Taco Enchiladas
I love Mexican food. Unfortunately, where I live we don't have a Mexican restaurant. There's not a Taco Bell anywhere around. And even if there was one, I don't believe I could get an enchilada from them. It's funny but enchiladas have become the forgotten Mexican food. You hear of tacos and burritos and chimichangas and gorditas, but enchiladas are never mentioned. It may have to do with the fact that enchiladas are not a dish you can hold in your hand and eat. They're messy and saucy and you need a plate to eat them. They're not what one can sell as a convenience food.
However, you can barely find a TV dinner in the frozen section of the supermarket that features an enchilada in it, either. I've tried looking for a TV dinner featuring enchiladas, as well as fish and chips and couldn't find either. At least with fish and chips you can buy the fish filet and french fries and make your own dinner, but with enchiladas there's no easy fix. Years ago, that wasn't the case, however.
As a kid my favorite TV Dinner was the Patio Mexican TV Dinner. I'm guessing Patio went out of business. And at least in Vermont, Banquet and Swanson don't make a Mexican TV Dinner. Believe me, I've looked. So I had a can of enchilada sauce and I decided to see if it would be too hard to make my own. As it turned out it wasn't. In fact, they're pretty easy to make now they sell flour tortillas in the store. The only problem is coming up with a good recipe.
I followed the recipe on the back of the can, and the taste wasn't really as spicy as I would like it. They tasted kind of bland. So I decided to play with the recipe a bit. Instead of putting a portion of the enchilada sauce in the meat stuffing, I decided to put an envelope of taco seasoning instead. I also added onions and green peppers to it. Hence the name Taco Enchiladas. And they taste pretty good.
Using flour tortilla's make them really easy to roll up. Years ago I tried to make enchiladas using corn tortilla's and the tortilla fell apart before i could roll them up. Corn tortilla's don't have the flexibility that flour tortillas have.
A variation you might want to try is using a can of chili and mixing it up with cheese and stuffing the enchilada with the chili and cheese mixture to create Chili Enchiladas, instead of making the meat filling inside from scratch. It would cut down on the work and time it takes to make this dish. You could also try mixing some white rice, ground beef, salsa and cheese together as another variation to stuff inside the enchilada.
Another option is to lay the enchiladas on a bed on white rice. When you pour the enchilada sauce over the enchiladas and cook them when they're done you have some nice Mexican-style rice to serve as a side dish. Then all you have to add is a can of Mexican corn as another side and you'll have a nice Mexican dinner to serve yourself and your family.
Cook Time
Ingredients
- 1 pound hamburger
- 1/2 green pepper, diced
- 1 small onion, diced
- 1 can Old El Paso Enchilada Sauce
- 8 0z package shredded cheese
- 1-12 count package taco flour tortillas
Instructions
- Fry onion and green peppers until tender. Add 1 pound of hamburger. When hamburger is done add package to taco seasoning mix. Follow directions on package for how much water to add to mix.
- Let excess water cook down in meat mixture, then remove it from heat. Add 1 cup of shredded cheese to mixture and mix it together until cheese melts.
- Open can on enchilada sauce and pour a little into bottom to coat bottom. Place two spoonfuls of the meat mixture on the middle of a flour tortilla. Roll it up and place the enchilada seam side down.
- When all the enchiladas are placed in the baking dish, pour remaining enchilada sauce over them and sprinkle with a cup of shredded cheese.
- Preheat oven to 350 and cover dish with Reynold's wrap. Bake for 30 minutes.
