Holm Family Cookbook

I love enchiladas, but they do take some time to make. Last week I made an enchilada casserole that tasted great and took a lot less time to make than traditional enchiladas.  I had purchased a rotisserie chicken at Costco that I planned to use to make the casserole. When it was time for me to start making dinner I got the chicken out of the fridge and all that was left was a leg--my family had been eating it all day long!

I had a bag of frozen boneless skinless chicken breasts, so I got out four and started the process of defrosting and cooking them.  I nuked them until they were soft enough to cut.  I then cut them into smaller pieces and started to cook them in my cast iron skillet. I sprinkled them with cayenne pepper, cumin, garlic powder, and chili powder and covered them during the cooking process. When they were cooked through, I shredded them. A lot of liquid had accumulated in the skillet during cooking, so I drained the liquid before putting the chicken in the casserole.

Had I known the rotisserie chicken would not be an option, another cooking process I would have used for the chicken would have been to cook the chicken breasts in the crockpot using this recipe: http://www.holmfamilycookbook.com/apps/blog/show/3445730-easy-shredded-picante-chicken.

Excuse the photos of the casserole--not some of my best, but again, the casserole was great and would be a good dish to take to a potluck or serve to guests.

Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Ingredients

4 large chicken breasts, cooked, seasoned, and shredded

12 corn tortillas, torn in half

1 28-ounce can green enchilada sauce

1 16-ounce package shredded Mexican or taco style cheese

1 8-ounce container reduced fat sour cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Heat the tortillas in a non-stick skillet. Pour about 1/2 inch enchilada sauce in the bottom of a medium baking dish, and arrange 6 tortillas in a single layer. Top with 1/2 the chicken, 1/3 cheese, 1/2 the sour cream, and 1/3 of the remaining enchilada sauce. The sour cream is not easy to spread, so put several dollops of over the top of the chicken and cheese. The sour cream will spread out during the cooking process.

Repeat another layer of tortillas, chicken, 1/3 of cheese, and sour cream. Coat the remaining tortillas thoroughly with remaining enchilada sauce, and arrange on top of the layers. Pour on remaining enchilada sauce and sprinkle on the last of the cheese. Bake for 45 minutes in the preheated oven. Cool slightly before serving.

~merry~