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We’re getting our menu ready for Cinco de Mayo, and these Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce are up first! This easy to prepare meal is always a hit with our family and we’re sure your family will love this too!
This recipe for chicken enchiladas with a creamy white sauce uses our popular Mexican pulled chicken recipe – a versatile, easy and delicious way to prepare chicken for many Mexican-inspired recipes such as this one. The Mexican pulled chicken is perfectly flavored with a spicy blend of tomato and peppers as well as other seasonings, and it’s cooked until fork-tender and then shredded.
And, as you can tell by the name of this recipe, our version of chicken enchiladas uses a white sauce that has the perfect hint of heat rather than the more traditional red enchilada sauce. But while our family prefers a creamy white sauce for this dish, you can easily substitute red sauce instead and these chicken enchiladas will still be delicious!
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Chicken Enchiladas with White Sauce
This dish is delicious served with our Mexican Rice and Refried Beans.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup butter (4 tablespoons)
- ¼ cup flour
- 2 cups chicken stock, heated
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne powder
- 8 ounces sour cream
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 4 ounce can chopped green chilies, drained
- 1 teaspoon or more of Rocket Fuel, or your favorite hot sauce
- 1 cup vegetable oil, for frying
- 6 corn tortillas
- 1 pound Mexican Pulled Chicken, heated
- 6 ounces Pepper Jack cheese, shredded
- 6 ounces Monterey Jack cheese, shredded
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a medium sauce pan over medium heat, melt butter and add flour. Stir and cook for 3-5 minutes or until the raw flour smell is gone.
- Add heated chicken stock 1/3 at a time, stirring with a wire whisk for each third. (This step will ensure no lumps in your white sauce.) Add cayenne and stir again.
- Add sour cream, salt, chilies and Rocket Fuel and stir. If you like it spicy, use more Rocket Fuel. Remove from heat and hold.
- In an 8×10-inch casserole dish or glass baking dish, coat the bottom with a ladle full of white sauce.
- Heat oil in large fry pan to hot. With a pair of tongs, place one tortilla in at a time and fry for only 5 seconds on each side and drain on paper towels. Repeat with remaining 5 corn tortillas. (This step is necessary so that the tortillas don’t get soggy and fall apart when the dish is cooked; it also makes them more pliable to roll.)
- Lay tortillas flat on your cutting board or counter and divide the Mexican Pulled Chicken and Pepper Jack cheese between all six and roll each one tight.
- Place each roll, seam side down, in the sauce lying side by side.
- Cover with all the remaining sauce and sprinkle all of the Monterey Jack cheese on top. (If this seems like a lot of sauce and cheese, it isn’t. The finished dish will come out with the perfect amount of sauce.)
- Bake for 40 minutes. Let set for 10 minutes before serving.
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You may also like these other recipes for your Cinco de Mayo menu:
25+ Fantastic Recipes for Cinco de Mayo
Mexican Lasagna with White Sauce
Rocket Fuel (Homemade Hot Sauce)
Like this recipe better than any I have try
Thank you so much Donna!
I add my own touch in sauce and I mix chicken thighs and turkey legs. Taste good.🙏🏾
★★★★★
Great suggestions Dianne! Thank you!
Easy and delicious!
★★★★★
Thanks Rochelle!
Made this for Christmas Eve dinner with dairy free cheese and sour cream and holy moly was it delicious! Thank you for this awesome recipe!
★★★★★
You’re very welcome Heather! Merry Christmas!
I’ve got this on the oven right now. We’re very eager to try it! I noticed that there’s a step missing in the directions. At step 8, you say to lay the rolled up tortilla in the sauce, but you never mentioned putting the sauce in the baking dish (or how much). Otherwise, this was a very easy recipe to follow and I can’t wait to try it!
Hi Leila – Hope you love the enchiladas. See Step #5 – we suggest placing about a ladle full of sauce in the bottom of the casserole dish. 🙂 Hope that helps!
I need you to put out a book or is there one and I missed it? So many recipes to try and so little time!
Thanks Dawn! No cookbook yet…maybe someday! 🙂
Hi Martha, I currently have the mexican pulled chicken in the oven. I do not plan on making these enchiladas until Thursday night. The recipe says that I need to have one pound “heated,” how would you reccomend that I reheat the refrigerated mexican pulled chicekn before putting the meat in the tortillas
Hi – we just heat it in the microwave or in a pan on the stove!
Thanks, Can’t wait to try it!
It is our family tradition to have enchiladas on Christmas Eve. This year I used your recipe for both the shredded chicken and enchiladas; and everyone LOVED it! I’ve never fried the tortillas before rolling, but the technique worked perfectly for easy tight rolling. Definitely our new go-to enchilada recipe- the white sauce and chicken combo are my favorite! Thanks so much for the recipe!
Wow Lindsey – you sound like an enchiladas expert 🙂 and we are hugely flattered that our recipe has made the list. Thank you for taking the time to write to us – you’ve made our day!
Wow, this is some of the best food I’ve ever eaten … but I guess I can say that about most of your recipes we’ve tried! Thanks!
Awww…thank you so much Rick! We’re very glad you’re enjoying this and all of the other recipes! Thanks for taking the time to write to us today!
Martha – If I’m using your pulled chicken recipe for this enchilada dish (and making both recipes at the same time), is the cooking time different for the Enchilada dish. I’m worried about cooking the chicken at 275 for three hours (pulled chicken directions) and then turning around and cooking again at 350 for 40 minutes as called for in this enchilada recipe…
Hi Marlen – Great question. If you are cooking the enchiladas immediately after making the pulled chicken (while it is still hot) you might be able to get by with less cooking time. Just cook until the enchiladas are heated through and the cheese is slightly browned. Hope that helps!
Just an update on this meal. I made the pulled chicken recipe as written with the exception that I slow cooked it at 275 degrees in the oven in convection mode. I checked the chicken at 2.5 hours and took a temperature check. It was 160 degrees. I removed it from the oven – and let it sit for about 10 minutes and then shredded it with two forks.
I then followed the enchilada as written except I went with 325 degrees in convection mode. Let it cook for 25 minutes and took it out the oven. Results were outstanding! Wife claimed best ever enchiladas…and that says something! The white sauce rocked with a little help from Frank’s original Hot sauce. Left overs were just as good the next day.
Will be making this one again soon!
Thanks for writing back Marlen! So glad you (and your wife) enjoyed the recipe!