These red sauce chicken enchiladas are stuffed full of chicken, cheese, refried beans, corn, and rice for a tasty dinner. All topped with the best red enchilada sauce ever.
I love cheese enchiladas! They will be my number one choice at any Mexican restaurant. I have struggled to find a red enchilada sauce whether homemade or canned that I think is as good as any restaurant until I made this one for these red sauce chicken enchiladas. Trust me when I tell you it is AMAZING!
Now I can make cheese enchiladas at home and red sauce chicken enchiladas too! These chicken enchiladas are so good filled with rice, refried beans (black if you preferred), corn, and lots and lots of cheese. Well as much cheese as you want to add.
They are fairly simple to make and only take a few minutes of assembly before baking all together in the oven. Although there are a few steps of preparation; rice cooking, chicken cooking, cheese grating, and enchilida sauce making before that. But if you start with a rotessire chicken, packaged grated cheese, and parboiled rice, half of your preparation is taken care of.
You choose if you want to make those 3 steps easier, but – REALLY you want to make this red enchilida sauce, don’t replace it with canned! The sauce is super easy to make.
Making red enchilada sauce:
In a large saucepan whisk together oil, flour, chili powder, and cumin.
Continue to stir until it bubbles a little. This can take several minutes.
Now add in the beef broth, tomato sauce, green chiles, garlic, oregano, and a little salt. Simmer for 15 minutes.
Your enchilada sauce is ready to use with your red sauce chicken enchiladas.
Additional tips to making red sauce chicken enchiladas:
Prepare everything before assembling the enchiladas.
Grate 2 cups of cheese, more if you prefer.
Following rice instructions (brown or white – your preference) cook your rice. You will use 1 to 2 cups of cooked rice.
Boil chicken in water until it is cooked throughly – 165 degrees internally. Cool chicken just enough to shred with 2 fork pulling the chicken apart. (or you prefer buy a rotisserie chicken and shred the breasts and thighs)
Spray your baking pan; bottom and sides, with a non-stick spray. This will make cleanup so much easier.
Drain the corn or use thawed frozen corn.
Use either precooked flour tortillas or cook your raw flour tortillas following the instructions on the package.
Top baked red sauce chicken enchiladas with sour cream, fresh tomatoes, avocado, cilantro – your favorites.
You may just want to double this recipe, prepare up until just before baking, wrap with foil, and freeze a batch for another day. It’s that good.
Red Sauce Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients
Red Sauce Chicken Enchiladas
- 2 to 4 cups enchilada sauce* (recipe follows)
- 3 cups shredded chicken (about 3 chicken breasts)
- 2 to 4 cups grated cheddar cheese
- 1 - 15 oz can refried beans
- 1 - 15 oz can white corn (drained)
- 1 to 2 cups rice (cooked, white or brown)
- 8 flour tortillas (precooked or cooked raw tortillas)
Red Enchilada Sauce
- 2 TBS oil
- 2 TBS white all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup chili powder
- 1 TBS cumin
- 2 cups beef broth
- 2 cups tomato sauce
- 4 oz diced chiles (drained)
- 1/2 TBS garlic (minced)
- 1/2 tsp oregano (dried)
- 1/2 tsp salt (to taste)
Equipment
Instructions
Red Enchilada Sauce
- In a large saucepan over medium heat, whisk together oil, flour, chili powder, and cumin
- Continue to stir until bubbly
- Stir in beef broth, tomato sauce, chiles, garlic, oregano, and salt
- Simmer for 15 minutes on low heat, stirring occasionally
Red Sauce Chicken Enchiladas
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Spray 9x13 baking pan with non-stick spray; coat bottom and sides of pan
- Boil raw chicken breasts in water until internally reaches 165 degrees. Remove from heat, drain, cool for a couple of minutes. With 2 forks shred chicken.
- Grate 2 to 4 cups cheddar cheese (divide, removing half for topping enchiladas)
- Cook white or brown rice. Follow instructions on package.
- Drain corn or thaw frozen corn
- Cook raw flour tortillas following instructions on package or use cooked flour tortillas
- Spread 1/4 cup of red enchilada sauce on bottom of baking pan
- Pour 1 cup of enchilada sauce into shredded chicken and mix in
- Take 1 flour tortilla and layer with1/8 of the refried beans, rice, shredded chicken, corn, and cheese. Add an additional TBS of enchilada sauce if desired. Roll tortilla up an place in baking pan
- Continue to prepare and layer remaining flour tortillas as previous instruction. Place all tortillas in baking pan side by side
- Spread 1 cup of enchilada sauce over red sauce chicken enchiladas until covers all the tortillas
- Sprinkle 1 cup of grated cheese over enchiladas
- Place in 325 degree oven to bake for 45 to 60 minutes. Cover with foil if browning too much
- Remove from oven and serve warm
- Top with cilantro, sour cream, avocado, fresh chopped tomatoes as desired
Nutrition
Original posted on May 13, 2011; recipe, directions, and photos updated January 2022 for readibility and clarification.
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