You’ll love these Sour Cream Enchiladas because they’re not only easy to make, they combine all the savory flavor of your beloved Green Chicken Enchiladas but with a rich sour cream sauce that drapes them in deliciousness.
Why Your Family Will Love Sour Cream Enchiladas
If there’s one thing you can count on that makes everyone happy for dinner or lunch, it’s Mexican food. If my kids know we’re having Mexican food for dinner, all of a sudden, everyone is home, happily awaiting dinner and there’s this lovely feeling of ambience among all my loved ones, as they happily await dinner, playing video games, watching TV together, or just talking. The laughter before, during, and after a Mexican feast is so worth any extra steps I go through in the kitchen. Happy family, happy life, right?
Think of Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas as a take on Green Chili Chicken Enchiladas, just made even creamier and cheesier through the addition of sour cream and gooey Monterey Jack cheese. It’s my new favorite Mexican dish – hands down. My kids have gotten past that sour face they used to make at the mention of sour cream now and they want Sour Cream Mexican everything.
I think it was like just two days ago I was debating which Mexican dish I wanted to fix for dinner. Was it a taco salad? Was it shredded chicken soft tacos drenched in enchilada sauce, or maybe my Viral Smashed Burger Tacos?
Then I remembered my mom’s Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. Why hadn’t I even remembered this for so long? Did I sit there, bonking myself on the head? Heck no! I got up and made me and my family a huge, freezer-friendly casserole dish full of these, doubling the recipe so I could freeze the other one.
How to Make Perfect Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
There are some tricks you need on hand for working with brothy Mexican food creations – especially when you’re working with flour tortillas, as they tend to get a bit soggier than corn tortillas.
You want to make the tortillas less able to absorb the liquids. So what do you do? You pre-toast them in a hot cast iron skillet, oven, or toaster oven. You don’t want to use the microwave. They’re hard to keep your eye on in there and you don’t want that gluey texture the microwave sometimes yields tortillas, especially if they are low-carb tortillas (I don’t know if you’ve noticed this yet, but the microwave seems to hate all things with commercialized keto flours).
All you want is to just heat and toast them enough to make them the slightest bit more resilient to all these ingredients that will get more liquified in the oven like cheese, sour cream, and chicken broth, right?
Now, that’s the secret to making Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. I doubt you’ll read this anywhere else because I learned this when I spied Sour Cream Enchiladas on a Mexican restaurant menu and asked if I could speak to one of their chefs. He taught me that.
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken breast, diced
- 1 medium onion, minced
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 8 (8 inch) flour tortillas, softened
- 1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese or Mexican blend cheese, divided
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 15 ounces chicken broth
- 1 cup sour cream
- 4 ounces chopped green chilies or 2 fresh chili peppers, minced
Instructions
Prep time – 25 minutes
Cooking time – 20 minutes
Yields – 8 servings
Step 1: Preheat your oven to 400°F. Begin by cooking the chicken and onion with oil in a skillet over medium-high heat until the chicken is fully cooked.
Step 2: Evenly distribute the cooked chicken among the tortillas and sprinkle 1 1/2 tablespoons of cheese on each.
Step 3: Roll up the tortillas with the filling inside and place them seam-side down in a 9×13-inch baking dish coated with non-stick spray.
Step 4: In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat, mix in flour to create a roux, and cook until it’s bubbly. Gradually add chicken broth and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often.
Step 5: Remove the saucepan from the heat, then stir in the sour cream and green chilies until well combined.
Step 6: Pour the sour cream sauce over the enchiladas in the baking dish, making sure they are evenly coated.
Step 7: Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the enchiladas and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly around the edges.
FAQs & Tips
How to Make Ahead and Store?
Not that you’ll have leftovers, but you can keep these, refrigerated for three days. Now, to make a freezer-friendly version of this, add the first layer of cheese and bake or double wrap in foil and freeze it unbaked. The key is to make the sauce the same day you eat or serve the casserole because sour cream does not freeze well. It will break, curdle, and leave you with a mess when reheated as well as cause your enchilada shells to break. So this is a dish best prepared the day you’re going to eat it, honestly.
Can You Make Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas Vegan?
Most certainly. I like to substitute a portabella mushroom, long grain rice, and black bean mixture when I feel like a veggie Mexican night.
How to Turn up the Heat
If you like your Mexican food spicy, try making your chicken mixture spicier from the get-go. Stir in about half a minced, fresh jalapeño whirred very fine in a chopper, and stir that into your chicken mixture. Or, if you’re a real adventurer, half a habanero pepper. Or, play it safe and serve these chopped peppers on the side so everyone can add them as they like – or dare!
Serving Suggestions
I like serving these with my Twice Baked Potatoes because the flavor profiles so complement each other with all that cream and cheese. If the kids are really away, the hubby and I have a pitcher of this beyond delicious Mango Sangria, and, for dessert, my Hot Fudge Sundae Cupcakes which we eat while watching compromise shows – meaning just enough girly drama for me, just enough action for him – like this new show Tracker we are obsessed with!
Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 1 lb chicken breast diced
- 1 medium onion minced
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 8 8 inch flour tortillas, softened
- 1 1/2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese or Mexican blend cheese divided
- 1/4 cup butter
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 15 ounces chicken broth
- 1 cup sour cream
- 4 ounces chopped green chilies or 2 fresh chili peppers minced
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400°F. Begin by cooking the chicken and onion with oil in a skillet over medium-high heat until the chicken is fully cooked.
- Evenly distribute the cooked chicken among the tortillas and sprinkle 1 1/2 tablespoons of cheese on each.
- Roll up the tortillas with the filling inside and place them seam-side down in a 9×13 inch baking dish coated with non-stick spray.
- In a saucepan, melt butter over medium heat, mix in flour to create a roux, and cook until it’s bubbly. Gradually add chicken broth and bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often.
- Remove the saucepan from heat, then stir in the sour cream and green chilies until well combined.
- Pour the sour cream sauce over the enchiladas in the baking dish, making sure they are evenly coated.
- Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top of the enchiladas and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and the sauce is bubbly around the edges.
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