Chicken Enchilada Skillet
I love Mexican food. I especially love cheesy, spicy, meaty Mexican food that comes together in about 30 minutes. This is my comfort food.
It should come as no surprise that I’m a huge enchilada fan. I mean, I’ve made everything from traditional Chicken Enchiladas to Bubble Up Enchiladas to Buffalo Chicken Enchiladas and even Enchilada “Cupcakes,” so clearly if you say “enchiladas” I’m pretty much automatically on board. This Chicken Enchilada Skillet is especially awesome because it’s kind of like the lazy-girl (or man, depending on who’s making it) version of enchiladas, but it has all of the gooey, cheesy, saucy flavor I crave. Instead of rolling the ingredients up in tortillas, for this skillet you’re just going to chop the tortillas up and toss them right in with everything else. How easy is that?
You will need pre-shredded, cooked chicken for this recipe. Since a lot of recipes call for that, the easiest thing to do (in my opinion) is just toss some raw breasts in boiling water for 20 minutes (or until cooked through) and then shred them and throw them in the fridge or freezer until you need them for a recipe. You can also make them in a crock pot and do the same thing. The main point is, if you do this every so often then you always have shredded chicken on hand to use in fast and easy weeknight meals.
I know when I get home from work it makes me so happy to know I can have dinner on the table in about 30 minutes. This Chicken Enchilada Skillet is one of those meals and it’s delicious and super filling to boot. You get a really nice, hearty portion for 8 Green, 5 Blue or 5 Purple myWW Weight Watchers SmartPoints or around 300 calories and this is a meal your whole family will love! To view your WW PersonalPoints for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!
Chicken Enchilada Skillet
Ingredients
- 1 teaspoon canola oil
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3 tablespoons chili powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 2 teaspoons sugar
- 15 oz can tomato sauce
- ½ cup water
- 3 cups shredded cooked chicken breast
- 1 ¼ cups canned black beans, drained
- 8 (6 inch) corn tortillas, cut or torn into bite-sized pieces (I used Mission Extra Thin Yellow Corn Tortillas)
- ½ - 1 (4 oz) can chopped green chiles, (I used half a can – feel free to use more to taste!)
- 6 oz 50% reduced fat sharp cheddar cheese, shredded (I used Cabot brand – recommended! It melts really well)
- 2 scallions, diced
Instructions
- Heat the oil over medium heat in a large skillet or saute pan. Add the onions and cook for 4-5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic, chili powder, salt, cumin and sugar and stir together for another minute. Add the tomato sauce and water, stir and reduce heat to medium-low. Simmer for 5 minutes to thicken.
- Add the shredded chicken and black beans to the sauce and stir together. Continue to simmer for 5 more minutes.
- Once you put the chicken in, mist a second skillet with cooking spray and bring over medium-low heat. Add the tortilla pieces and spray again with cooking spray. Stir/flip occasionally to heat the tortillas for about 4 minutes until the chicken and beans are heated through in the sauce.
- Turn the heat on the sauce mixture to low. Add the tortilla pieces, the green chiles and about 2/3 of the cheese to the chicken mixture and stir together until well combined and coated. Sprinkle the remaining cheese over the top and place the lid onto the pan. Leave the lid on for 1-2 minutes until the cheese has melted. Remove from heat and sprinkle the diced scallions over top for garnish.
Notes
8 per serving (P+ calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com) adapted from Heat Oven to 350
These look fantastic!!!
I am a Mexican Food lover….. and am always looking for new WW friendly recipes to make at home. Can’t wait to try this….
Definitely trying this! Love cheesy goodness! Thanks!
I would like this in my mouth right now.
Agreed.
That’s what she said.
Looks delicious! Can’t wait to try. Thanks!
I’m new to the shredded chicken phenomenon and plan to make this tonight. About how many chicken breasts or how much weight is in 3 cups of shredded chicken? I was thinking a pound or a pound & a quarter but am clueless 🙂
I would make a pound and a half just to be safe. If you have some leftover you can always use it another way!
Made this last night. Delicious!!
Made this last night and it is delicious! Leftovers were great! The original recipe was awesome, but I also added a can of diced tomatoes and also a cup of chopped red peppers to add more bulk.
I made this tonight and the hubs LOVES it! I put in the whole 4 oz can of green chiles – and I couldn’t find the scallions at my grocery store so I substituted green onions. 🙂 I WAS thankful to find the Cabot cheese. (Note to self that using the food processor to shred the cheese would have been much faster than the Pampered Chef cheese grater – probably less messy too as the container piece fell off the grater and I had cheese everywhere, but the dog was happy.) I used the crockpot method of cooking the chicken breast overnight on Wednesday. Thursday morning I put the breasts in the fridge and then after work last night I shredded them and froze into 1-cup portions.
Thanks for another HIT recipe!!
Scallions and green onions are the same thing so you nailed it! I’m so glad to hear this was a hit with the hubby. I’ve never even thought to grate cheese in the food processor before but that is genius! definitely saves a little time and elbow grease.
My husband and I both loved this. It’s just the two of us and I end up throwing out or freezing leftovers, but not with this! We ate every bite!
I also made this last night and my husband loved it. This is the first time I did the boil chicken in water before serving rather than crockpot overnight/all day, and I actually prefer it! Thank you so much Emily. Your recipes are amazing!
Made this tonight though I had to modify a bit as I only had 4 oz of cheese and no tortillas. I made it as directed otherwise, putting all the cheese in with the rest. Instead of tortillas, I served over whole wheat pasta. It was very, very good and Ive got portions saved away in the freezer for lunches!
Easy and delicious – made this just now!
This is a great recipe and except for the tomatoes added it is very authentic and delicious. This is basically how I make my enchilada sauce. It is so good you may never buy canned again.
This sounds so good! I have one question. My daughter is on a soft food diet. Do the tortillas become soft and soggy in this dish, or do they stay crispy?
Awesome recipe! I have never made enchilada sauce, but this recipe for it was so great and easy! I used a lot more garlic since I had a ton to go through, and because why not? I forgot to buy a can of green chiles, but I happened to have a red bell pepper and a half bag of frozen corn, and they went perfectly in the recipe. Thank you so much for posting!
-lauren
For Patricia, above me. If you use soft corn tortillas to start with, the tortillas definitely stay soft in the dish with all the sauce.
Just made this. It was delicious! Thank you 🙂
Have you ever made this with lean ground beef? That is what’s thawing 🙂
I haven’t – let us know how it turns out!
Emily, I love your idea of cooking and shredding chicken and then freezing it. I often used canned chicken when the recipe calls for already-cooked…which I know adds sodium and probably other bad stuff. If you prepare them in the crock pot how do you do it–fill with water? How much time does it take?
Thanks for all the great recipes. I can’t wait to try this one!
I made this tonight and it was a MASSIVE hit! I actually took out the chicken since I was cooking for some vegetarians, put in some kidney beans along with the black beans to “beef it up” a little. Everyone loved it! I love the flexibility of the recipe, too. If I’d added more water, it would have been an amazing soup, a little less and it’s a perfect mexican bean dip. Awesome recipe, Emily!
Emily, you did it again! Made this tonight – yum!!!! Thank you!!!!
Oh my goodness! Just made this for the first time tonight. So yummy! My husband loved it. That is high praise form these Texans! Thank you for a great recipe. This was the first recipe of yours that I have made. Looking forward to the others I planned for this week. Up next? Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf. can’t wait!
I just made this last night and it was delicious! My husband (a non-WW member) loved it too! Thanks Emily – this one will go in my rotation for sure.
Oh yeah, this was delicious!
Loved loved loved this recipe! I definitely second Emily’s suggestion to cook and shred the chicken ahead of time because it makes this recipe a truly quick meal. So much flavor and it was a winner with the hubby, too! We both thought it was very filling!
This was excellent! I used a rotisserie chicken to shred, so I had lots of chicken- I doubled everything and it turned out perfectly and with enough for us and the kids, who actually ate it!
Yay for kid-approval! I love using a rotisserie chicken for recipes – so fast and easy! Glad it was a hit 🙂
Emily you are a huge hit at my house. This is the 3rd or 4th recipes of yours I’ve have tried this week and so far everything is a hit!!!!
I love this one. I can’t wait to try it with other veggies.
I think it would be amazing with fresh tomatoes and maybe some olives for a twist.
I am going to devour your recipes!
Thank you for making them so ww friendly too.
♥♥♥Jen♥♥♥
This was very good! I tweaked it a bit. Used only one third of the chili powder, added a jalapeno pepper, and added some enchilada sauce. It is definitely easier than making chicken enchiladas and very tasty I must say.
Made this tonight!! Didn’t have onions of any kind…or corn tortillas (LOL) so I improvised and made some rice and had chicken enchilada burritos. Very tasty!
I made this last night and it was amazing! I don’t care for beans, so I put in a bag of frozen corn and forgot the chilies, so I used a little bit of salsa. It was so good that I can’t wait to make it again! This will be on our list of go-to recipes! My son devoured it (and he’s only 16 months old!) Thanks!
Loved that I found your site. This was such a snap to make and so good! Also made The Skinnytaste Mexican rice with it. Perfect. Have tried several of your recipes and they were all tasty. With the points calculated will definitely be making more. Thanks so much!!!!!
How would you tweak this if you were to do it in a Crock Pot?? more liquid?? Thanks!!
Hi Emily,
I put the nutrition info in the Weight Watchers App and it said it was 8 points for a serving for Freestyle Smart Points. Is this a typo or did I do something wrong?
This was delicious by the way!
Hi Kelly, it looks like this part from my FAQs will help you out!
“I ran the nutrition information you posted through the points calculator and it doesn’t match the SmartPoints value you listed for the recipe – which one is right?”
The best way to calculate the SmartPoints for a recipe is to use the recipe builder on the Weight Watchers website. The recipe builder recognizes zero point foods and does not assign them a value in the overall SP calculation, however these foods still contain calories, sugar, etc. If you plug the nutrition information for the recipe into the SP calculator it will count the nutrition information for these foods in the overall points per serving, often giving you a completely different result than the recipe builder.
Hi Emily! I love this recipe! I modified a little by leaving out the tortillas and then using this as a nacho topping! My family loved it – we just served it over chips.