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Just made this for dinner tonight and YUM! My whole family loved it. This is a keeper, thanks for sharing!
Richelle
Today is my dad’s 50th birthday.
Wait, 50?
This graceful noodle-warrior is 50 years old?
Let me just tell you.
My dad is incredible. Being with him makes me a better person and brings calm to my heart.
Alrightalrightalright. I just showed you a picture of him launching a full-scale attack with a foam noodle. But really, I promise, he is generally a calming person.
When I was 5, my dad knew everything about the world. Then I turned 15. Hmmph.
Now that I’m 25, I realize that my dad probably can’t know everything about the world. But I’m still pretty sure that he actually does, because he’s my dad and he’s amazing.
Dad, you inspire me! Thanks for being the best. Ever.
Alright. In honor of my dad who is the number one best ever, let’s talk about the number two best ever.
These chicken enchiladas. I’m sototallyinlovewiththem. When I think about the 6 servings of leftover enchiladas sitting in my fridge, my heart skips a beat.
They’re chicken meets salsa meets corn meets beans meets CROCKPOT.
Now roll it up in a corn tortilla and top it with melted cheese, avocado, crema, and more Cotija cheese. THAT is an enchilada mountain right there. Are these still considered enchiladas if they don’t have enchilada sauce? Better question: will anyone even care because they’re so so tasty? Right on.
PS. Number three best ever: you can get away with a 5-minute workout because they’re skinnay. And by 5-minute work out, I mean 5-minute raid of the chocolate chips.
Conferences? NBD. Just an excuse to eat some cold enchilada leftovers in my classroom. #yum
Skinny Chicken Enchiladas
- Total Time: 3 hours 20 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
Description
These skinny chicken enchiladas are super easy and healthy, too! Filling made in the crockpot!
Ingredients
- 1 lb. chicken breasts
- 1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
- 1 can corn, drained
- 16 oz. fresh salsa
- 3 tablespoons taco seasoning
- 1/4 cup water (optional)
- 12 small corn tortillas
- 1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
- 1 avocado, diced
- 1/4 cup crema (see notes)
- fresh cilantro, Cotija cheese for topping
Instructions
- Put the first 6 ingredients in a crockpot. If your salsa is not very saucy, be sure to include the 1/4 cup water or more if necessary. Cook on high for about 3 hours (or longer on the low setting) until chicken is cooked through. You can also cut the chicken breasts into halves to help them cook faster. Use 2 forks to shred the chicken and mix everything together.
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Soften the corn tortillas in the microwave, 3 at a time, for about 25 seconds. Fill them with a few tablespoons of filling, roll once, and place seam-side down in a large baking dish (I did 2 smaller baking dishes). Continue until all tortillas have been filled, rolled and placed in dish. Be sure to pack them in tightly next to each other so that they don’t come apart.
- Sprinkle evenly with the shredded cheese and bake for about 15-20 minutes, until cheese is melted and bubbly and everything is heated through.
- Remove from oven and drizzle with crema. Sprinkle with avocado pieces, fresh cilantro, and Cotija cheese crumbles.
Notes
The corn tortillas will start to break apart on the top during baking if you don’t warm them up enough prior to baking.
For the crema, I just made a fake-out version with about 3 tbs. sour cream and 2 tbs. cream. I whisked it together until it was smooth, creamy, and drizzle-able. Also, I used part yellow corn and part shoepeg corn, which made the texture more interesting.
Serving size for the nutrition facts is 2 enchiladas.
- Prep Time: 3 hours
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Mexican
Keywords: skinny chicken enchiladas, chicken enchiladas, healthy chicken enchiladas
Sooo I’m realizing that I might have missed a few things that would fall somewhere between my dad and chicken enchiladas on the Best Ever list.
Like my husband and my future dog.
But the melted cheese has oozed its way into my brain and is blocking my ability to think about this clearly, so I think that we’re just going to go with it for today. K? Happy Enchiladaing!
I just saw “skinny” and “enchiladas” in one title, and swooned. I’ll be making these immediately. I have to! 🙂
Happy Birthday to your dad!
Happy birthday to your dad!!
Sometimes I find enchiladas a bit gloopy but these look so wonderful and fresh and tasty and all that’s good in the world!
These look so yummy! I wanted to make the muffins and the pancakes! I need extra hours in the day to keep up with you…
Happy Birthday to your dad!
Want want want!
In loooooove. Amor. Que fantastico! (You see; you made me break into Spanish.)
P.S. Happy Birthday to your dad!!
Gracias. 😉
I love this recipe.
My family LOVES enchiladas! These look fantastic!
Enchilada sauce is the one thing I never have when I want to make actual enchiladas so these are pretty much perfect!
Happy Bday to your dad!
Isn’t that the truth? I’m sure these would be tasty with a little enchilada sauce, but darn. That is not a pantry ingredient for me. And I didn’t even miss it!
Those enchildas look incredible, and happy birthday to your dad! 🙂
PS. You take the most GORGEOUS photos! What program do you edit your photos with? Photoshop or Lightroom?
Thank you so much! I use Photoshop but I’ve been playing around with Lightroom because I’m actually finishing up an e-book on food photography, and I wanted to include some examples of both in the e-book. Check back in a few weeks if you’re interested! 🙂 I’m really excited about it.
PS. For these pictures, I was in Photoshop.
Thank you for the reply, Lindsay!
I actually barely know how to use Photoshop (I usually use Lightroom), but Photoshop seems like the editing program of choice for most bloggers, so I want to start learning how to use it. I’m really looking forward to your e-book, I’m sure it will be wonderful!! 🙂
These sound AMAZING! I think I’m having a blonde moment, though – you put the corn tortillas in the slow cooker too since you said toss in the first 7? Can’t wait to try them!!
No! Yikes. I need to check my counting skills. Thanks for the heads up!
Hahaha – my pleasure! I was just confused and a little intrigued! Can’t wait to try it tomorrow!!
I don’t know what I would do with all my faithful readers who catch my recipe mistakes. Seriously! 🙂 Have a great week!
Oh sweet heavens.
It looks awesome and I love the pop of avo against that cheese…mmmmm, beautiful food and pics, Lindsay!
I love any avo in my life. AVOOOO.
Happy Birthday to your Dad!!!!
This looks so tasty.
Tab
What a wonderful way to honour someone that you love’s birthday. With a favourite recipe.
Happy 50th Birthday to your Dad!
Yum! That filling sounds awesome! Plus, cooking it in the crockpot = easy! 😀 Beautiful pictures as always! The colors are perfect!
Happy birthday to your dad!
The crockpot idea was my friend’s actually, she made the chicken as an all-purpose Mexican filling and I had to make it the very next day! As an enchilada of course. 🙂
Nice post. Great picture of you and your Dad. Your enchiladas look fantastic. Come visit. We have some wonderful recipes this month and a really terrific bit of news to share today.
These look so good! I can’t wait to make them!
Happy Birthday to Papa Pinch of Yum! And yay for these skinny enchiladas! I’m always looking for lightened versions of my all-time favorite Mexican dish, so I’m so excited to give these a try. I don’t know what the difference is between burritos and enchiladas without enchilada sauce, but who the heck cares. As long as they taste good, you can call them Poopchiladas, and I’d still eat em. Thanks for the great recipe!
lol… Papa Pinch of Yum is about the best thing I’ve ever heard. He’ll love that. 😉
Yu
Nice looking enchiladas!
Yum!! These are beautiful and I imagine they are as tasty as they are stunning!! Happy birthday to your dad — he is so young!!
he’s young, wild, and free. In theory. 🙂
Mmm… now I have Mexican on the brain. I will definitely try this soon!
Your dad seems super cool. Tell him hi from us friendly webbers!
He is super cool. I’m glad you got that vibe from my noodle warrior photos. 🙂
I love how “skinny” is everywhere. Last night the waiter asked if I wanted skinny fries or onion fries with my chicken. Skinny fries sounded too good to be true, so of course I nearly screamed at him “oh YES skinny fries please!!”. He looked taken aback and said, “do you mean our skin-on fries?”
OK, so maybe I’m just hearing it everywhere 🙂
Ha! I’d take skinny fries every night of my life please.
Yup, making these tonight.
Good call. 😉
Probably the prettiest enchiladas I’ve ever seen! AND they are skinny… SOLD!