves 4; total cost is $6.00)

1 recipe Green Chile Sauce, heated
8 Corn Tortillas
1⁄2 tbl Vegetable Oil
4 ounces Chopped Green Chiles
1 small Onion, diced
1 tsp Ground Cumin
1⁄2 tsp Salt
1⁄4 tsp Black Pepper
1 1⁄2 cups Shredded Cooked Chicken, about 8 oz before cooking
6 ounces Monterey Jack Cheese, shredded (about 1 1⁄2 cups)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Wrap the stack of tortillas in foil and place in the oven.

Heat oil in a small skillet over medium heat. Add onion and green chile. Saute for 5 minutes, until onions are soft.

Dump onions in a bowl. Add chicken, cumin, salt and pepper, and 1⁄2 the cheese. Take the tortillas out of the oven and turn the oven up to 400 degrees.

Put about 1 cup of enchilada sauce in a 9x9" baking dish and spread in bottom of dish.

Remove a tortilla from the foil. It should be soft enough to roll up. Place it on flat surface and place 1⁄8 of the chicken mixture across the center. Roll the tortilla up and place in the baking dish. Repeat with remaining tortillas. They will all fit if you squeeze them together.

Spread the rest of green chile sauce on top of enchiladas. Sprinkle with remaining cheese. Cover dish with foil and bake for 20 minutes.

Remove foil and bake for another 10 minutes until cheese is bubbly.