This One Pan Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Skillet gives you all the flavor and deliciousness of hand-rolled sour cream chicken enchiladas without all the work! It’s cheesy, creamy, zesty and your family is going to love it!
Alright, folks here’s the deal. I love sour cream chicken enchiladas with a giant pink puffy heart, but I hardly ever make them. By the time dinnertime rears its ugly head, the last thing I want to do is attempt to roll up enchiladas (like these delicious green chile and cheese ones) while my toddler plays the part of Godzilla in my kitchen.
Seriously, this kid.
Is it a boy thing? My girls were not climbers and into everything like he is. It’s about all I can do every day to keep him from killing himself, let alone make some dang enchiladas.
So, we make skillet chicken enchiladas. They have all the flavor of your normal enchiladas but take 300% less work! Are you sold yet?
How to Make Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Skillet
Step 1.) Make the Sour Cream Enchilada Sauce
The Sour Cream Enchilada Sauce is what makes this recipe, and it’s basically a thickened chicken broth, seasoned up and studded with green chiles and black olives.
Step 2.) Cook and Shred the Chicken
Once the sour cream enchilada sauce is made, you’re going to cook the chicken right in it! Place your chicken breasts right into the sauce to cook at a low simmer for about 15 minutes. Once the chicken is cooked, you’ll take it out of the sauce, shred it up, stir some sour cream into the sauce and put the chicken back in.
Step 3.) Add Tortillas
Enchiladas wouldn’t be enchiladas without tortillas, right? You’ll cut some corn tortillas into bite-sized squares and add them right into the sour cream sauce and chicken.
Give it a stir.
Step 4.) Add The Cheese!
Top the entire skillet with cheese, cover and cook for another 5-8 minutes until bubbly. Once it’s done, you’ll have something that looks something like this. Not too shabby, right?
Seriously, if you’re a chicken enchilada fan like I am, this One Pan Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Skillet is your new best friend.
Cooking Tips for Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Skillet
I’ve had a few people comment that this recipe doesn’t have enough spice or kick to it. The recipe as written will give you a sauce that is creamy, just lightly seasoned and lets the flavor of the chicken, cheese, and tortillas come through– like the sour cream chicken enchiladas that I grew up eating! 🙂
This mild sour cream sauce is meant to be just that– mild! So if you are looking for a more tangy and spicy sauce, like red enchilada sauce, you can substitute 2 cups canned red enchilada sauce for the chicken broth, flour, and butter.
You can still stir in the sour cream to make a creamy sauce if you’d like. You can even make your own Homemade Enchilada Sauce, or just make one of these awesome recipes– Easy Beef Enchilada Skillet or Chicken Black Bean Enchilada Skillet
Can I Freeze This Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Skillet?
Yes, just like its full-blown enchilada cousin, this skillet freezes and reheats well.
Tools Used for This Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Recipe
- Better Than Boullion: I use a lot of chicken/beef/vegetable broth in my recipes because it adds such nice flavor, but I don’t love keeping cans or cartons of it in my pantry. For this reason (and more) I use this broth base anytime I call for broth in my recipes. It only takes one teaspoon of the base to make 1 cup of flavorful broth and can be stored for quite a while in the refrigerator.
- Anolon Nouvelle Copper Non-Stick Skillet: These non-stick pans are metal utensil safe and last a long time. I’ve been using Anolon’s pans exclusively for the past five years and am still in love with them!
Want More Easy One Pan Meals?
- One Pan Easy Chicken Cacciatore
- One Pan Crack Bean Burritos
- One Pan Smothered Chicken Skillet
- One Pan Cheeseburger Macaroni
One Pan Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Skillet
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons butter
- 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/8 teaspoon chipotle chili powder optional
- 1/4 teaspoon oregano
- 4 ounces chopped green chiles
- 4 ounces chopped black olives
- 3 whole boneless skinless chicken breast halves
- 1 cup sour cream
- 12 whole corn tortillas cut into bite-sized pieces
- 2 cups colby-jack cheese grated
Instructions
- In a large skillet, heat butter over medium heat until melted. Stir in flour, cook for 1 minute and whisk in chicken broth. Continue stirring until smooth and thickened-- about 2-3 minutes.
- Stir chipotle chili powder, salt, oregano, green chiles and black olives into the sauce and place chicken breasts into pan. Bring to a simmer, reduce heat to low, cover and cook about 15 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.
- Remove chicken from pan, leaving the heat on low, and place chicken on a plate to shred into bite-sized pieces.
- Stir sour cream into the sauce and return chicken to the pan along with the tortillas. Stir until combined and top with grated cheese. Cover pan and cook for 5-8 minutes until bubbly and the cheese is melted.
Madison Strickland says
My husband really enjoyed this recipe! The only reason I’m giving it such a low rating is that I found the black olives to be EXTREMELY overpowering. If you’re not a black olives person, I would NOT recommend this recipe.
Jenn says
The sauce was yummy. However, my sauce was super runny. It shouldn’t have been with the fat:flour:liquid ration. Not sure why it didn’t thicken well. Probably not the recipes fault, but mine.
My complaint was that the chicken was really bland with no seasoning on it.. next time, I would season the chicken and sear it in the skillet before making the sauce. That might help give it more flavor with the mild sauce.
And people… someone probably pinned it to a keto board and it gets passed around until it shows up when you search keto. Author never claimed it to be keto.
Debbie Anderson says
This was really good ! I’m not going to be rude and tell you I added this and that . Thank You for sharing . I’ll be making this again .yummmm
Tina says
Can I substitute tapioca starch and get the same finished results and keep it gluten free?
Terry says
It was really tasty. Will make it again.
Shaye says
The nutrition info for this recipe is way off. If you use 12 corn tortillas at 13 grams of carbs per tortilla, that would mean each serving has 26 carbs.
Lynn says
I was wondering about this as well. I’m planning to use low carb tortillas and will try to use less.
Marsha Nelson says
I agree! Maybe try using coconut or almond flour and whole wheat, low carb tortillas. (small are 4 net grams each). Tostitos also makes Simply Tostitos bean tortilla chips. Yes carbs, but really for the amount (12 net grams per 11 chips) you could use some of these crushed on top for a bit of texture and leave out the other tortillas. 44 tortilla chips divided into six servings would net the 8 grams of carbs noted here.
Susanne Claypool says
Corn is a great addition too!
Kristen says
Let me tell you about my happy accident with this one. Planned to use 2 chicken breasts because that is what I had thawed plus a can of black beans and also flour tortillas because I usually don’t care for corn ones and don’t have them on hand. When I put the chicken to simmer, to my horror discovered I only had ONE flour tortilla left. So while the chicken simmered, I boiled up a box of farfalle (bowtie) pasta and served it over that! Turned out great, will make again! I also added onion and garlic.
Dee says
Wow delicious delicious emphasis on the word delicious. I loved it I put it with extra sliced olives. Another cup of sour cream and on the side made Spanish rice and beans. My company loved it and asked for the recipe. Thznks
Kathy says
Thought it to be tasty and quick and easy with only one dish to wash
I did however sprinkle fresh cilantro and sliced spring onions as the dish needs color big time plus it added a spot of “fresh”
Hubby loved it – we’ll be having it again and again
Kim C says
Made this last night and the flavor was great, however mine turned out a bit too saucy, and remained thin even when I added more flour twice. The chicken, tortillas, and cheese just sunk down into it like a soup and it didn’t look at all like what is pictured here. What do you suppose I did wrong?
Heather Cheney says
Hmmm, I’m not sure. The tortillas soak up a lot of the sauce as it sits. What kind of tortillas did you use?
E-world Cooking says
Especially thanks for this article because before that i also try it but not get proper taste. I learn Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas to follow your article and also get the amazing taste and enjoy the dish with my family they also loved .
Tammy says
I made this tonight. I added cayenne and a littler more Adobe chili powder. I sprinkled cilantro and fresh jalepenos on each serving. My hubby said, “this is a keeper,” We both thought it was great! Easy too! Thanks so much!
Tammy says
This was supposed to be five stars! The fifth one wouldn’t click! It’s definitely a five star recipe.
KRIS says
How can this be low carb with so many tortillas?
Heather Cheney says
It’s not low carb. I don’t know why it’s being brought up in Keto Searches. Sorry about that!
Emily says
Made this tonight and it was great. I subbed black beans for the olives, added a can of diced tomatoes, more chili pepper, a little cayenne and onion powder and a package of pre-made Spanish rice. Served it over top of the cut-up tortillas instead of adding them to the sauce so they won’t get soggy in the leftovers.
Stacey says
I made this tonight! It was great! I added a few drops of ghost pepper sauce and some cumin as well for some spice, but the flavors are wonderful! Definitely making again.
Lucy says
Upped the spice and only used about 5 tortillas because that’s all I had. We enjoyed it and it definitely took less time than my usual toasted poblano sour cream chicken enchiladas. Thanks for a great idea!
Jill says
So easy and tastes fantastic! I used canned chicken breast and flour tortillas–they worked great.
Heidi says
How did you get the nutrition information for this recipe? I put it into multiple recipe builders and everything is much higher, even at 6 servings. Thanks!
Melissa says
I think it looks delicious but I think the carbs have to be WAY off. There is no way there are only 8 carbs with all those corn tortillas and flour. I may modify to try to make it more keto friendly.
Kathy Allen says
This was great. I made a half recipe as there are only two of us. Actually I put half of each can of the chilis and olives in the sauce and put the other halves together and put them in my freezer. As far as determing the amount of chicken for half of the recipe, I used part of a rotisserie chicken and just sort of guessed at how much. I did serve this over rice as someone mentioned and we really liked it that way. This would also make a great dip to use with taco chips. You could leave out the corn tortilla pieces…or not. Great keeper recipe. Thanks.