cheesy chicken enchiladas

These enchiladas are so easy to make and yummy to eat.  Let’s get started!

What you need: chicken, tortillas, enchilada sauce (you actually need two cans, not just one like in the picture), cheese

put chicken in crockpot; ponder why one is pinker than the others

cover with enchilada sauce; cook

Once the chicken is cooked, shred it – if you’re lazy smart like me you can just throw it in your mixer and let the mixer shred it for you

mix in enchilada sauce

and cheese

pour a little bit of enchilada sauce in the bottom of the pan (this will keep the enchiladas from sticking)

spread mixture onto tortillas

roll it up

and lay it seam-side down in the pan

continue with the rest of your tortillas, then pour the rest of the enchilada sauce over the tops of the enchiladas

sprinkle with cheese and bake

I like to serve mine on a bed of lettuce with some black beans on the side

recipe

the ingredients:

chicken – I used approximately one pound, you could certainly use more

8 tortillas – I like the whole wheat kind

2 large cans enchilada sauce

1 1/2 cups of shredded cheese – I use 2% cheddar

the instructions:

Cook the chicken and half a can of enchilada sauce in a crockpot on high for 5 hours (or on low for a longer period of time, or cook in the oven, or boil – this is a very flexible recipe).  Shred cooked chicken.  Mix in between a half a can and a full can of enchilada sauce.  Then mix in 1.5 cups of cheese.  Pour a little bit of the enchilada sauce in the bottom of a glass 9×13 pan, enough to coat the bottom.  Divide the chicken mixture between the eight tortillas.  Roll up each tortilla and place, seam side down, in the pan.  Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the tops of the tortillas and sprinkle with cheese.  Bake at 400 for 15 minutes.

Makes 8 enchiladas at 280 calories each.  This is a South Beach Phase 2 recipe.

This recipe is very easy to adapt to your liking with amounts of chicken and cheese or type of cheese used.  I’ve made this same recipe using ground beef (cooked in the skillet rather than the crockpot) and it was also very good.  You can add beans or peppers or onions inside the enchiladas.  Whatever suits your fancy.

Side note (related, I promise) – this week on the Biggest Loser one of the challenges was for the contestants to guess the calories in their favorite dish/food from before they started Biggest Loser.  One of the contestant’s favorite meal was enchiladas, Spanish rice, beans, chips, and salsa.  Guess how many calories….over 4,000!!!  For one meal that she used to eat at least once a week.  That’s 2 full days worth of calories in one meal!  Insane!  So if you are like her and love your enchiladas, maybe this can be a healthier alternative for you.