Green Enchiladas

Enchiladas are one of those not too difficult but rather rewarding dishes. I very recently posted about Chicken Enchiladas, which contained Pressure Cooker Taco Chicken. These followed a similar protocol, but I was in the mood for trying out a green sauce. A friend has mentioned that he makes a killer version when I shared the red sauce ones, so naturally I threw this one on the wish list.

The key difference is the use of tomatillos vs tomatoes to give the sauce the green color. Before digging into this, I'd expected it to be similar to Green Curry, which gets its green color from peppers. Tomatillos aren't a fruit I've worked with in the past, so I was eager to give these a go.
A rather common use for tomatillos is salsa verde (basically this green sauce; many recipes for green enchiladas start with a salsa verde jar). I don't really like starting from a jar unless I'm bummin' it for spaghetti night, so from scratch was the absolute way to go. I found a blog post with a good lesson on tomatillos, for those interested in reading more.

I made the chicken in the pressure cooker in advance, making putting these together a real breeze. The art of cooking in advance for the week is one I'm starting to improve on.

They have a papery husk, but once peeled look like a cross between a green tomato and a bell pepper.

I chopped them and placed them on the stovetop with some onion and garlic I'd sauteed for a few minutes.

This is when they started to cook down and turn into a lighter green color. 

After that, the whole thing went into a food processor (or in my case, a Ninja) to blend up into a sauce.

To make the filling, I took the shredded chicken I'd made in the pressure cooker, then mixed it with shredded cheese, fresh cilantro, and some cooked rice.

This mixture got stuffed into some corn tortillas (flour is fine too, but I find that corn shreds nicely in baked dishes like this).

Lastly, I poured the sauce over them, using a spoon to hold some of them closed so they could be properly doused in sauce.

They baked for about 20 minutes.

You'd think with the jalapeños in there that it might be spicy, but I did not detect any spice at all, really. I find that cooking down jalapenos tends to product that; I remember a recipe I made some time ago where the jalapeños became quite neutral after cooking for several minutes with onions.

Green Enchiladas Recipe

Ingredients:

For the chicken, see Pressure Cooker Taco Chicken, or use chicken of choice

1 tablespoon cooking oil (I used avocado)

1 medium onion, chopped (yellow or white)

2-3 tablespoons minced garlic

5-6 tomatillos, cut into chunks

3 jalapeños, chopped

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1 cup shredded cheddar or Monterey jack cheese (use a blend if desired)

1 cup cooked white rice

1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro

8-12 small tortillas

Instructions:

Add cooking oil to a sauce pan and heat to medium-high. Add onions and garlic, then cook for 2-3 minutes, until garlic is fragrant. Add chopped tomatillos. jalapeños, salt, and cumin, then reduce heat to medium and simmer for 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently. Once tomatillos are softened, add to a blender or food processor and process until a sauce is created. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. To make the filling, add chicken, shredded cheese, rice, and fresh cilantro to a bowl and mix. Spread some of the sauce in the bottom of a 9x13 casserole dish. Add the tortillas, filling with the chicken mixture. Pour the sauce over the enchiladas, using a spoon or knife to keep the tortillas closed. Bake for 20 minutes.

adapted from chicken enchiladas with tomatillo sauce