I have never cooked enchiladas before, but the other night, inspired by this recipe on Homesick Texan, I decided to try it. As a native of San Antonio, I have always been a fan of Mexican food, but I rarely cook it at home. (Well, we eat a lot of quesadillas, but that doesn't count.) Something about Homesick Texan's recipe reminded me of one of my favorite dishes, Enchiladas Suizas, and I wanted to see if I could recreate the tangy/creamy flavor in my own kitchen.

Also, I have been looking for a good way to use Trader Joe's Chicken-less Strips, and this recipe seemed perfect. It has plenty of sauce and spice to mask any possible weird fake meat flavor.

As my first step I pan-fried the Chicken-less Strips in a little bit of vegetable oil, just to brown them and warm them up a bit. When it's in the pan, you can barely tell it's not real chicken.

After that, I followed Homesick Texan's recipe relatively closely, although I halved it because I don't think we could eat 12 enchiladas in one sitting, even with Dakota's large appetite. Instead of canned tomatillos, I used canned salsa verde, because that's what was in the pantry. And I used vegetable broth instead of chicken broth, to keep the whole dish vegetarian.

Below you can see the enchiladas just before they went in the oven. I used Homesick Texan's tip about briefly heating the tortillas in a lightly oiled frying pan, and it really helped. Store-bought corn tortillas can be really brittle, but the few minutes in the pan made them easy to roll up.

And here are the enchiladas ready to eat. I found them exceptionally tasty. The combination of sour cream, salsa verde and jack cheese was just right; the flavor took me back to some of my favorite Tex Mex meals. And, honestly, I thought the Chicken-less Strips did their job nicely. They provided some extra protein in the meal and kept the enchiladas from being too mushy and cheesy.(Dakota felt the texture was a bit off, but he still gobbled up his enchiladas, so it must not have bothered him too much.)

Overall, I found enchiladas to be a pretty easy dish to cook. They might be better for a weekend dinner because of the time it takes to prepare the sauce, but I can imagine making them on a weeknight, especially if you make the sauce in advance (and get home from work before 7:30). I'm not sure why I was so intimidated by enchiladas in the past, but I definitely plan on making this recipe again soon--perhaps for some vegetarian friends when we finally start having people over for dinner again.

1 Comment

1. katy on 3/18/2010 03:10:00 PM

   Im gonna try them and let you know how it goes thanks