Chicken Enchiladas with Pico de Gallo

February 3, 2021 By Steph 66 Comments

These easy chicken enchiladas with pico de gallo are a perfect easy dinner for the family, or make a great meal prep. Shredded rotisserie chicken breast is sautéed with diced green chilis, onion, spices, and fresh cilantro, then rolled up in tortillas. Topped with a homemade enchilada sauce and baked with melty cheese, this meal is warm and comforting.

What you’ll need to make chicken enchiladas with pico de gallo

For the chicken filling, you’ll need:

two rotisserie chicken breasts (4 cups of shredded chicken)
large onion
kosher salt
garlic
diced green chilis
cumin
paprika
dried oregano
fresh cilantro
black beans

For the enchilada sauce, you’ll need:

16 oz tomato sauce (I use Goya)
chicken broth
cumin
onion powder
garlic powder

For assembling the enchiladas, you’ll need:

low carb tortillas, I use these from Mission
- you can use any low-carb tortilla or wrap of choice (Tumaros, Ole Extreme Wellness, etc.)
shredded Mexican blend cheese
cilantro
other toppings of choice: shredded lettuce, sour cream, avocado

For the pico de gallo, you’ll need:

plum tomatoes
onion
cilantro
kosher salt
lime juice

How to prepare the chicken filling

For this recipe, I picked up a rotisserie chicken. I know, I know… I never do that! But honestly, there’s nothing better than that juicy rotisserie chicken breast. It’s easy to shred and so flavorful. For this recipe, I used two shredded rotisserie chicken breasts (without the skin). This yielded 4 cups of shredded chicken. You can cook your own chicken in the instant pot, slow cooker, boil it, or roast it. Start off with two large chicken breasts, and you should end up with about 4 cups of cooked chicken. To prepare the chicken for the enchilada filling chop up the onion and sauté it in some olive oil spray, with 1/2 tsp kosher salt. Cook the onion for five minutes.

Then, add the minced garlic, followed by the shredded chicken, diced green chilis, cumin, oregano, and paprika. Stir in the fresh cilantro, followed by the drained, rinsed black beans.

Let this mixture cook for another five minutes or so, just so the flavors combine. Then set it aside. Remember, everything is cooked here. We just want to warm it through and get those flavors together. Next, let’s make the enchilada sauce so that we can put this all together.

How to make the enchilada sauce

To make the enchilada sauce (which I admittedly had never made before) I simply just combined Goya tomato sauce with some other flavorings to create a really delicious, creamy tomato sauce. It actually came out so good! Of course, you can always buy canned enchilada sauce. But this takes only 5 minutes to throw together, and to me, it was worth it. Combine the Goya tomato sauce, chicken stock, paprika, onion powder, garlic powder, and cumin together in a small sauce pot and bring it to a boil. Cook for five minutes. That’s it.

Assembling and cooking the Chicken Enchiladas

To assemble and cook the enchiladas, preheat the oven to 400F. Next, take a casserole dish and spread a layer of the enchilada sauce on the bottom. Next, grab your tortillas (you need eight in total). At the base of each tortilla, add a heaping 1/2 cup of the chicken filling. Then, tightly roll up the tortilla and place it seam-side down in the enchilada sauce in the casserole dish.

Once all of the tortillas are rolled up and arranged in the casserole dish, cover them all with the remaining enchilada sauce. Then, top the sauce with 1 cup of shredded cheese. Cover the casserole tightly with foil, and bake it at 400 for 20 minutes. Remove the foil and bake for another 5 minutes.

Making the Pico de Gallo

While the enchiladas are cooking, you can make the quick pico de gallo. I personally really feel that a warm and cheesy baked dish like this one needs something bright and fresh on top of it. That’s why this pico de gallo works perfectly here. There’s not much to making this. It’s really just a lot of chopping. First, let’s get to work on those tomatoes. I use plum tomatoes here, and whenever I use tomatoes, I like to take the insides out. To do this, cut the tomatoes in half, then squeeze the tomatoes gently over a bowl to release the seeds and pulp. This makes for a less watery mixture, and all that you’re left with is the firmer outside part of the tomato, which is the part I love. Once you’ve done that to all four tomatoes, you can chop the remaining bits up into small pieces. Chop up the onion, too.

Add the chopped tomato and onion to a bowl, followed by the fresh lime juice, kosher salt, and cilantro. Mix everything together, and let the mixture sit until you are ready to top your enchiladas. When the enchiladas come out of the oven, serve them up with the pico de gallo, some fresh avocado, shredded lettuce, rice, sour cream, and whatever else you enjoy!