It’s not as bad as you’d think from the title. 🙂
“Green Chicken Casserole”
Doesn’t that name conjure a pretty picture? *heh* It’s a pseudo-Mexican/Southwestern dish that’s easy for gringo taste buds to handle. It’s a nice, mild dish with a moderate Southwestern flavor for those with tender taste buds who can’t take hot foods. And since you can assemble it almost all from pre-packaged ingredients, it’s easy for kids (or non-kitchen oriented spouses) to make. The only potentially non-kid-friendly part—depending on age, experience, apptitude and temperament—is chopping the onion, and if one really HAD to, one could use a food processor for that… well, that and “hot dish from the oven” skills.
2-10oz cans of GREEN enchilada sauce
2-4oz cans (or one 10oz, if you can find it) chipped mild green chiles
one can cream of chicken soup
3 medium (or 2 large) cooked chicken breasts, cubed (or a coupla cans of chicken *s*)
One-half large YELLOW onion, chopped
24 corn tortillas
about 2C shredded cheese. A colby/jack cheese mixture is good. I like a little mozarella thrown on top.
Leaf lettuce
Sour cream
325F Oven (About 165C)
Fire up the oven.
Mix the green enchilada sauce, chopped green chiles, cubed chicken and cream of chicken soup to make the sauce.
Grease or oil a 9″X12″ baking dish. Bacon grease is great, unless you live with a cardio patient as I do, otherwise, a good olive oil will do.
Chop the onion. (Do I need to do a clinic on using a chef’s knife to chop an onion? I thought not. I use my 10″-blade Sabatier for almost all veggie processing. Faster than having to assemble, disassemble, clean, etc., a food processor by LOTS.) Chop all the onion, but just use half in the dish. The rest can be part of a garnish or refrigerated in a plastic bag to “sweeten” for another meal.
Assemble the dish as so:
Layer the bottom of the 9X12 baking dish with six overlapping tortillas; cover with sauce; sprinkle on chopped onion; cover in shredded cheese; next layer…
Top layer as before, but no onion on top layer. 24 tortillas yields four layers of six flat “enchilladas”—more than enough for four pigs, easily will serve six as the main dish in a full meal. For an empty nest, 3 or 4 days’ meals. Freeze or refrigerate leftovers, cos it warms up nicely in oven or microwave.
325 oven for 35-45 minutes, depending on how much browning you want on the top layer of cheese.
Top with chopped onion, shredded leaf lettuce and sour cream, if desired. Add sides of refried beans, “Spanish” rice, and chips to scoop the rice and beans, etc.