At Home: Chicken, Cheese, & Bean Enchiladas

This next installment of What Micky Eats...At Home features a twist on the famous 'lasagna-style' enchiladas that I've made before.  Instead of layering tortillas with goodies into a casserole dish, I filled each tortilla individually and rolled them up before baking.  These Chicken, Cheese, & Bean Enchiladas were approved by my father recently, so I was pleased to have made another successful dish to satisfy that Mexican craving.

Chicken, Cheese & Bean Enchiladas (Makes 20)

• 8 flour tortillas
• 28 oz green enchilada sauce (or 2 jars of salsa verde)
• 14 oz refried beans
• 2 chicken breasts, shredded
• ½ white onion, chopped fine
• 4 cups shredded cheese, cheddar or pepper jack mix preferred
• sliced black olives
• red chili powder or taco seasoning to taste
• salt & pepper to taste
• sour cream (optional)

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Bring water to a boil and add the chicken to cook through.
- In a small pot, heat up refried beans so they are softened and easy to spread.
- By now, the chicken should be cooked.  Once cool enough to handle, shred into pieces using a fork or finely chop with a knife.
- Toss chicken in a large bowl with onions; season with salt, pepper, and red chili powder or taco seasoning.
- Pour some sauce on the bottom of a baking dish.
- Lay out a tortilla and spread with beans, top with chicken mixture, followed by cheese.
- Roll up tortilla tightly and place in the baking dish.
- Continue with remaining tortillas until all the chicken filling is gone.
- Top all the enchiladas with sauce and top with remaining cheese and black olives.
- Cover with aluminum foil and bake for 35 minutes.
- Serve topped with sour cream.

While I used the green enchilada sauce again for this recipe, I think it may taste better with the red sauce.  My father suggested half green and half red.  He also would have preferred some jalapeno slices baked in.  Using flour tortillas instead of corn was another nice change that kept the enchiladas very soft, and made clean up way easier since no frying was involved.  Each enchilada was stuffed pretty generously with the chicken and bean filling, so one was plenty for me.  While it baked, we snacked on chips with salsa and guacamole too, so that may be another reason why I could only eat one enchilada.  No worries though, as it meant more leftovers for my father, which he was very pleased about.