Chickadee's Good-as-Restaurant Shredded Beef Enchiladas

Chickadee’s Good-as-Restaurant Shredded Beef Enchiladas

I know this isn’t a food blog by any means, but every now and then I like to share a recipe or two. You can rest assured I’ll only post recipes I’ve truly kitchen-tested and that have passed the stringent Chickadee-Family approval test. 😉 With three kiddos, it’s a tough test for sure! We can all use some new recipes every once in awhile. Sometimes I come across a really really good recipe, add a few Chickadee-tweaks and it comes out so good I just have to share it with you! This is one of those!

Years ago, when my family first moved to Missouri from California, one of the first things we did was to try to find a good Mexican restaurant. Not an easy thing, it turned out. Living in SoCal spoiled us to the yummy Mexican food goodness that was definitely harder to find in the Midwest! This recipe makes a comparable-to-yummy-restaurant shredded beef enchilada. (None of that ground beef stuff here!) Give it a try and let me know what you think! Just a warning, this is a crock-pot recipe, so your whole house will smell with yummy Mexican goodness before long!

Chickadee's Good-as-Restarurant Shredded Beef Enchiladas

This recipe has three basic steps: Cooking the beef, putting the enchiladas together, and cooking the homemade sauce. It's not a quick recipe, but the results are sooo worth it!

Prep Time 20 minutes

Cook Time 8 hours

Total Time 8 hours 20 minutes

Author chickadee

Ingredients

2-4 lbs beef roast
large pinch salt
large pinch pepper
3 T olive oil
2 medium onions chopped
4 7 oz. cans diced green chile peppers undrained
4 T chili powder
3 T ground cumin
4 cloves garlic minced
1 5 oz. bottle hot sauce (I use Taco Bell's mild sauce 😉 )
1/4 cup water
3+ cups Monterrey jack, pepper jack, or cheddar cheese Your preference!
1 package flour tortilla casera or burrito size (10 count)
3 8 oz. cans tomato sauce
optional chopped green onions to garnish
optional chopped cilantro to garnish

Instructions

Pay close attention to the ingredient amounts, as we'll be using some of them for the meat, and some of it later for the sauce. 🙂
Season the roast well with salt and pepper.
Heat 2 Tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
Place the meat in the skillet and sear it on all sides. We're browning to sear in the juices, not to cook.
When the roast is browned, transfer the meat to a crock pot or slow-cooker. Top it with 1 and 1/2 of the chopped onions. Add 3 cans of the chopped green chile peppers, including the juice. Add 2 Tablespoons of the chili powder, and cumin. Add 2 of the minced garlic cloves and hot sauce.
Add the 1/4 cup of water, then cover and cook on low for 8 hours or until meat is tender and falling apart. (2 hours on high, and then 3/4 on low works too, if you want to save a little time.)
Shred the meat until it's ready to be stuffed into your tortillas.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
For the enchilada sauce:
Heat 1 Tablespoon of olive oil in a saucepan. Saute the remaining onions until soft and clear. Add the remaining garlic and saute for 1 minute. Stir in the tomato sauce, remaining green chiles, 2 Tablespoons chili powder, and 1 Tablespoon of cumin. Cook on medium-low heat for 10 minutes while stirring often.
For the enchiladas:
Spoon some of the sauce into the bottom of a 9X13 in a casserole dish, just enough to cover the bottom. Fill each tortilla, one by one, with meat and a couple heaping spoonfuls of shredded cheese, as much as you like, save some cheese for the topping! Roll up and place in the casserole dish.
Cover the dish completely with the remaining sauce. Sprinkle cheese over the top. Bake uncovered for 25 minutes. When done, set out to cool for 5-10 minutes, but serve while still warm! Sprinkle chopped green onions and/or cilantro over the top if desired, and enjoy!

Recipe Notes

If the meat comes out juicier than your preference, it's okay to strain it before filling the tortillas. If you're going to freeze the meat to use in other dishes later though, add the juice back in before freezing, for best results.