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
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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.
After reading the comments and knowing I would want more flavor, I adjusted this recipe and used it as a base for a similar but different dish. Made a roux (the butter/flour), added 2 cups of veg broth and had it thicken. Then added a chopped small onion and 2 garlic cloves minced, along with about 1 tsp chili powder, a little smoked paprika, a bit of cumin, 1tsp+ salt, oregano, fresh black pepper, a dash of aleppo, and about 10 canned jalapeno slices. Then kept cooking it down and adjusting the spices + salt to taste, added a dash of my favorite hot sauce, about 1/4 cup of crushed tomatoes from a can. Then finally, about 3-4 tbsp of fat free greek yogurt (sour cream substitute), at least 1 1/2 cup pieces of cooked rotisserie chicken (thigh, drumstick and breast), and stirred well. I added shredded mozzarella cheese on top (that’s all I had) and let the cheese melt with the lid on. Then I piled tortilla chips on a plate, topped it with this mixture from the pan, and added a hefty amount of cilantro and more canned jalapenos to the top. Worked out well! Kind of a nachos rancheros. Similar recipe, not the same but it worked out for me!
After reading the comments I added a can of Rotel, 1/2 cup sauteed onion, and a generous amount of garlic. Had those ingredients been in the original recipe, it would have been 5 stars. I LOVE the simplicity of this skillet meal, and even a casserole with layered tortillas instead of rolled ones is a PITA. Half an hour to the table, and everyone gobbled it up!
I understand this recipe was meant to be mild. That’s what attracted me to it to begin with. But my god I have never tasted anything so bland in all my life. I’m not a smoker and I don’t like spicey things but I could barely eat this it was so bland. We had lots of left overs so when we reheated the leftovers we put garlic in it then we each put Cholula (tobasco sauce) in it. Not to make it spicey but to give it some flavor. It was super good when we did that. I didn’t put so much on that it was spicey. Just a little to make it taste better.
Couldn’t edit my post but I also wanted to add: what kind of mexican recipe doesn’t have garlic in it?
I thought this was great , I used some green chili sauce 1/2 jar ( 505 ) that I had leftover instead of the green chili’s . I upped the butter and flour . Next time I will add some black beans and corn . Served with some chopped avocados . Yummy
LOVED IT 😁 Easy and quick to make. I used Rotel tomatoes and black olives but see where adding corn and or black beans would be delicious. Used the corn tortillas as we have a gluten free family member- nice to have another receipe to fall back on. Will definitely be making this again.
This was super good. I used one 14 oz can of chicken broth and probably a table of chipotle chili powder. Also to speed things along, I used rotisserie chicken from Costco instead of having to cook chicken breast. Will be making this again soon.
I’ve made this over a dozen times. I follow the exact recipe. So darn good.
This was really good. I used flour tortillas.
Super yummy! My entire family loved it and asked for seconds, even the three year old. Will definitely be a regular recipe in our house.
Delicious! I didn’t have Chipotle chili powder, so used regular and a little adobo sauce from canned chipotles. I also added black beans instead of the ilives and used crushed Tostitos instead of the corn tortillas. Top with a little fresh Cilantro, sour cream dollops and diced avocados…delish!!!
I decided to skip the tortillas and use chips to scoop it up. I ended up with insanely delicious shredded chicken queso! This is not a bad thing!! Thank you for the inspiration.
Just made this recipe. Easy and delicious. Serve over chips or shredded lettuce top with green onions.
Oh I have to make this! It looks so delicious 🙂 All but the olives, I have to keep the olives out – I cook with olive oil but never acquired a taste for olives. It took me years to finally use the oil haha!
I wonder if yellow rice for the side would go well with this? I mean I know it wouldn’t be a one dish meal at that point tho.
Tossed green salad would be better to keep the starch amount down and keep it healthier. Btw, i could eat rice with every meal.
Delish! The whole family loved it. I added corn, beans next time, and erred by adding flour tortillas instead of corn tortillas. Not too bad but will try corn tortillas next time.
I added corn and black beans 😋
I was thinking that would sound good in this
Absolutely delicious !!!
Next time I will add tortillas just before serving.
I served the black olives on the side. My semi picky kids loved it!
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.
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.