crockpot chicken enchiladas

I have a confession to make.

This post is almost an ode to my inherent sloth and laziness.  I believe in celebrating pretty much everything.  And that does include my sheer laziness that is brought about by cold January days off from work, when I don’t want to leave the house.

Or get out of my pajamas and my husband’s bathrobe, which by the way, is so much better than mine.  Just because it’s his.  And way too big on me.  Therefore, it is perfect.  And better than my perfectly fitting, but equally as soft robe.  One day, he will understand that concept.

Anyway, on one of those recent lazy, bathrobe wearing days, I was struck with a craving for chicken enchiladas.  Sounds good right?  Perfect cheesy, comfort food for the cold winter weather.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have any enchilada sauce in our pantry.  Now, I pretty much tore the pantry apart looking for it.  In the process, I did find a can of corn that had a best buy 2010 date on it.  Yuck. (I promptly threw that out in case you were wondering.)  No enchilada sauce though.  Current or expired.

Now, at this point I had all ready ransacked my pantry, thus exerting a considerable amount of effort.  You’d think the logical thing to do would be to just suck it up and put on some real clothing (ok sweatpants and a hoodie) and get in my car and go to the grocery store for some.

That was just not an option.  The effort that it would have taken to actually go the grocery store and force myself into actual sweat pants was huge.  Think a mouse moving a boulder up a hill.  Much more feasible that day than me actually leaving the house.

So I decided to make my own homemade enchilada sauce.

I realize that making anything from scratch is a direct contradiction to laziness.  To remedy this, I figured I cook the bulk of the meal in the crock pot to balance out the little bit of extra effort and leave my sloth intact for the day.

The result was homemade Mexican enchilada goodness.

I also didn’t have any tortilla shells or wraps.  So I served it over salad greens like an enchilada salad. And then felt better about adding copious amounts of cheese and guacamole since it was “healthy” over the salad. 

Ingrediants

• 1 small package of chicken breasts
• 2 small onions or 1 medium onion
• peppers
• 1 tbs of tomato paste
• 2 small cans of unseasoned tomato sauce
• chicken stock
• 2 tbs of flour
• 2 tbs of olive oil
• hot sauce *to taste*
• pinch of salt
• generous sprinkle of black pepper
• 1 tsp of cumin
• 1 tbs of paprika
• 1 tbs of garlic powder
• zest and juice of 1 lime
• cayenne pepper *to taste*
• red pepper *to taste*
• 1 cup of rice (not instant) or quinoa
• optional- can of jalepeno peppers

Directions

1. Chop your onions and peppers.  Add to crockpot along with chicken.  Season chicken generously with the lime zest and juice and spices.  Turn crockpot on low and let set while you cook your sauce.
   

   These are the cute little peppers I had on hand that I used. Love these things in everything.

2. In a pan over medium heat, add the oil and flour.  Stir together until flour is golden and you have formed a paste.  (You are making a quick roux to give your sauce some body.)  Add the sauce and a tbs of tomato paste and cook until the sauce is thick.  Season with hot sauce (to taste- we like it very spicy), cayenne pepper, cumin and garlic powder.  If the sauce is too thick, thin with chicken broth.
   

   home made enchilada sauce

3. Add the sauce to the crockpot and add in a cup of rice or quinoa.
   

   Adding the sauce

4. Cook on low for 5-6 hours or until rice is cook and chicken is fork tender.
5. Serve in tortillas, over salad or in taco shells.  Make sure you top it with lots of cheese.  Because you know, cheddar makes everything better.

That was it.  Ridiculously easy and fed us for 3 nights.  Plus, I realized in my laziness that I was actually achieving a goal that I had set for this month back in the first week of January, thus reinforcing the idea of spending any day off that I don’t have to be anywhere puttering around the house in my pjs.  Doesn’t get much better than that.

 

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Tagged: chicken recipe, comfort food, crockpot chicken enchiladas, crockpot chicken recipe, crockpot recipe, healthy crockpot chicken, healthy crockpot enchiladas, healthy recipe