Chicken Enchilada Casserole

by lisa | 6 June 2013 09:50

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One of my favorite meals is cheesy chicken enchiladas. This has been my birthday dinner for years. My husband always makes it for me and he always makes the enchilada sauce from scratch (based on an old Martha Stewart recipe from an old magazine). Of course, I haven’t had any of my beloved enchiladas since going paleo because I just haven’t been able to come up with a good tortilla recipe (if you have one, please tell me!!). I decided to go ahead and make this anyway. We just turned it into a casserole instead of enchiladas.

I don’t eat much dairy, but I do sometimes add cheese to recipes. If you are dairy free, just leave the cheese out. I personally can’t imagine my enchiladas without at least a little cheese.

Ingredients

For the sauce:

• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 green bell pepper
• 1 onion
• 3 red Thai chilis
• 400 grams (12oz can) of canned tomatoes
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/2 teaspoon dry oregano
• 1 scallion (or use more onion)
• 2 Tablespoons of ghee (or butter)
• 1 cup of chicken broth (we make our own)
• 2 Tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 teaspoon salt

For the filling:

• 350 grams (12 oz) of cooked chicken, shredded or chopped
• 1 red bell pepper. chopped
• 1 onion, sliced
• shredded cheese of your choice (we used about 1 ounce-30gms- of cheddar)

Instructions

For the sauce:

1. Chop the garlic, bell pepper, onion, scallion and chilis.
   

   Chop! Chop!

2. Fry them up in the ghee (butter) until the onions and scallions are translucent.
3. Add the cumin and oregano and cook for about 1 minute.
   

   Cooking the sauce

4. Then add the canned tomatoes, tomato paste, broth and salt.
5. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes.
   

   Cook for 15 minutes

6. Pour into a blender and whiz until smooth.
   

   Finished sauce after it comes out of the blender

For the filling:

1. Fry the red bell pepper and onion together in a frying pan with a little bit of ghee until tender.
2. Add in the chopped or shredded cooked chicken. We roasted a chicken the day before. We used the chicken meat for this recipe and boiled the carcass to make the broth called for in the sauce.

Putting it all together:

1. Spoon 1/3 of the sauce into the bottom of a casserole dish.
2. Add a layer of filling.
   

   Layering the sauce and filling

3. Repeat sauce and filling layers until you run out. Top with grated cheese (optional).
4. Bake in a pre-heated 375 F (190 C) oven for 20-30 minutes or until bubbly (everything is already cooked).
5. Garnish with fresh cilantro and spring onions and enjoy!
   

   Yum!

Source URL: https://swisspaleo.ch/chicken-enchilada-casserole/

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