Chicken & Kale Enchiladas Verde
Salsa verde is my favorite Mexican condiment. I like regular salsa, but tangy salsa verde is where it’s at. I’ve been wanting to use kale in something & came up with this after remembering about the Sweet Potato & Kale Enchiladas from Veganomicon. I made them once & they were awesome. I would have made them again if I had sweet potatoes in the house.
These enchiladas are covered in salsa verde & a little bit of homemade red enchilada sauce. That recipe will be a separate post. If you don’t feel like making homemade enchilada sauce then you can use canned, or just skip the red sauce in this recipe. I really only use it for the color & the heat. Sprinkling some crushed red pepper on top of the salsa verde would do the trick for the heat factor.
Chicken & Kale Enchilada Verde
Servings: 6 Points • Plus: 7
Ingredients:
- 8 oz boneless skinless chicken breast, cut into small pieces
- 1/2 vidalia onion, chopped
- 8 oz fat free refried beans
- 2 TB olive oil
- Juice of one lime
- 1 bunch of kale, stems removed & cleaned
- 12 corn tortillas
- 1 TB Mexican chili powder
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp oregano
- Kosher salt & black pepper to taste
- 1 can roasted or regular green chilies, chopped if not diced in the can
- 1 1/2 cup salsa verde
- 1 cup enchilada sauce
- 2 1/2 cup low fat shredded cheese (I use WW’s shredded Mexican blend)
- 1 cup water
- 1 tsp garlic powder
Directions:
1) Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Sprinkle the chicken with salt & pepper. In a large pan with a lid, saute the onion in the olive oil. Once softened add the chicken & cook through. Add all of the spices to the chicken & onion mixture & let them cook a bit.
2) Clean the kale. Slowly add some kale in bunches to the same pan that the chicken is in. It will seem like it won’t fit, but keep pushing it down. It will fit! Once all of the kale is in, sprinkle with the garlic powder & squeeze the lime juice over it. Add the cup of water to the pan & put the lid on. This will wilt the kale. Once the kale is wilted remove the lid & saute everything together. Transfer mixture to a large bowl.
Yayyy Kale!
3) Add the refried beans, 1 cup of cheese & chilies to the bowl and mix together. Spray a baking pan with non-stick spray. Heat the tortillas two at a time for 15 seconds to prevent them from breaking when you roll them. Fill the bottom third of the tortilla with about 2 TB of filling & roll. Place seam side down in the baking pan (use two baking pans if you don’t have one large enough to fit 12 tortillas).
4) Once all of the tortillas are in the baking pan/s, pour the salsa verde over the entire thing. Then pour the enchilada sauce down the middle & cover with the remaining cheese. Bake 25 minutes until bubbly.
