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Meet your new family favourite midweek dinner recipe – Slow Cooker Chicken Enchiladas!
This ‘dump’ recipe doesn’t need any browning or fiddly rolling. Easy and convenient – and oh-so delicious.
When I had the idea for this slow cooker chicken recipe, I had NO idea if it would work.
What can I say, these things come to me when I’m least expecting it, sometimes they work and sometimes they fail spectacularly 😆
I’m so happy to say this recipe was everything we all want. Quick to throw together, super tasty, and feels like a treat while actually being pretty healthy.
These Slow Cooker Enchiladas are, of course, not authentically Mexican, but they are a brilliant midweek shortcut dinner.
Why you’ll love this Chicken Enchiladas recipe
⭐️ No browning or fiddly rolling needed
⭐️ A brilliant fakeaway
⭐️ Family favourite that everyone will love
How we came up with this recipe
Known for being customisable with different meats, fillings and toppings, this once-upon-a time Mexican street food has evolved and travelled over the centuries, undoubtedly far from its traditional recipe and country of origin.
This is my own take on chicken enchiladas, which even veers from the method of rolling the soft tortillas around the filling.
Instead, I simply throw them into the slow cooker with the sauce.
If you’d rather stick to the rolled enchiladas, just remove the chicken mixture from the slow cooker, roll everything up, reserve a little of the sauce, and then return to the pan with the reserved sauce on top and the cheese.
This method works really well for my Slow Cooker Beef Enchiladas and my Slow Cooker Veggie Enchiladas too!
Slow Cooker Chicken Enchiladas Ingredients notes
- Chicken – I used skinless/boneless chicken breasts, but you could also use skinless/boneless chicken thighs
- Passata – The pack size in the recipe might sound random but it’s the size of most of the large glass jars. If you are using cartons, you can use slightly more if you have it rather than throw it away!
- Sweetcorn – Tinned sweetcorn that has been drained is fine. You can also use frozen if you prefer but defrost it first. I find the tin sizes vary depending on the store. If your tin is slightly bigger or smaller don’t worry
- Onion – I use frozen pre-peeled and chopped, but fresh is fine too
- Spices: Garlic powder, ground cumin, oregano and mild chilli powder
- Cheese – I use a mixture of grated mozzarella and red Leicester as I like the ‘pull’ and the colour, but use whatever you have
Substitutions
- Chicken – To make this vegetarian you could swap the meat for 2 x 400g tins of mixed beans (in addition to the black beans). Cook as normal and add the wraps, sweetcorn and cheese later
- Black beans – You can substitute these with any other cooked, canned, drained beans. For example, kidney beans
Leftovers
In the fridge You can keep this recipe in the fridge for 3 days. Reheat fully before serving. (You could always use any leftover filling in a Chicken Quesadilla too!)
In the freezer
If you want to freeze leftovers and reheat them for lunch, they will be fine but the wraps may go a little soggy when reheated. As in, fine for lunch but not a whole meal if you know what I mean?
If you want to freeze the whole dish for a family meal, I would either:
a) freeze all of the ingredients in a bag raw as a ‘dump’ meal and then cook, or
b) just freeze the cooked chicken base. Then add the sweetcorn, wraps and cheese when it’s thawed and heat through totally.
Top tip
Prepare this the night before for extra time-saving
Throw everything for the initial cook into the slow cooker, pop the lid on, then store in the fridge overnight. In the morning, put it into the slow cooker. (Don’t forget to switch it on like I’ve done before!)
FAQs
I use Morphy Richards Sear & Stew Slow Cooker (it’s light and you can use it for browning on the hob too).
For induction hob users: Lakeland Digital 6.5l Slow Cooker.
Also! Top tip, buy a WiFi plug for it so you can switch it on or off from your phone when you’re at work? What a time to be alive.. I have these: Tp Link Tapo Smart Plug (Also you can set up with your Google or Alexa to say ‘switch on slow cooker”. WHATTT 🤯
I’d say it’s low to medium spice, so suitable for children. You can adjust the amount of spice by using less or more chilli powder. You could also add chopped chillies on top before serving if you want some extra spice.
If you look at the notes below the recipe, you’ll see that I do often finish this off in the oven but it’s not necessary.
If you’d prefer an oven version of Chicken Enchiladas you can find my recipe here.
Let me know how you got on and what you thought of these recipes. Please rate the recipe using the ⭐️ below.
Also I’d LOVE to see your cooking creations. If you’d like to share yours with me, you can tag me on Instagram (@tamingtwins).
Chicken Enchiladas {Slow Cooker Recipe}
Ingredients
For the slow cook:
- 4 Chicken breasts, About 800g
- 680 g Passata, See notes
- 400 g Black beans, Drained and rinsed. See notes
- 1 Onion, Peeled and chopped
- 2 tsp Garlic powder
- 2 tsp Ground cumin
- 1 tsp Oregano
- 1/2 tsp Mild chilli powder, See notes
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
To finish:
- 340 g Tinned sweetcorn, Drained. See notes
- 6 Tortilla soft wraps
- 250 g Grated cheese , See notes
Instructions
- Put all of the slow cook ingredients into the slow cooker and mix well.
- Cook for 4 hours on HIGH or 6 hours on LOW.
- When the chicken is cooked through, stir well and shred the chicken with 2 forks. Add in the sweetcorn and the tortilla wraps, and cut into strips.
- Add the cheese on top.
- Option 1: Pop back into the slow cooker with the lid on for 40 minutes on HIGH or until the cheese is melted.
- Option 2: Pop under a hot grill or into an oven heated to 200C for about 10 minutes or until the cheese is melted and golden.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Absolutely delicious and so easy to make. The whole family loved it!
Can I use frozen chicken breasts?
I would never believe my kids would enjoy this (and admittedly they all turned their noses up when they saw it) but they all (6, 8, 11) loved it. I put the chilli powder in with expectation 8 year old would find it too much as black pepper often sends him into meltdown but it didn’t bother him at all.
So easy and so yummy 😋
This is the 5th TT slow cooker recipe I’ve tried and this one is just as good as the others. I served it with tortilla pockets which the children stuffed instead of adding them to the dish itself. We’ll definitely make this one again.
Made this last night and it was so easy and so yummy! Husband and both kids (3 and 1) loved it! Such a game changer on making enchiladas – so much easier and way less washing up! Definitely adding it to our weeknight staples – thank you!!
Made this so many times everyone loves it so quick and easy to prepare thank you so much for this recipe 😊
I’ve been watching for a while and this is the first recipe that I’ve tried. I loved how easy it was to make! I went easy on the chilli as I wasn’t sure if my 1 year old would like it but next time I’ll add more. Can’t wait to try another recipe tomorrow night
Made tonight for the first time. So easy to prepare & cook & the whole family loved it! Served with a few nachos, guacamole & soured cream. Yum