American Twists to a Classic Mexican Dish…
I was first introduced to calabacita con pollo at our favorite tex-mex restaurant, Sylvia’s Enchilada Kitchen (see capirotada and fajitas posts). It’s a wonderful and light dish, reminding me of a good light summer meal (much like my vegetarian penne). We had a lot of Mexican-style ingredients sitting around last weekend from a dinner party we hosted, and I thought it would be great to try a casserole combining “calabacita con pollo” and enchiladas…it was good…really good! So good in fact that my husband not only went up for seconds, but also took leftovers to work for lunch (it’s like pulling teeth to get my husband to veer from his sandwich lunches)! It’s, as most of my recipes, a highly adaptable recipe that can be modified to fit nearly any picky family.Ingredients:
- 6 oz shredded chicken breast
- 6 oz shredded chihuahua cheese (any white Mexican cheese will do except queso fresco as it doesn’t melt)
- 2 cups salsa (preferably thin salsa, and homemade, I used a wonderful homemade salsa my husband made a couple days earlier, recipe to be posted at a later date)
- 12 yellow or white corn tortillas (I prefer white, but we used yellow this day since it’s what we had on hand)
- ~1-2 cups enchilada sauce (preferably homemade, we used leftovers from this batch)
- 1 medium zucchini
- 1 medium yellow squash
You can see that I listed zucchini and squash, those are the ingredients that I’m using as my “calabacita”. What is calabacita you may ask?
Calabacita is a Mexican squash that is used in dishes, normally paired with chicken (pollo). In lieu of using actual Mexican squash (which can be hard to find, even here in Houston), I used zucchini and yellow squash, which can be found nearly everywhere.
So, this dish was great and cheap to make…
We had the cheese, salsa, and tortillas leftover from our dinner party, the squash and zucchini were just sitting around, and the chicken was just waiting in the fridge waiting to be boiled and shredded! Add to that defrosted enchilada sauce from months ago and we had ourselves a very budget-friendly meal. (We are really looking to stay on or under budget now, we just had an offer accepted on our first home, yay!)
Ok…enough chatting, you’re here for the recipe…
First you’ll want to simmer the chicken and vegetables in the salsa in a deep dish pan. I allowed them to gently simmer while stirring occasionally for 15-20 minutes. This way the vegetables softened up a bit before putting them in the oven.
This also allows for the salsa to flavor the shredded chicken.
Now you can preheat the oven to 400F for baking your casserole…
Wrap your tortillas in paper towels and nuke in the microwave for about 45 seconds to a minute. You want the tortillas to be warm before dipping into your room temperature (or colder) enchilada sauce.
Dip 6 tortillas one by one into the enchilada sauce (let drip dry) and place into a 13×9 baking dish. They will overlap just slightly and there will be some bare spots, as your trying to cover a rectangular object with circlular objects.
Spoon the chicken and vegetable mixture on top of the tortilla layer. Be sure to get most of the salsa out too, it will give the casserole a bit needed moisture.
After spooning on the chicken/veggie mixture, add a couple handfuls of cheese. Now prepare the remaining 6 tortillas with enchilada sauce and layer on top of the filling.
Top with remaining shredded cheese.
Cover with foil and bake for ~20-25 minutes. Remove foil and keep in oven until cheese browns a little on top, or the tortillas become a bit crispy (whichever comes first, chef’s prerogative).
Allow to sit for 5 minutes to cool…(pretty picture taking time)
…and then cut and serve!
We got 10 servings out of the casserole. The slices definitely can be made bigger to be more dinner sized portions, or you can serve smaller along with rice and beans (refried black are my favorite)!
Nutrition (1/10 of recipe):
- 203 cal
- 6 g fat (can lower with reduced fat cheese)
- 20 g carb
- 2 g fiber
- 19 g protein
See, you can have your own “light” Mexican fiesta ready in no time flat! Plus the added bonus of having leftovers for a week for lunch (provided you don’t have a large family).
