Why did I ever buy canned enchilada sauce? And how come no one ever told me that making your own enchilada sauce was so easy? Doesn’t anyone love me? Don’t you think I had a right to know? Thank goodness for Secret Recipe Club!
This month I was assigned cook with Sara, a Midwestern girl who’s loved cooking ever since she was a little girl. With Cinco de Mayo just around the corner I’ve had Mexican on my mind. I immediately honed in on her shredded beef enchiladas and her dolce de leche chocolate bars. In the end savory won over sweet. Plus I really, really wanted to make my own enchilada sauce!
Sara’s recipe calls for 2 to 3 cups shredded beef. I didn’t have any leftover beef so I dug out some cubed venison added some enchilada sauce to them a cup of home canned stewed tomatoes, pressure cooked the meat for 10 minutes and BAM, super tender meat ready to be chopped up. If you have anyone in your family that doesn’t care for the ‘gamey’ taste of venison pressure cooking it with bold flavors makes it indistinguishable from beef…really, really! Because I used stewed tomatoes I omitted the onion that the original recipe called for.
Sara’s enchilada sauce was super simple to make, I did add a tablespoon of chili powder to it just to suit my taste. At first I thought the ½ teaspoon of cayenne pepper would be too much but it was just right! I also liked her method for warming up the tortillas. Normally I heat my sauce and dip the tortilla in the sauce then stuff and roll…that makes for messy fingers. Sara simply heats her tortilla up in a warm non-stick pan, a few seconds on one side a quick flip and maybe another 5 seconds on the next side and they’re ready for rolling, no mess no fuss. Like Sara I just used my hands to flip them and saved myself a dirty spatula. Of course that isn’t for the faint of heart or the tender-ist of fingers, but I was cool with it.
Sara has many more great recipes please stop by and visit her blog.
I hope y’all had a lovely Easter Sunday!
- 2 cups tomato sauce
- 1 1/2 cups beef broth
- 1 tablespoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1 to 1 1/2 pounds stew meat (wild game or beef)
- Salt and Pepper
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 1 cup stewed tomatoes
- 12 corn tortillas
- 2 cups colby jack cheese, shredded
- Sour cream, jalapenos and cilantro for garnish if desired
- Preheat oven to 350°F.
- In a medium saucepan, mix tomato sauce, broth, chili powder, cumin and cayenne. Remove 1/2 cup for the beef. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Meanwhile, salt and pepper the beef, brown the beef in a skillet or in an electric pressure cooker. Add browned beef, 1/2 cup enchilada sauce and 1 cup stewed tomatoes to the pressure cooker. Cook on high pressure for 10 minutes with natural release. Remove meat and let cool enough to handle. chop meat into small pieces.
- Pour a thin layer of sauce onto the bottom of a 9x13 pan
- Warm tortillas in a dry non-stick skillet set to medium low. Place tortillas one at time on the skillet for about 5 seconds on each side.
- Fill each tortilla with meat and cheese (approximately 2 tablespoons of each). Once filled place filled tortilla seam side down into the prepared pan. Continue to heat and fill each tortilla until all 12 are completed. Pour remaining sauce over the stuffed tortillas. Cover with foil and bake for 20 minutes.
- Remove foil, sprinkle tops with cheese and bake for 5 more minutes or until cheese is melted.
- Serve with sour cream, sliced jalapenos and cilantro if desired.
Don’t forget to check out all the other great recipes this month:
A WONDERFUL recipe and I love that you cooked the meat in the pressure cooker too, I bet it was SO tender that way! Karen
Nothing like a pressure cooker to tenderize meat, it still amazes me how efficient it is!
These look super yummy!! I have a pressure cooker tucked away in my pantry, these are the perfect reason to dust it off and use it again!
I’m the same way with my pressure cooker, it gets tucked away and then I get inspired and use the heck out of for awhile then it gets tucked away again…
Venison enchiladas sound so fantastic, and these pictures are wonderful. Great SRC post!
Nothing like having meat in freezer that you didn’t have to buy to make it even better. Thanks Stephanie.
Looks good! I made chicken enchiladas the other day – with canned green sauce. I’ve made red sauce from scratch, but canned is so much easier 🙂
Hey Miss Witch! 😀 I’m back in the club, and happy to visit your blog for the first time in ages! I’ve never made my own enchilada sauce – was it really as good as canned? This recipe is so simple! Yums, I love enchiladas!!
Yay, so glad to see you back I know you’ve been a busy mama! And yes the homemade was better than the canned!
I so want to get a pressure cooker but I still have nightmares about the sizzling, hissing, steaming monsters of my grandmothers. 🙂 These look delicious (as does that pimento mac ‘n cheese that I just saw.)
I’m so glad you liked these, and loved your adaption to the pressure cooker. I, too, love this homemade sauce and need to think about making these again for cinco de mayo!
Wowza! These look ah-mazing! Now, where is my pressure cooker?
The pressure cooker is a mystery to us. Thanks for the inspiration to get one and try it out. One day!
There is always venison in the house and I am always looking for different ways to fix it. I bet these enchiladas were great with the venison and all the wonderful flavors. They look fantastic!
Rhonda: These beef enchiladas look terrific — made in a pressure cooker is even better…
I’m with you, why oh why did I ever buy enchilada sauce in the store??? Same goes with Teriyaki. So much better made at home. I have a confession, I’ve had my pressure cooker for over a year and used it once. Pinning this one for inspiration.
I’m with you on the Teriyaki also, my mom taught me how to make it and now I refuse to buy it. I hope you do start using your pressure cooker, it’s especially handy for beans, no soaking them!