Chicken Enchiladas

These enchiladas have incredible flavor, guaranteed to please! This is the first time I made homemade enchilada sauce. I always liked the canned sauce and thought it wasn't worth the time to make your own. Until I actually made my own and realized it is definitely worth the limited extra effort!

Now, I really do like easy recipes. But as I mentioned before, I have a pretty expansive spice rack which makes it easier for me to mix a big 'mexican spice' blend from my pantry and save it for multiple recipes like tacos and enchiladas. In fact the only reason I used the spice blend in this recipe is that I had some leftover from tacos I had made the week before. I just needed to justify to long list of ingredients for the spice blend, but once you taste it you won't complain because it gives great depth and warmth to your meal, super tasty with a PUNCH of flavor! And if you don't have any of the spices listed, you should, so buy them once and they'll do you well for a while.

Chicken Enchiladas

• 4 large boneless skinless chicken breasts (use left over roast chicken meat, shredded, if you have it)
• Wheat tortillas
• About 1-1.5 cups shredded cheese (cheddar or any mild shredded blend, though I wouldn't recommend mozzarella)
• 2 cans of diced tomatoes (stewed, diced, with onion and celery, whatever you have)
• 1 large onion
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• 1 bunch cilantro
• Greek yogurt or sour cream (recommended topping)
• Spring onions (recommended topping)

Mexican Spice Blend

• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1.5 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dried oregano or Italian spice blend (funny, I know, but I ran out of oregano and the Italian blend was perfect)

Cook the chicken breasts. I heated a tiny bit of olive oil in a pan on the stove top and flipped the chicken once without touching in between which made it nice and golden. Be sure to cook it through so it is no longer pink. Set chicken aside and cover with a teaspoon or two of the spice blend. Once it's cooled you can shred the chicken with your fingers.

Dice the onion and mince the garlic (it's a lot and it's delicious). Heat some olive oil in a large pan and saute the onions until translucent, add the garlic and 2 tablespoons of the spice blend for about 30 seconds. Add in the two cans of tomatoes and let simmer for a couple of minutes. If you have tomato sauce instead you can use that.

My immersion blender is one of my best friends, I hope you have one too. It makes blending soups a snap, and is perfect for this recipe too. If you don't have one use a blender and blend the sauce (you're not going to get this perfectly smooth and it's good with texture). Taste the sauce and add in more of the spice as needed (I ended up using a lot). Add a splash of V8 or tomato sauce and blend again IF you have it. If you have leftover spice mix it's great for chicken or vegetarian beef tacos! Reserve about 1.5 cups of the sauce and set aside. Put the shredded chicken in the pan with the rest of the sauce and toss in a large hand full of chopped cilantro to give it a bright flavor and stir in 1/2 cup shredded cheese.

Pour a little sauce in the bottom of a glass baking pan so your enchiladas won't stick. Take your tortillas and fill with a large scoop of the chicken/sauce blend, roll up and put in the pan, seam down. Mine fit 6 perfectly, extra full, with all of the filling! Top with the reserved sauce, try to cover the ends of each enchilada, then sprinkle the remaining shredded cheese evenly over the top. Pretty guilt free since these enchildadas aren't nearly as cheese-ridden as typical recipes! And trust me you're not missing out on flavor. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes or until melted and golden.

Serve with a LARGE dollop of plain Greek yogurt (TJ and I piled it on and loved it!) or a small dollop of sour cream, a generous amount of thinly sliced spring onions and a healthy sprinkle of cilantro. You don't want to miss the toppings on this, and I promise you'll be looking forward to the leftovers!