Make Cheese Enchiladas at Home - Learn 4 Secrets From a Previous Restaurateur

Doesn't just about everyone love great enchiladas? Would you like to learn how restaurants make them? My family had a Mexican restaurant where I was the cook. I will explain to you how we did it and leave you with the best tips for delicious enchiladas.

I would venture to say that the most important part to making great enchiladas, whether they are beef, cheese, chicken or pork, is the sauce. If the ingredients are tasty but the sauce is mediocre then the overall end result is uneventful. In my view it's the sauce that makes a cheese enchilada recipe great.

Secret #1
Start with a great sauce. You have some options here.

1. Make your own (recipe below)
2. Buy some enchilada sauce from your favorite Mexican restaurant
3. Trader Joes has a respectable bottled enchilada sauce. It's not great but a little better than what you will find in most grocery stores.

Rockin Robin's Enchiladas Sauce

Ingredients:

2 cups chicken broth
4 Tbs. Chili Powder
1 tsp. ground cumin
2 heaping tsp. garlic powder (no added salt)
3/4 tsp. salt
1 pinch ground cinnamon (less than 1/16 tsp.)
1/3 tsp. sugar
5Tbs. cold water
4 Tbs. white flour

Directions:

In a 2 quart sauce pan add the chicken broth, chili powder, garlic powder, cumin, salt, cinnamon and sugar (the sugar is a little secret to eliminate any bitter taste from the chili powder).

Use a whisk to mix everything well. Heat to a boil, reduce heat to a low boil and cook for 3-4 minutes. Whisk frequently to make sure all spices dissolve. This is important for flavor and a nice smooth sauce.

While the sauce is on a slow simmer/boil, add 5 tablespoons of cold water in a small bowl. With another whisk mix 1 tablespoon at a time of flour. Whisk vigorously to avoid lumps. If you have lumps here, you will definitely have lumps in your sauce.

After 3-4 minutes of cooking the sauce, turn the heat up to high. Very slowly, pour the flour mixture into the boiling sauce.

Here you must whisk the sauce vigorously while adding the flour to avoid lumps. After all the flour is added, continue to whisk for one minute. You can turn the heat down to medium during this time. Just make sure the sauce is boiling. Let it boil for 3 or 4 minutes. Turn off the heat, this enchilada sauce is done.

You will notice that as this sauce sits it will form a "skin" on the surface. This is normal and in fact the longer the sauce sits the thicker this skin becomes. All you have to do is peel the skin off and throw it away.

Now that you have options for making or acquiring enchilada sauce, you have secret number 1 out of the way.

Secret #2

Always dip the corn tortillas, one or two at a time in hot oil, to soften them. Many home cooks miss this important step and just put a little sauce on the tortillas, fill them with cheese and roll them up. Dipping the tortillas in hot oil really adds flavor to your enchiladas and makes rolling them much easier. Be careful when rolling the enchiladas as they are very hot.

Secret #3

After dipping the tortillas in hot oil, dip them in hot enchilada sauce and coat both sides of the tortillas. This will get that delicious enchilada sauce on the inside of your enchiladas as well and mix in and flavor your cheese or meat. No dry enchiladas here.

Secret #4

Make your enchiladas fresh. In other words make them and serve them the same day. They simply taste better and won't dry out. If you absolutely must make them the day before (you will compromise on flavor and texture), top them before heating with a fresh new layer of hot enchilada sauce and then cheese and onion.

Heat them well in a hot oven. In the restaurant business, our steam table kept all of our food hot. So when making up a plate the food was already pretty hot but we always put the plates in the oven to get them really hot. Mexican food just taste better that way.

So make sure you put your enchiladas in the oven and heat them until you see the sauce bubble up. This is especially important when making cheese enchiladas. You want to make sure that cheese melts on the inside.

So there you have it. If you follow those 4 secrets you will have delicious tasting enchiladas. I guarantee it!

Let's Make Some Great Cheese Enchiladas.

Ingredients:

1lb of mild cheddar cheese, grated
10-12 corn tortillas
1/4 - 1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion
vegetable oil
24 ounces of enchilada sauce, heated
guacamole
sour cream

Directions:

Heat an inch or two of oil in a small frying pan over medium heat. Watch the oil so it doesn't smoke. Cover a tray with foil (for easy clean up) and grab some tongs. Use the tongs to dip two corn tortillas at a time in the hot oil. When they start to bubble, lift and dip the tortillas 3 times quickly in the oil.

Now either dip the tortillas into the hot enchilada sauce to coat and then lay them on the foil-covered tray you prepared.

Sometimes what happens with this technique is that the tortillas will tear due to the weight of the sauce. If that happens try placing the tortillas onto the foil tray before dipping in the sauce. Then ladle sauce onto the tortillas and turn them over to coat with sauce.

Now you are ready for the cheese. Add a layer of grated cheese right down the middle of the tortilla, then a sprinkle of onion. Be sure to add plenty of cheese as it will melt down when heated. Grab the end of the tortilla closest to you and bring it 3/4 of the way over to the other end. Tuck and roll the tortilla into a cylinder.

Pick up the cheese enchilada with your fore fingers on the bottom where the seam is. Let your pinky fingers cover the ends of the enchilada to keep the cheese from falling out while you move it to an oven proof dish. Continue with the rest of the enchiladas.

Using a ladle, pour hot enchilada sauce over the top of the cheese enchiladas and let plenty of sauce run down the sides. Remember, the sauce is what makes it? Sprinkle more cheese and onion over the top.

Place in a 400*F. oven until the cheese melts and the sauce is bubbling. It's important that these enchiladas are hot enough so that the cheese melts inside. It may take 10 to 15 minutes or more. Let your eyes be the judge.

Serve with guacamole and sour cream.

You can substitute beef, chicken or pork in this basic enchilada recipe.

Enjoy!

Robin Diaz-Gai is a previous Mexican restaurateur and the webmaster of http://www.cooking-mexican-recipes.com

If you enjoy Mexican food be sure to stop by to find more delicious Mexican recipes.

If you would like to try pork enchiladas visit: http://www.cooking-mexican-recipes.com/chalupa-recipe.html You can use this delicious crock pot pork recipe to make pork enchiladas that will tickle your taste buds.

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