White Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Have you heard of pinterest? It’s an interesting site thats kind of like a bookmarking service, but you’re not the only one who can see the posts. I’ve wasted many an afternoon browsing through the various pins of others and I’ve found quick a few great ideas. One of which being the inspiration for the White Chicken Enchilada Casserole that we had for dinner last night.

With Simon’s allergies, I’m always on the lookout for new recipes, especially ones that are similar to ones we already like. Ian and Jesse love the Creamy Chicken Enchilada recipe I have and when I came across Joyful Momma’s White Chicken Enchiladas, I knew I found something the boys were sure to like. Initially, I was going to make it just like the recipe said, but in order to make it gluten-free (or at least wheat-free), I had to make a few substitutions that required a few adjustments.

The first adjustment I made was really quite simple. Instead of the normal flour tortillas, I used those fabulous soft corn flour tortillas which I’m really starting to enjoy. However, this change was where I came into my first problem. The corn tortillas do not fold as nicely as flour tortillas, even when heated. So instead of making a traditional enchilada, I shredded the tortillas with the intent to mix them in with everything.

The second change was to the chicken and veggies. I didn’t want shredded chicken. For one, it’s easier to dice if you’re using chicken breasts from the fridge rather than canned shredded chicken; but more importantly, it’s faster to cut than shred. Plus, with changing the recipe from simple enchiladas to a casserole, this helped give it a little more texture. As for the veggies, I didn’t have any green chilies on hand, but I did have some delicious green and orange bell peppers and an onion. For the trial recipe, I only used about a 1/2 cup of all three combined, and while it was good, it could totally have used more. For one, I had diced the veggies really well, so the flavors blended beautifully, but it really didn’t give the casserole a nice chunky look. Nor was it as colorful as it could have been with the bell peppers. So I’m amping up the amount of veggies (plus who wouldn’t want more veggies) for this posting.

Chicken broth is a standard in this house, however, since we discovered Psy’s wheat allergy was discovered, I’ve started really looking at my broths and did you know they all have wheat in it? Wheat is used as a thickening agent, so it’s used in a lot of soups and sauces. So I’ve had to go back to basics when making chicken broth – meaning bullion cubes and boiling water. So the initial recipe calls for 2 cups chicken broth, which can be used instead of the bullion cubes and water.

For the 3 tbsp flour, again I had to adjust the recipe to be wheat-free, so I didn’t use regular all-purpose flour. If you don’t have an issue with wheat, then the flour mixture can be whatever you want. However, for those with the wheat allergy, I used a combination of rice flour, potato starch and tapioca flour, called 3 Flour Mix, that I found in the The Gluten-Free Gourmet cookbook by Bette Hagman.

Overall, this was a fabulous recipe and I don’t have a picture because the boys ate it all before I could take one.  This was really simple to make and I had all the ingredients on hand, so it’s one I can make on the fly.  If I thought I could get away with it, I would totally make this again, but I think I’ll wait until next week.

Ingredients:
10 corn flour tortillas, diced
3-4 cups cooked, diced chicken
2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
3 Tbsp. butter
3 Tbsp. gluten-free flour mix
2 cups boiling water
2 bullion cubes
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup of diced green bell pepper
1/2 cup of diced orange bell pepper
1/2 cup of diced onions

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease an 8×10 pan
2. Mix chicken, tortillas and 1 cup cheese. Pour into greased pan.
3. Microwave water and bullion cubes for 1 minute 30 seconds, stirring halfway through.
4. In a sauce pan, melt butter, stir in flour and cook 1 minute. Add bullion mixture and whisk until smooth. Heat over medium heat until thick and bubbly.
5. Stir in sour cream, onions and bell peppers. Do not bring to boil, you don’t want curdled sour cream.
6. Pour over the chicken mixture and stir.  Top with remaining cheese.
7. Bake 25 minutes.  Once done, sprinkle cheese over casserole and return to the oven.  Turn off the oven and leave in until all the cheese is melted.  If you want to brown the cheese, turn the oven to high broil for 3 minutes.