This easy Lazy Enchiladas dinner only requires one pan for easy clean up. This flavorful, cheesy dish is a stress-free meal that doesn’t require a lot of prep time, so it is perfect for any busy lifestyle. It is a weeknight lifesaver.
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Why this Lazy Enchiladas Recipe is a Keeper
Make this recipe when you are looking for an easy dinner. This recipe is pure comfort food but is a great recipe for a busy weeknight.
- Easy Ingredients: All you need is 4 simple ingredients, chicken, red enchilada sauce, cheese, and tortillas.
- Family Friendly: These skillet chicken enchiladas will have your family hooked.
- Adaptable: You can customize these skillet enchiladas by switching up the type of meat you use or what you top the enchiladas with.
- Crowd-Pleaser: Chicken enchilada bake is a hit with guests, making it ideal for entertaining.
- Great for Meal Prep: The chicken enchilada recipes is perfect for making a double batch and enjoying throughout the week.
Can I use Frozen Taquito to Make this Casserole?
Using taquitos is a fantastic shortcut for making lazy enchiladas. It saves you time and effort without sacrificing flavor.
You can layer them in a baking dish with enchilada sauce, cheese, and your favorite toppings. It’s a quick and easy way to enjoy a delicious enchilada-inspired meal.
Ingredient Notes for Skillet Chicken Enchiladas
- Chicken: For this recipe you will need 1 lb of boneless, skinless chicken breasts.
- Enchilada Sauce: You will need 2 10 oz cans of your favorite enchilada sauce of your choosing. Or you can use our excellent recipe for enchilada sauce.
- Cheese: It is best to use a blend of shredded Mexican cheese blend, but you can also use cheddar cheese as well.
- Flour Tortillas: You will need 4 8-inch flour tortillas for this Mexican recipe.
See the recipe card below for a complete list of the ingredients with measurements.
Prep Ahead Suggestions for Skillet Enchilada Chicken
If you want to make this ahead of time, it is easy and delicious. This is a take on that hit tiktok recipe.
- Chicken: You precook and shred chicken and store it in the fridge until you are ready to make these cheese and chicken enchiladas.
- Enchilada Sauce: Make the homemade enchilada sauce and store until ready to use.
- Toppings: Shred lettuce, dice and toppings, refried beans and guacamole can all be prepared in advance.
Chicken Enchilada Bake Pro Tip
For a textural contrast, top your lazy enchiladas with crumbled tortilla chips or fried onions.
How to Make Enchilada Chicken Skillet
You can make this recipe with minimal ingredients and you can have dinner on the table in a little over a half hour.
These are the basic steps for making enchilada skillet. Refer to the full, printable recipe card below for detailed instructions.
1. Cook the Chicken
First preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Then in an oven-safe skillet over medium heat, add the chicken. Keep rotating chicken until fully cooked, take off of heat and shred the chicken.
2. Assemble the Ingredients in a Single Layer
Return the shredded chicken back to the skillet, then add in tortilla strips, enchilada sauce, Mexican blend cheese, garlic powder, cumin, and chili powder.
3. Top with Shredded Cheese and Bake the Skillet Chicken Enchilada
Before putting in the oven, top with the remaining shredded cheese. Bake for 30 minutes until the sauce is bubbly and the cheese is melting.
How to Store, Reheat and Freeze Chicken Enchilada Skillet Leftovers
Dinner doesn’t get much easier than this tasty Mexican dish.
- Storing: Store any leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
- Reheating: To reheat this recipe, reheat in the oven on 350 degrees for 10 minutes or microwave for 1-2 minutes or until hot.
- Freezing: Transfer the leftover lazy enchiladas to a freezer safe container for up to 6 months. Reheat in a baking dish or casserole dish and bake.
Variations and Substitutions for Chicken Enchilada Casserole
- Green Enchilada Sauce: You can replace the red enchilada sauce with green. Either red or green enchilada sauce, they are both winners for this lazy enchilada casserole. You can even use a canned enchilada sauce.
- Frozen Taquitos: Swap out the tortillas with frozen taquitos. You can use chicken taquitos, cheese taquitos or even beef taquitos for this easy family dinner.
- Cheese: Try shredded cheddar cheese or Cotija cheese.
Weeknight Enchilada Recipe FAQs and Reader Interactions
There are so many great things you can top enchiladas with such as avocados, diced tomatoes, salsa, sour cream, black beans, fresh cilantro, onions, corn, cauliflower rice, tortilla chips, red bell pepper, or sliced black olives.
For this recipe you will want to bake uncovered to achieve the melty and bubbly cheese, but if it looks like your oven is cooking the top quick you can cover with foil.
For this family favorite recipe, you can use whatever type of tortilla you prefer. You can even use high fiber or low calorie tortillas.
Try Mexican Rice and Beans, Mexican Corn Cake or Copycat Chipotle Lime Rice to serve with enchiladas.
Expert Tips and Topping Suggestions to Make Lazy Enchiladas Recipe
The Skillet Chicken Enchiladas can be thrown together quickly as they only take 5 minutes to prep and 4 ingredients total. Your family, even the picky eaters, will love these chicken cheesy enchiladas.
- Corn Tortilla: You can swap the flour tortillas to make corn tortilla chicken enchiladas instead.
- Switch the Meat: You use adapt this recipe from using chicken to another type of meat such as ground beef or ground turkey.
- Veggies: Fold in your favorite veggies for even more flavor such as green chiles to make these lazy enchiladas.
- Low Carb: A Keto version can be made without tortillas or a keto version of the tortilla.
- Different Protein: You can use beef, pork or vegan meat along with the enchilada sauce and cheese along with your toppings of your choice.
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Lazy Enchiladas
Equipment
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Ingredients
- 1 pound Chicken breasts, Boneless, skinless
- 4 Flour tortillas, 8 Inch
- 20 ounces Enchilada sauce
- 3 cups Mexican blend cheese, shredded and divided
- 1 teaspoon Fajita Seasoning
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Cut the chicken breasts into 2 inch strips to make cooking quicker. Add them to a 12 inch cast iron skillet, then season with salt and pepper.
- Cook over medium heat, flipping every so often, until fully cooked all the way through.
- Remove chicken from the skillet, and shred the meat.
- Return shredded chicken to the skillet.
- Cut the tortilla into 1 inch strips, then cut into thirds. Add tortillas to skillet.
- Pour enchilada sauce in.
- Add 2 cups of the cheese.
- Sprinkle it with a little bit of salt and pepper.
- Stir everything up, then top with remaining cheddar cheese.
- Bake for 30 minutes, or until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Serve hot, and enjoy!
Christina’s Notes
- Cook Chicken Ahead: You can cook the chicken ahead of time so that you can quickly throw together and bake this meal in 30 minutes on a busy night.
- Corn Tortilla: You can swap the flour tortillas to make corn tortilla chicken enchiladas instead.
- Switch the Meat: You use adapt this recipe from using chicken to another type of meat such as ground beef or ground turkey.
- Veggies: Fold in your favorite veggies for even more flavor such as green chiles.
- Low Carb: A Keto version can be made without tortillas or a keto version of the tortilla.
- Scale the recipe: Simply adjust the serving size in the recipe card and the ingredients will update automatically.
- Make your own All Purpose Seasoning: When a recipe calls for All Purpose Seasoning, you can use my homemade All Purpose Seasoning recipe or substitute salt and pepper to taste.
- Meat doneness: I always use a meat thermometer to test for doneness when cooking meat.
- Use unsalted butter: I use unsalted butter so I can control the salt level in the recipe.
- Preheat the oven: Unless otherwise noted, always preheat your oven before baking.
For more helpful information about this recipe, such as variations, substitutions and other pro-tips, check out the blog post.
Nutrition
The nutritional information provided are estimates. It is recommended that you verify this information with your own trusted resource.
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This recipe is my personal adaption of an ethnic-inspired recipe. It is not intended to be an authentic recipe. I’ve recreated this recipe because I enjoy the flavors and I want to encourage my readers to expand their tastes and try new flavor combinations. The recipe, ingredients, and processes may have been adapted to make the recipe accessible to the average American. I have provided links to authentic versions of the recipe in the post above. I encourage you to visit these pages and learn more about the traditional version(s) of this recipe.