Lite Chicken Enchiladas
Serves 6
Published in: McClatchy-Tribune News Service
3 cups Chicken breasts cooked and chopped -- remove any visable fat
1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoons flour
2 cup fat-free half-and-half
2 teaspoons finely minced onion
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoons black pepper
2 cup light sour cream -- divided
12 corn tortillas
Cooking spray
1 cup Mexican cheese blend made with 2 percent milk -- finely shredded
Optional garnish: Chopped green onion
Blend chicken broth and flour with a whisk, then put mixture in a
saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until thickened, stirring
constantly. Remove saucepan from heat and stir in fat-free half-and-
half, onion, salt, pepper and 1 3/4 cup of light sour cream.
Stack tortillas between two damp paper towels and microwave on high
power for one minute.
Dip each tortilla into sauce and thoroughly coat both sides. Spoon
1/4 cup chopped chicken in middle of each tortilla and fold one edge
of tortilla over chicken. Spread a dab of remaining light sour cream
on other edge of the tortilla and fold that edge up to seal
enchilada. Place enchiladas in baking dishes that have been coated
lightly with cooking spray.
Pour remaining sauce over enchiladas and bake at 350 degrees for 20
to 30 minutes, until bubbly. Remove baking dishes from oven and
sprinkle Mexican cheese blend over enchiladas, then bake for about 5
more minutes, until cheese melts.
Let enchiladas stand for about 10 minutes before serving. Garnish
with chopped green onion if desired.
Makes: 12 enchiladas
(6 servings)
Recipe Notes
Family recipes can bring back memories, traditions and favorite flavors.
We love these dishes, but we don't always like their calorie counts and
fat content. Michelle Ingram sent me her family's chicken enchilada
recipe and asked if I could lighten it up. "We love it, but the
combination of sour cream, whipping cream, tortillas and cheese make it
a little heavy on the calories," she wrote. I whipped up her recipe and
fell in love with it myself. After crunching the numbers, I found that
each enchilada contained 396 calories and 30 fat grams. So I set out to
see if I could slim down these enchiladas without losing the delicious
flavor. I started by using corn tortillas instead of flour ones, saving
46 calories per enchilada and adding a little more fiber. Instead of
regular Monterey Jack, I chose a Mexican cheese blend made with 2
percent milk, and I cut the amount of cheese in half. Those changes
trimmed 47 calories and 4.3 fat grams from each enchilada.
My next order of business was finding a substitute for the sour cream. I
tried the fat-free kind, but it didn't taste right in this recipe. Light
sour cream, however, worked nicely, saving 42 calories and 5.4 fat grams
per enchilada. Coming up with a good replacement for the whipping cream
was tougher. Plain yogurt wasn't going to cut it. I experimented with
evaporated milk, both fat-free and regular, but I wasn't happy with the
results. I found that in this recipe, fat-free half-and-half does a good
job of mimicking the taste and texture of whipping cream. That change
subtracts 108 calories and 13 fat grams from each enchilada.
My version of these chicken enchiladas slashes the calories by 61
percent, cuts the fat by 81 percent and trims the sodium by 70 percent.
You can have two of my chicken enchiladas for just 308 calories and 11.4
fat grams.
Exported from A Cook's Books -- Recipe management for Macintosh
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