Minestrone Soup
(Knife Skills)
..where teens can learn to cook restaurant quality meals for the family
Chicken Enchiladas (Baking)
Mexican and Tex-Mex are Mark's favourite type of food. We'll keep adding more of it to UpCooked. Not only does he think it tastes the best (chilli, lime and cheese make everything in life much better) he also thinks it often looks the best and most colourful, and can also be made extremely healthily too. (Eg swap sour cream for plain yoghurt, and ramp up all the fresh ingredients).These chicken enchiladas are a simple and easy recipe to start with, because we're suggesting you buy cans and jars of what you need. That's because we want to have you focused on baking the food. Following this, we urge you to make all the various parts of the meal (refried beans/salsa etc) We'll add plent more recipes that help you do all that. Remember you can search the site with the search box top of each page.
ADJUST SERVINGS
Most of our recipes are for 4 people. You can check and adjust the serving size by clicking on the red number above.
BEFORE YOU START
Tips for Baking Enchiladas:
Ensure the enchiladas are snugly arranged in the dish to prevent them from opening up during baking.
Covering with foil for the majority of the baking time keeps the moisture in, so the enchiladas don’t dry out.
Removing the foil towards the end allows the top to get nicely browned and crispy.
Covering with foil for the majority of the baking time keeps the moisture in, so the enchiladas don’t dry out.
Removing the foil towards the end allows the top to get nicely browned and crispy.
GET SHOPPING!
This is a reminder to check what ingredients you need to buy and add them to your shopping list. It’s good to do your own food shopping, but at the very least, you’re head chef, so send a family member out to the shops for you!
GET ORGANISED
Remember ‘Skill 2’ of the Big 5: Become super-organised.:
Add your own private notes:
Equipment
- 9×13 inch baking dish This is about the size of a closed laptop computer! (Saves you getting your tape measure out..)
- Mixing bowl
- Spoon or spatula
- Aluminum foil
- Oven mitts
- Knife
- Cutting board
Ingredients
- 2 large chicken breasts
- 2 cups cheese Mexican blend if you can find, or a mix of cheddar/Monterey Jack. Cheddar alone is just fine!
- 10 flour tortillas (Or corn tortillas – or a mix is fine)
- 1 can/jar enchilada sauce (Or make some using our recipe here)
- 1 small onion
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 can refried beans (or make them using our recipe)
- 1 jar pre-made salsa (or make some using our recipe)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1 handful coriander
- sour cream optional
- 1 avocado
- 0.5 tbsp olive or cooking oil
Instructions
Prep in Advance:
- Preheat your oven to 190°C (375°F)
- Get someone to set the table for dinner
- Wash, spin dry, or at the very least shake the hell out of your coriander
- Dice 1 small onion (do you know what? A large onion is ok too. Don't stress, relax a little..) and put aside in a large bowl (you'll use this large bowl to mix more things in later)
- Chop your 1 handful coriander and set aside. Go for fairly finely chopped, but don't stress.
- Slice your 1 avocado and set aside (see the video, and remember these videos are all worth a quick look, because you'll have that technique down for the rest of your life. Build your learning slowly but steadily and it'll all pay off over time!)
- Grate 2 cups cheese (if it's not already grated! I mean, who's ever tried to grate cheese that's already grated?)
- Drain 1 can refried beans and set aside (or make some using our recipe)
Let's Cook!
- Put a frying pan on medium-high heat, and add about 0.5 tbsp olive or cooking oil
- Put 2 large chicken breasts in the pan and cook until there is no pink meat inside and the juices run clear.You can speed up the cooking by cutting the chicken breasts into strips either with a knife, or using kitchen scissors. Cut open the thickest piece of chicken you can find to see if it's cooked. No pink, just white, and if any juice runs out, it's got to be clear, not pink. If so, you're done. Don't overcook chicken breasts, they go dry and tough pretty quickly!(Tip: if cooking a meal where you want to avoid drying the chicken out, go for chicken thighs. They're hard to overcook! We cook lots of curries, and chicken thighs are great for these).
- Once cooked, put the chicken on a plate and set aside
- Add half of your grated cheese to your onion in the large bowl
- Then add in 1 tsp ground cumin and 1 tsp garlic powder to the same bowl and stir well
- When your chicken is cool enough to touch, roughly chop it up or shred it ( you can use a fork and a sharp knife)
- Add your chicken to the bowl of onion and cheese
- Season the mixture with salt and pepper (just a little salt, and a bit more pepper) and stir well
- Open the enchilada sauce and pour half of it evenly into the bottom of your baking dish
- Lay out your tortilla wraps. (You can do this one at a time). Spoon the chicken mixture evenly down the centre of each tortilla. You're aiming for 4 or more spoons so that when you roll it up it looks…well, like a rolled up wrap. That's about the size of one of those small mineral water bottles. Or, the diameter of your wrist.
- Place your rolled up enchilada seam side down, and snug, in one corner of the baking dish
- Repeat for the other tortilla wraps. Keep them snug in the baking dish, all holding each other together. We've suggested you use 10 tortillas, but don't stress if you run out, or even want to use a few more. It really doesn't matter if you've overloaded them to create giant enchiladas. Who's complaining at that? (If anyone is, serve them last.)
- Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the top of the rolled tortillas
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the sauce. If for whatever reason you haven't grated enough (because you've been picking at it like some out of control lunatic) then grate some more. You definitely want a decent amount of melted cheese on top of this dinner!
- Cover the dish with aluminium foil
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes
- Remove the foil and bake for an additional 5 minutes.
- Call your family to the table
- Whilst the enchiladas are baking, pour the refried beans in a saucepan and put over a medium heat to warm them through. Stir them to they heat evenly. Should only take a few minutes.
- When your 5 minute timer goes off for the enchiladas, check to see if the cheese is bubbly and slightly golden. If it is, you're done. But if not, bake for up to a further 5 minutes.
- Go back to check your refried beans are warmed through. They don't need cooking! They just need warming. Once done, you're ready to serve..
- Serve the enchiladas hot, with refried beans on the side
- Add a spoonful of salsa on top of the enchiladas. And offer people more chill sauce if they want. Chilli sauce is one of the seven wonders of the food world. (According to Mark.)
- Garnish with chopped coriander, sour cream and sliced avocado
Please share with us how you went!We need your feedback so we can improve the recipes and help others succeed! Please let us know by leaving a comment 🙂