Easy, effortless midweek meal! Rice with shredded chicken cooked in a homemade enchilada sauce (or use store-bought!), topped with cheese. All made in one pot!
All you need is chicken, rice, tomato passata (or canned tomato) and a handful of pantry essentials to make this incredible flavour loaded, comfort-food-central meal. Oh wait – cheese. Of course you need cheese. This would not be “Enchilada” without cheese!
I’ve been overloading on Mexican over the last couple of weeks, sharing my Mexican Shredded Beef and Freezer Friendly Beef Burritos. I feel a bit silly sharing yet another Mexican(-esque) recipe today, but I hadn’t actually planned to! I had Cashew Chicken all ready to go, then I got the sweetest message from TWO readers in one day asking me to please share more one-pot recipes because they loved my One Pot Greek Chicken & Lemon Rice so much. 🙂 So I decided to shuffle my posting calendar a bit and share this today. I hope you don’t mind!
I love this kind of food for midweek. I call it Couch Food. The definition of Couch Food is “any meal that can be served in a bowl and eaten with a fork or spoon without taking your eyes off the TV”.
This qualifies. 100%. 🙂
There are quite a few spices required for this recipe because the sauce the rice is cooked in is essentially homemade Enchilada sauce. I’ve marked the ingredients that make up the Enchilada Sauce with an asterisk (*) so you could in fact substitute with a store bought Enchilada Sauce and it will become even easier to make!
My key tip for making this is to take it off the stove while it is still quite saucy because the rice will continue to absorb water while it is resting – and even while you are serving it. You want it pretty saucy – not sloppy, but not dry.
And please please please don’t overcook the rice so it is mushy! The liquid quantities I’ve provided will not yield mushy rice – I like mine tender but firm (it’s an Asian “thing”), but I know some people have a tendency to get stressed that the rice isn’t cooking and add more water. Which is totally fine, cook the rice to your taste but just don’t let it turn into baby food! 🙂
Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Back on Wednesday with something a bit different – but super easy, super tasty and totally irresistible! – Nagi x
PS Check out how bubbly and golden it looks…..ugh. Help me. I just want to dive in and grab a spoonful.
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One Pot Chicken Enchilada Rice Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 400g (13oz) chicken breast, about 1/3"/1cm thick, sliced horizontally into thin steaks (Note 1)
- 1 small onion, diced
- 3 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1 red bell pepper/capsicum, diced
- 680g (24oz) tomato passata or crushed canned tomatoes* (Note 2)
- 3 cups chicken broth or water (750ml)
- 1 1/2 cups frozen corn (250g)
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper* (spicy - adjust to taste)
- 1 tbsp dried oregano*
- 2 tsp cumin*
- 1 1/2 tsp coriander*
- 2 tsp onion powder*
- 1 tbsp brown sugar*
- Salt and pepper
- 1 1/2 cups (270g) white rice (short, medium or long grain , uncooked (Note 4)
- 1 - 1 1/2 cups grated cheese (about 125 - 150 g)
To Serve
- Chopped cilantro/coriander optional
Instructions
- Heat olive oil over medium high heat in large skillet.
- Add chicken and cook each side for 2 minutes or until cooked, then remove onto a plate.
- Add extra oil if the skillet is looking dry. Add onion and garlic, cook for 1 1/2 minutes until starting to soften.
- Add bell peppers and cook for a further 2 minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients except rice and cheese. Bring to simmer, then add rice.
- Stir, cover with a lid and turn down heat to medium low. Cover and cook until rice is cooked but not mushy and most of the liquid is absorbed - about 15 to 18 minutes. (Note 3). Do not stir while it cooks.
- Meanwhile, shred or roughly chop chicken.
- When rice is cooked, quickly stir chicken through, sprinkle with cheese then pop under broil / grill until golden and bubbly.
- Serve, garnished with fresh cilantro/coriander if desired.
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Nutrition per serving, assuming 6 servings.
This sounds yummy. However, I don’t like tomatoes. Can i use a paste or sauce instead?
Hi Jane! What kind of sauce were you thinking?
Hello,
I tried this recipe a couple of times and it was amazing every time 🙂 I am a university student, so I cooked it for my friend and they all love it! It is quite a different recipe for Turkish people but I have not seen one person who does not love it. Seriously, this i my saviour when I have guests. Thank you! 🙂
Hi Nevgul! That’s so fantastic, I am so glad you enjoyed this!!! And YES it certainly is a different recipe to the usual Turkish dishes!!! I’m glad you enjoyed it – N x
Cooked this tonight and blown away by the flavour. My son and daughter want me to make it a weekly dish. However I do need to ask your advice on the rice as I had to cook for over 40 mins and rage rice was still hard. Do you have any tips for me please?
So glad you enjoyed it Michelle!! Hmm, sounds odd that the rice was still hard at 40 minutes. My mother suggested once that old rice can take longer to rehydrate – was the rice in your pantry for a while??
Well, it smells good, but i’ve now been cooking it for over 30 minutes since putting the rice in, and the rice is just now not being super hard and crunchy. It’s also, from the tastes I took, incredibly spicy with all directions followed, and we like spicy food!
Oooh, I hope you loved it Lynne!
Trying to guess what size of skillet to use. I have a very large skillet, however, no lid for simmering. What about using a 5.5 quart Staub cocotte? Is that overkill or can you give skillet recommendation. Thank you!
Hi LG!!! Staub dutch oven will work great! 🙂
I’m giving this a go and just wondered if it can be frozen? I’m thinking of not adding the cheese until I defrost it and then when reheating put the cheese on top?
Hi Tracy! Sorry, this is suited to freezing, the rice will go mushy! 🙂 But it keeps for a couple of days in the fridge. A fab way to transform leftover rice is to mix with egg, make patties, coat with panko and fry. AMAZING!
This looks amazing. I’m definitely going to have to give this a try. Just out of curiosity, do you have a favorite cheese to put on top? I figured I couldn’t go wrong with a basic Mexican cheese blend, which I usually have on hand anyway.
Hi Krystal! Absolutely can’t go wrong with that 🙂 I use anything that melts – tasty, cheddar, Monterey Jack, gruyere. Whatever I happen to have, it varies from week to week!
Just made and devoured this. So easy and yummy. I made half the recipe for my husband and I but it would have easily served 3/4…I’ll be having the left overs for lunch! We’ll be having this again but I might tone the spices down (just personal taste)…I also used a little bit of garlic granules as we don’t seem to get onion powder easily in the UK. We had tortilla crisps with it…Yum! Thanks for a great recipe…I’ve shared it with my sister.
Oooh, I’m so glad you enjoyed this Yvie! Thanks for letting me know! N x
Oh no! I thought I’d pressed 5*…now it’s saying 4*…sorry. I loved this recipe xx
I made this yesterday for me and my girlfriend and it was absolutely gorgeous! I did the rice separately as I steam it for best results. The combination of cheese, chicken and enchilada sauce was like an orgasm in my mouth. So good!
I’m so glad you enjoyed it! And I really appreciate that you took the time to come back and let me know! 🙂
Being Asian and knowin intuitively how to cook rice, the rice to water ratio seems a bit excessive as there is already 650 ml of sauce on top of 3 cups of broth/water to 1.5 cups of rice. However I trusted you and decided to use jasmine rice and what I got had more of a texture of mushy congee. I made it again and reduced the amount of liquid to 650 ml of sauce, 2.5 cups of rice, and 2 cups of water. Still a bit more mushy than I like my rice. I like my rice to be tender but firm. But most non Asians I know don’t mind mushy rice. Just a heads up for people who plan on making this!!
Hi Faye! I haven’t made this with Jasmin rice but I would have guessed that it would have a different outcome 🙂 Different rices cook at different rates and react differently when cooked in the oven instead of the traditional way on the oven. I can assure you that this rice is not mushy! Being of Japanese background, I loathe mushy rice. My mother brought me up being a rice snob!!! 🙂 N x
Hi Faye! Japanese rice, the one I use when making sushi rolls, calls for a ratio of 1 cup rice to 1 1/2 cups water unlike Jasmin rice, which I cook in my rice cooker for everyday food (I’m Filipino), needs a lot less water. Hope this help.
To Nagi – I just discovered your site and I’m excited to cook your one pot wonders (Chicken risotto and this chicken enchilada).
Yum! This looks so good!!
Is it possible make this with pulled pork or beef?
YES you sure can!! 🙂
Hi
I look forward to trying some of your recipes
Thank you Megan!! N x
Thanks for this recipe Nagi. I saw your pictures and had to try it, I cooked it for my fiancé and he loved it and I love that it’s all in one pot! Definitely a keeper!
YAY YAY YAY! I’m so glad you and your fiancé loved it!!! He is LUCKY you agreed to marry him 🙂
I’m about to make this and want to add some black beans. Will I need to alter the recipe at all? Thanks 🙂
Hi Beatrice! Nope, just follow the recipe and plonk the beans in with the rice. It will be great!
This turned out so good, and I am picky about the food that I cook and eat! The recipe was super easy to follow. I started out using only 3/4 the amount of your recommended passata and ended up dumping it all in there later! The only other seasonong I added was adobo and sazon. For a final touch, I added a dollop of sour cream on top. Perfect!
Fabulous! 🙂 Can’t ever go wrong with a dollop of sour cream with enchilada flavours! 🙂
This looks amazing! Do you think it would work with brown rice?
Hi Casie! The recipe will definitely work with brown rice but it will need more liquid. I haven’t made it with brown rice yet to get the liquid quantity measured out so I will do so in the next month or so and update the recipe! 🙂
I’ll be making this with canned Enchilada sauce. I notice that all of the starred items are dry. So do I reduce the chicken stock to match the amount of sauce used?
Hi Laura! The tomato passata is also marked with an asterix*. So that’s the wet ingredient to leave out. Hope you love it!! N x
Ok, I made this with a can of green enchilada sauce since that is what an American friend brought me. No enchilada sauce is available here. I made this to take for a family celebration and everyone loved it and asked for the recipe.
OOOH!!!! You make me very jealous, I would LOVE to try this with green enchilada sauce!! I’m in Mexico right now, I must stock up. 🙂 So glad you and your family enjoyed it and thank you so much for taking the time to come back and let me know!
There’s a good recipe for green enchilada sauce on Mel’s Kitchen Cafe
This would definitely make my day. What a beautiful dish!
Thanks Maureen! Made my day too! 😉 N x
Oh I want to dive into this too! Looks really delicious Nagi x
Thanks so much Sneh! Can’t really go wrong with he flavour combo, right? 😉
This looks awesome!! Question – If I am going to use enchilada sauce – I just substitute the enchilada sauce amount for the amount of chicken stock?
Hi Megan! So glad you like the look of this 🙂 If you want to use enchilada sauce, leave out the ingredients marked with *. And use 700g/24oz enchilada sauce instead. 🙂 Hope you love it!
Thank you so much for your prompt response, as I am going to make it tonight! Also, ILOVE, ABSOLUTELY LOVE your photography book!!!
Thank you thank you Megan!! I really poured my heart and soul into the book, I can’t tell you how many 3 am nights I had, getting it done! 🙂 It means so much to me to hear that people really are loving it!!!
I will never be a professional, but at least my foodie pics won’t look quite so amateurish!