Chicken and Black Bean Enchiladas
Chicken and black bean enchiladas with green sauce are easy, cozy, and crowd-pleasing. Here's how to make them.
Calories: 440kcal
Ingredients
- 1 pound (454 grams) cooked, shredded chicken breast
- 1 15- ounce 425-gram can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 8 ounces (227 grams) extra-sharp cheddar, shredded
- 8 ounces (227 grams) pepper jack, shredded
- 1 recipe green enchilada sauce
- 10 8- inch flour tortillas
To garnish, optional
- Sliced scallions
- Chopped cilantro
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F with a rack in the center.
- In a large mixing bowl, stir together the chicken, beans, half the cheddar, half the pepper jack, and one cup of the enchilada sauce.
- Spread one cup of the enchilada sauce evenly over the surface of the baking pan.
- Divide the filling evenly among the tortillas, making a strip of filling down the center of each tortilla and rolling the tortilla fairly tightly around it.
- Line up tortillas seam-side down in the pan, packing them in snugly. They should fit with eight across and two lengthwise across the bottom, per the photos and video above.
- Top evenly with remaining sauce and sprinkle with remaining cheddar and pepper jack.
- Bake, uncovered, for about 20 minutes, until melted, hot, and bubbly.
- Garnish with scallions and/or cilantro and serve.
Notes
- You can use rotisserie, roasted, to Instant Pot, sous vide — whatever cooked chicken you like. Leftover Thanksgiving turkey works too! Here I sautéed some boneless, skinless breasts in a little olive oil and shredded them with two forks while warm. If you're starting from scratch, keep in mind that you need a pound of cooked meat, so start with at least a pound and a half raw.
- One can equals roughly 1 ¾ cups cooked beans.
- Try to use good-quality flour tortillas if possible. Supermarket brands are fine but can be a little doughy, especially when coated with sauce. I don't call for pre-warming the tortillas, but you can do so one at a time on a dry skillet before assembling if you like, to enhance the flavor and increase pliability.
- You can prep the entire dish in advance and bake it just before serving. Tightly cover the baking pan with foil and store in the fridge for up to a week, or with plastic wrap followed by foil in the freezer for up to a year. You can defrost first or bake straight from frozen, adding 20 minutes to the baking time and keeping the pan covered with foil for the first 20 minutes. (Be sure to remove plastic wrap before baking.)
- Enchiladas make great gifts for new parents or folks going through a tough moment. Use disposable foil baking pans, and let recipients know they can bake them right away or freeze for later.
Suggested variations
- This filling also works well with red enchilada sauce.
- You can substitute corn tortillas. In this case, definitely warm each one on both sides on a dry skillet before assembling, to enhance both flavor and pliability.
- Try adding two links of Spanish-style chorizo, diced and browned, to the filling.
- If you're serving a crowd with some vegetarians and some meat-eaters, you can use two cans of beans and half a pound of cooked chicken. Mix the filling without the chicken, divide it among the tortillas, filling half of them with extra bean mixture, and then add the chicken separately to the other half before rolling.
- Or you can make the whole batch chicken-only or bean-only by doubling the quantity of that ingredient and omitting the other.
Nutrition
Calories: 440kcal | Carbohydrates: 33.1g | Protein: 31.9g | Fat: 12.4g | Saturated Fat: 5.1g | Fiber: 3g