Clean Eating Enchiladas with Homemade Sauce

Sharing is caring!

My family loves Mexican food. You will catch us eating it 2-3 times per week on average. Even after hubs and I said “I do” at the courthouse, we hit up Taco Bell for our celebratory lunch. Yeah.

One thing hubs loves to make is enchiladas. We have experimented with it over the years, and during our vegetarian period we learned to make lots of yummy meat-free enchiladas. We aren’t vegetarians any more, but we still like to incorporate lots of veggies in there.

Want more healthy recipes? Check out my post here for Whole30 recipes!

In my quest for making our foods as clean as possible, I decided to experiment with making a homemade enchilada sauce. I just don’t like buying that mainstream canned stuff if I can help it. A friend recommended a recipe from gimmesomeoven.com, but I had to change it up a little bit. Here is what I did:

Amanda’s Red Enchilada Sauce

2 Tbsp coconut oil
2 Tbsp whole wheat flour
4 Tbsp chili powder (I used chipotle chili powder, details to follow)
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cumin
1/4 tsp (or a good pinch) oregano
2 cups organic chicken broth
1 can organic tomato sauce

Heat oil in saucepan over med heat. Add flour and stir together for one minute. Stir in seasonings (probably best to pre-measure these out before hand). Gradually stir in broth, stirring or whisking constantly so it doesn’t lump. Pour in tomato sauce. Simmer on low 10-15 min until thick, stirring occasionally.

So…I didn’t have regular chili powder on hand. I have this. I think this stuff has a bit more heat than the regular chili powder. I was coughing just from mixing it up. But it was a great flavor!! I’d recommend cutting the chili powder amount in half if you want to use this, or just stuck with the plain. The recipe I used for inspiration did not call for tomato sauce, but I added it in to try to dilute the spiciness of the sauce.

Now for the actual enchiladas…

I bought Chi-Chi’s multigrain fajita style tortillas. I’m not high-speed enough to make my own torts yet, and I figured these were better than traditional white ones. I browned turkey meat with a little garlic powder and salt (which you can omit if you are veg). Then I sautéed some diced mushrooms, green peppers, onion, and a yellow squash in a little coconut oil. That might seem odd to most people, but it is actually good! And you don’t taste most of it; it just gives a good texture.

We put a little shredded cheese, some meat, and some of the veggie mixture on each tortilla, then rolled them up. (Make sure you spray your baking dish with Pam or some other spray, and put the enchiladas seam side down.) Then I poured sauce all over the top and we baked it at 350 for about 10-15 min until the sauce was bubbly.

I ate my enchilada with some avocado slices, salsa verde, and a little lot of sour cream. It was amazing. My mouth was tingling and my stomach was angry from the chipotle powder, but it was too good to stop eating!!

The sauce made enough for us to make our meal tonight plus put some away for next time. I will most likely tweak the recipe again the next time I make this, but it is by far a great start! And if you enjoy food with a lot of kick, this is a good one to try.

Sharing is caring!