Enchiladas

What are Enchiladas

Do you have a craving for some delicious enchiladas suizas, mineras, potosinas, red, green, queretanas, etc, etc? Well, you’ve just come to the right place, because here we will talk about the types of enchiladas that exist or at least the most popular ones, as well as their ingredients and their proper preparation. Are you ready? Let’s get started.

enchiladas

Something that particularly appeals to me, and I think to you too, is the flexibility that certain dishes can have to “generate” more and more variable meals of the same type. We noticed this in our article that lists more than 30 types of tamales.

Just like tamales and thousands of other dishes, enchiladas join the list of being one of the dishes with a wide variety of combinations and ways to prepare them. But first things first, what are enchiladas?

What are Enchiladas?

Enchiladas are a representative dish of Mexican gastronomy that consists of a corn or flour tortilla filled with cheese, chicken, meat, mushrooms, eggs or vegetables. It is then rolled up and covered with a spicy or non-spicy sauce.

What are Enchiladas

As you can see, the simplicity of its preparation and the few elements needed are the necessary characteristics that have allowed enchiladas to have more than 40 different variations, where the filling and the sauce that accompanies it are factors that can be previously scaled and improved according to the place, region or date you decide to try it.

What does the word Enchiladas mean?

The word “ENCHILADA” is a diminutive of the word chillapitzalli, which comes from the “Nahuatl” language where chilli means “Chile or Pepper” and tlapitzalli means “Flute”, both words combined give us the word “Flautas Enchiladas”.

With the passing of the years and the colonization, this word was losing weight within the gastronomic name to become something more “proper” of the Spanish language. This resulted in the origin of the word “ENCHILADA” which was mentioned for the first time in the 19th century, in a printed book called “El cocinero Mexicano” (The Mexican Cook).

Of course, after that mention, it gradually became more popular, until it became what it is today and of course one of the Mexican dishes that has managed to climb to the gastronomy of all Latin America.

What does the word Enchiladas mean

How are Enchiladas made?

In a global way, one way to prepare the classic enchiladas (green or red), is simply using corn tortillas, which are filled with some kind of cargo (usually chicken), the sauce is placed on top and in case you want to give it a better flavor, this dish is “heated” in the microwave.

The process where it takes a little more time is in the preparation of the sauce (Green or Red) and on the extra ingredients that can be added. Now, we will go on to describe its ingredients and a video of its preparation.

Ingredients:

  • 500 grams of cooked and shredded chicken.
  • 9 corn or flour tortillas
  • Oil
  • 5 dried guajillo chiles
  • 3 dried ancho chiles
  • 1 tomato
  • 4 garlic cloves
  • 1 white onion
  • 1 tablespoon ground cumin (optional)
  • 2 cups water
  • 1 cup chicken broth
  • Salt to taste
  • Pepper to taste

Now we present a video with the complete step-by-step recipe, tips and ingredients on how to make Enchiladas Rojas. Very easy to prepare, and very tasty from breakfast to snack.

Types of Enchiladas

Now that you know a little about enchiladas, their meaning and the “basic” way to prepare them, it is time to know what are the most common types of enchiladas that exist, as well as their ingredients and the recipes to prepare them. Let’s get to it.

Swiss Enchiladas

Enchiladas Suizas emerged during the 19th century and legend has it that it was the wife of Maximilian of Habsburg’s butler. When Maximilian’s empire fell, the butler fled with his wife to Coahuila, where he opened a small business called “Café Imperial”. Well, in this cafe was served for the first time the enchiladas suizas that as we all know went down in history and is still one of the most delicious dishes in Mexico.

As you may have noticed, there are green enchiladas and red enchiladas and their name comes down to the “color” of the sauce, as this is a similar case to the Swiss enchiladas, only that its name is due to the cheese used in its recipe and preparation: Swiss Cheese.

How to make Enchiladas Suizas?

Ingredients:

  • 1 cream cheese
  • 500 grams of green tomato
  • ½ small onion
  • 1 serrano chile
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
  • ¼ cup cilantro
  • 2 tablespoons powdered chicken concentrate
  • 16 corn tortillas
  • 2 chicken breasts
  • 12 slices of manchego type cheese

The above ingredients are a way to prepare enchiladas suizas, however, as there are several ways to prepare this traditional Mexican dish, these can be a little more or a little less and now we will present you with its recipe and way of preparation.

Green Enchiladas

Green (and Red) enchiladas are among the most common and popular among the list of all the enchilada variants, for example the green Swiss enchiladas, where we clearly notice that they combine the Swiss cheese with the green sauce that characterizes the name of this dish.

Generally, the green sauce used in this type of enchilada is prepared with cooked green tomatoes, to which chili and onion are added. It should be noted that since it is one of the most popular, the green sauce can be found for sale in supermarkets.

How to make Enchiladas Verdes?

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 kilos of chicken breast, or solid pork.
  • 1/2 onions
  • 2 serrano chiles
  • 7 green tomatoes
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 1 branch of fresh cilantro, disinfected
  • 1 head lettuce
  • 1 fresh cheese
  • tortillas
  • vegetable oil
  • 1 pinch of salt
  • 1/4 cup sour cream

The above ingredients are enough to prepare 5 servings of green enchiladas, and of course if you like you can change the queso fresco for a Swiss cheese and have some delicious Swiss green enchiladas. Now we will show you the video of the recipe and how to prepare it.

Red Enchiladas

Red enchiladas (like green enchiladas) adds to the list of people’s favorites and there is even a pitched battle between being #TeamRed or #TeamGreen. Which team are you?

Ingredients:

  • 500 grams of tomatoes
  • 1/4 onion
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 3 chiles de árbol
  • 1/2 cups of water
  • 12 corn tortillas, fried
  • 5 grams of pepper
  • 10 grams of salt
  • 1 sprig of fresh cilantro, washed and disinfected
  • 1/2 chicken breast, cooked and shredded
  • 5 lettuce leaves, filleted
  • 150 milliliters of sour cream
  • 200 grams of fresh cheese

You may notice that the ingredients are a little different from the green enchiladas and this is because you can add more flavor to the red sauce and even make it very spicy.

The above ingredients can be used to prepare red enchiladas for 5 people, but now we are going to show you a video of the recipe and how to prepare some delicious enchiladas.

How to make Enchiladas Rojas?

Red Enchiladas

Red enchiladas (like green enchiladas) adds to the list of people’s favorites and there is even a pitched battle between being #TeamRed or #TeamGreen. Which team are you?

Ingredients:

  • 500 grams of tomatoes
  • 1/4 onion
  • 1 clove of garlic
  • 3 chiles de árbol
  • 1/2 cups of water
  • 12 corn tortillas, fried
  • 5 grams of pepper
  • 10 grams of salt
  • 1 sprig of fresh cilantro, washed and disinfected
  • 1/2 chicken breast, cooked and shredded
  • 5 lettuce leaves, filleted
  • 150 milliliters of sour cream
  • 200 grams of fresh cheese

You may notice that the ingredients are a little different from the green enchiladas and this is because you can add more flavor to the red sauce and even make it very spicy.

The above ingredients can be used to prepare red enchiladas for 5 people, but now we are going to show you a video of the recipe and how to prepare some delicious enchiladas.

How to make Enchiladas Rojas?

Enchiladas Potosinas

Like Guanajuato, San Luis Potosi also has its own version of enchiladas (Enchiladas Potosinas) and its main characteristic is its color and flavor.

According to legend, enchiladas posinas were born by accident and by the hand of Doña Cristina Jalomo (1874 – 1973), who while grinding the chili, it “mixed with the dough”, giving the flavor, smell and color that you know today.
How to make Enchiladas potosinas ?

Ingrecidntes

  • 75 grams of ancho chile, deveined and seeded.
  • 1 cup of water, hot
  • 1 tablespoon of butter
  • 1 tablespoon of oil
  • 1/4 cup onion, finely chopped
  • 1 1/4 cups of fresh cheese, crumbled
  • 1/2 kilos corn, in dough
  • 1/2 tablespoons salt
  • to taste oil, for frying

The above ingredients are to create a delicious enchiladas potosinas for 6 people and although these can vary according to their preparation as we can see in the recipe shown in the following video.

Mole Enchiladas

Mole enchiladas are characterized by not using red or green sauce, but rather using mole and another name it is known by is “enmoldas or enmoladas de pollo”. Its basic preparation is similar to that of the classic enchiladas, but here it is almost obligatory to use chicken as filling for the tortillas and do not forget the mole.
How to make Enchiladas de Mole?

Ingredients:

  • 4 1/2 cups chicken broth
  • 1 cup vegetable oil
  • 12 tortillas
  • 2 cups cooked and shredded chicken
  • 1 cup cream
  • 1 cup crumbled queso fresco
  • 1/2 cup sliced onion
  • 1 glass of red mole paste

HACK: When you eat chicken with mole, or the famous chimole with chicken, you can use the leftovers to make delicious mole enchiladas.

Queretaro Enchiladas

Continuing with the different types of enchiladas that we find within the gastronomy of Mexico, we come across a typical dish from Queretaro: Enchiladas Queretanas.

And what makes this dish different from the rest? The answer is potatoes and carrots, because while some of them use chicken meat or some kind of cheese to fill the tortilla, in Queretaro we use potatoes and carrots.
How to make Enchiladas Queretanas?

Ingredients

  • 12 corn tortillas
  • 2 potatoes in cubes and blanched
  • 2 carrots, diced and blanched
  • ½ chopped onion
  • 5 guajillo chiles
  • ¼ cup chopped onion
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1 cup lettuce, shredded
  • ½ cup cream
  • ½ teaspoon cumin
  • 200g fresh cheese
  • Enough oil for frying

Now we will show you a video of how to prepare some delicious enchiladas queretanas and of course, how to prepare the potato with the carrot.

Conclusion

There is no doubt that enchiladas are a food that has multiple variants in Mexico and some regions have adopted it within their gastronomic culture to create their own local version. We challenge you to try one of these recipes or create your own and send us your video, recipe and ingredients. We promise to try them and publish them here in Cubo Informativo.