Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce

These easy chicken enchiladas with white sauce use leftover shredded chicken and a simple homemade white sauce for a quick and easy weeknight dinner your family will love.
 

When you have a kid that won’t eat anything red, but you love enchiladas, then you have to start getting creative.  Plus, it’s good to mix things up once in a while.  So instead of traditional, go delicious with these Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce.  Not only does this give you the opportunity to have a great way to use up leftover chicken, it also gets you out of your dinner time rut with a simple to make homemade white sauce.

Can you add vegetables to your enchiladas?

Yes! I chose to finely chop jalapeño, onion and garlic to add to my sauce and kept the filling plain with just the seasoned chicken, but you could totally up the filling by adding squash, beans, peppers or any other favorite veggies.

The fun part about enchiladas is that you can hardly go wrong.  As long as you have the basic components including filling, tortillas and sauce!

How do you make white sauce for enchiladas?

It can seem intimidating at first to make a sauce from scratch but once you get the hang of it you’ll see it’s quick and easy.

• Making a sauce like this starts with butter and flour, melt the butter in a saucepan and whisk in flour
• Depending on the kind of sauce the rest of the ingredients will vary but for this cheese sauce we will add broth and sour cream for a flavorful but still creamy sauce
• Let everything simmer and thicken before pouring over the enchiladas
• I wanted to up the flavor here, so I used my mini chopper to make very finely diced veggies to add to my sauce

Bake with foil on top to get soft melty cheese or no foil for nice browned and crispy cheese depending on preference.  

Be sure you let them cool a bit so that the sauce can thicken a bit more before digging in!

Print

Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce

Prep Time

15 mins

Cook Time

25 mins

Total Time

40 mins

 

These easy chicken enchiladas with white sauce use leftover shredded chicken and a simple homemade white sauce for a quick and easy weeknight dinner your family will love.

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: Mexican

Keyword: chicken, enchiladas, shredded chicken, white sauce

Servings: 8

Calories: 303 kcal

Author: Garnished Plate

Ingredients

• 1/4 yellow onion
• 1 jalapeno stem and seeds removed
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 pound leftover shredded chicken
• 1 tablespoon taco seasoning
• 2 oz cream cheese softened
• 8 tortillas
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 4 oz shredded cheese

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Peel onions and garlic and add to mini chopper along with jalapeño and chop until finely diced (or chop finely with knife), set aside

3. Spray 9x13 casserole dish with nonstick spray

4. In a small bowl mix together chicken, cream cheese and taco seasoning

5. Add about 1/4 cup of filling to each tortilla and roll and place seam side down in casserole dish

6. In saucepan over medium high heat melt butter

7. Whisk flour into melted butter and then very slowly start whisking broth into flour mixture until smooth and fully incorporated 

8. Let simmer for 3-4 minutes until thickened, then remove from heat and stir in sour cream until smooth and add chopped veggies

9. Pour sauce over enchiladas and top with shredded cheese

10. Bake for 20-25 minutes until heated through and cheese is melted

Recipe Notes

Baked covered with foil for melty cheese or uncovered for crispier cheese.

Use a mini chopper to make easy work of finely dicing the veggies

Nutrition Facts

Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce

Amount Per Serving

Calories 303 Calories from Fat 144

% Daily Value*

Total Fat 16g 25%

Saturated Fat 8g 40%

Cholesterol 74mg 25%

Sodium 619mg 26%

Potassium 336mg 10%

Total Carbohydrates 19g 6%

Sugars 2g

Protein 18g 36%

Vitamin A 9.5%

Vitamin C 8%

Calcium 13.4%

Iron 8.5%

* Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.