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Red Chile Enchiladas

Name: Red Chile Enchiladas
Prep time: 25 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 60 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: New Mexican
Ingredients: For the Red Chile Sauce; 1 lb Roasted Hatch Red Chile; 2 tablespoons vegetable oil; 2 tablespoons flour; 1 tablespoon liquid garlic (You can also press the juice from two garlic cloves or substitute garlic powder, but I highly recommend the liquid garlic); 1/2 teaspoon oregano; 1 teaspoon cumin powder; Salt to taste; For the Enchiladas; 1 lb ground beef (I prefer 90/10 so there is less grease); 60-count package of corn tortillas; 1–2 lbs grated cheese (I prefer a Muenster/Cheddar mix); 2 1/2 cups vegetable oil; Red Chile Sauce (recipe above); Onions (optional)

Prep 25 min

Cook 35 min

Total 60 min

Servings 6

🌶️

Heat Level 🌶🌶 Medium

📊

Difficulty Medium

Rating

4.9 (12)

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Instructions

1

Quick side note: If you are using our Chopped Roasted Red Chile, skip to step #2, but if you are using our Whole Roasted Red Chile, please follow step #1.
3

Cut off the stems of the chile pods and remove seeds.
4

Use a blender to puree your Roasted Red Chile and set aside.
5

In a pot, heat your oil on medium heat until hot, then add in your flour.
6

Cook the flour until it is browned.
7

Add the liquid garlic, oregano, and cumin to the flour mixture and mix well.
8

Add your red chile puree to the pot and mix well.
9

Bring the mixture to an extremely gentle boil, stirring frequently. By extremely gentle boil, I mean just until you see some bubbles starting to pop around the edges of the pot. Then add your salt to taste.
10

Lower the heat and cook your sauce on low for 15 minutes, stirring frequently—you don't want the bottom to burn.
11

Enjoy!
13

For the Enchiladas
14

Fry ground beef in a frying pan until it is cooked through and season to taste. I like to season my ground beef with garlic powder, garlic salt, onion powder, and our chile powder. Set aside.
15

Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan on medium heat until hot. You will see the oil start to ripple, or as my mom would say, "dimple," when it is hot. You can also test this by sticking a corner of the corn tortilla in to see if it sizzles.
16

Fry the corn tortillas. Once your oil is hot, it should only take about 5–10 seconds on each side to fry the tortilla. When I do a 9x11 pan of enchiladas, I usually use 6 tortillas per layer and do 5–7 layers, so I use 30–42 tortillas. Set aside tortillas.
17

Preheat oven to 300°F.
18

Cover the bottom of the pan in sauce, then put down a layer of tortillas and cover them in your red sauce.
19

Sprinkle your hamburger meat and cheese over the tortillas.
20

Repeat steps 5–6 until your enchiladas reach desired thickness.
21

Cover top of enchiladas in cheese and cover the pan with foil.
22

Bake your enchiladas until the cheese is melted, this usually takes about 10–15 minutes.
23

Dig in!
25

Instructions for Stacked Enchiladas:
27

Fry ground beef in a frying pan until it is cooked through and season to taste. I like to season my ground beef with garlic powder, garlic salt, onion powder, and our chile powder. Set aside.
28

Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan on medium heat until hot. You will see the oil start to ripple, or as my mom would say, "dimple," when it is hot. You can also test this by sticking a corner of the corn tortilla in to see if it sizzles.
29

Fry the corn tortillas. Once your oil is hot, it should only take about 5–10 seconds on each side to fry the tortilla. Before I start frying, I usually ask everybody how many layers they want, which determines how many tortillas I fry.
30

On a plate, pour some red sauce, put one of your fried tortillas on top, cover it in red sauce, sprinkle hamburger meat and cheese on top.
31

Repeat step 4 until your enchilada is the desired size.

Classic New Mexico red chile enchiladas made with Roasted Hatch Red Chile, seasoned ground beef, and melted cheese. Whether you stack them high or bake them casserole-style, this is comfort food at its finest—quick, customizable, and absolutely delicious.

Hey guys, we are back and better than ever! But guess what? It's almost our FAVORITE time of the year—chile season! We are hoping to ship out our first batch of Green Chile next week.

I know it's so exciting, it makes your mouth water just thinking about it. It's time for chile rellenos, chile verde, enchiladas, and if you are like me and just can't wait to get that freshly roasted chile in your mouth, you just peel it, chop it, sprinkle some salt on it, and then use tortilla chips to shovel it in your mouth. Anyways, my point being, there are endless possibilities for food when chile is involved, but today we are going to take it back to a good old classic: enchiladas.

For those of you chile connoisseurs who haven't lived in New Mexico, let me tell you a bit about what it's like. Anytime you walk into a restaurant and order enchiladas, tamales, or even a burrito, it is inevitable that you will be asked our state question: Red or Green? No joke, people, that is our official state question. Now the red vs. green debate has been happening since the beginning of time. Everybody has their own opinions, and I am going to stay out of it because I love all of my chile equally.

So, today I was going through all of our old blog posts to get some recipe inspiration for dinner and I noticed we didn't have a red chile enchiladas recipe up! My heart just about broke! Red enchiladas are a delicious, quick, easy, and oh-so-customizable meal. I was practically raised on red enchiladas, for goodness' sake. So today I am going to share all that I know in the hope that you too can experience the joy that I do when digging into a red enchilada at the end of a work day at the Hatch Chile Store.

First things first, there are SO many ways to make an enchilada. The most customizable way is to stack them, then each person can control how many layers they want, how much meat, how much sauce, how much cheese, etc. You can also make them in a casserole so that you can just pull that bad boy out of the fridge, cut yourself a slice, and heat it up whenever you desire. I'll go over both ways to make your enchiladas below.

Second, everybody makes their sauce a different way. Some people use chile powder, others use dried red chile, but today we will be using Roasted Hatch Red Chile.

Helpful Tips:

Have everybody make their own stacked enchilada so it's just the way they like it.
Fry some eggs to throw on top of your enchilada—trust me, it's AMAZING.
When making a casserole, be generous with the sauce; you don't want it to dry out in the oven.
If you like your enchiladas extra saucy, don't be afraid to double the sauce recipe. Anything left over can be frozen and then used later on when you get home from work and just don't know what to make for dinner.
If you are feeling lazy and don't have any sauce frozen away, try a jar of our Ol' Gringo Red Sauce.

Well, folks, that's it! Thanks for reading, and I'll be back soon with more recipes for all you chile lovers!

P.S. A BIG thank you to my wonderful Mamo for always being the best source for family recipes like this one.