Ground Beef Enchiladas

These ground beef enchiladas are made with a homemade enchilada sauce, stuffed with Mexican beef and loaded with plenty of cheese!

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Homemade Enchilada Sauce

Step away from the store bought enchilada sauce. I repeat, step away from the store bought enchilada sauce 🤪 All jokes aside enchilada sauce is WAY too easy not to make. It’s great to prep ahead of time and I bet you’ve already got half the ingredients on hand.

Red Enchilada Sauce

Enchilada sauce typically comes in the ‘red’ or ‘green’ variety. Today we’re going red. To make the base of the sauce you’re essentially making a roux, which will help thicken the sauce. However instead of using your regular butter, flour and milk, you’ll use oil, flour and stock.

Tomato Puree

I.e. Tomato Paste. This will not only give you that gorgeous colour, but it also offers a nice base flavour for the sauce. One tip is to ensure you fry off the tomato puree. This will take the ‘bite’ out of it and ever-so-slightly sweeten it. So, once you stir the flour into the oil, stir in the tomato puree and fry before whisking in the stock.

Chilli Powder

This gives the bulk of the flavour. You can easily work to your spice preference and just add in as much as you’d like. Just absolutely make sure it’s regular mild chilli powder NOT cayenne pepper.

Process shots: heat oil (photo 1), stir in flour (photo 2), add tomato puree (photo 3), stir into paste (photo 4), gradually whisk in stock (photo 5), add seasoning (photo 6), simmer until able to coat the back of a spoon (photo 7).

Ground Beef Enchilada Filling

The beef filling again is very simple. I usually go for beef that’s around 5% fat – that way it doesn’t leak out too much fat and make the enchiladas oily. Alongside the beef and spices, I throw in some red pepper, onion and garlic and some of the enchilada sauce to keep the filling nice and juicy!

What else can I add to the beef filling?

To make them extra spicy you could add jalapeños, to bulk everything out a bit more consider adding black beans.

Process shots: fry pepper, onion and garlic in oil (photo 1), add beef (photo 2), break up and brown (photo 3), stir in seasoning (photo 4). 

How to wrap enchiladas

Refried beans

These will not only add flavour, they’ll not only stop the filling from drying out, but they’ll all keep everything in tact.  I highly recommend adding these – you’ll find them in most mainstream stores.

Cheese

Because why only put cheese on top of enchiladas when you can stuff cheese through the centre? 🤣 Here I sprinkle a pinch of Mexican/Spicy cheese blend in the centre, you know, just to be extra.

Process shots: lay tortilla flat and spread with refried beans (photo 1), add beef (photo 2), add cheese (photo 3), roll (photo 4).

Baked Beef Enchiladas

To kick things off you’ll want to pour around 1/4 of your enchilada sauce into the base of the dish. You’ll also want to pour a little in between each enchilada and between the outside enchiladas and the pan, just to stop everything from sticking together.

From there it’s just a case of pouring over the rest of your sauce, sprinkling over infinite amounts of cheese and popping in the oven until golden and delicious.

What cheese to use for enchiladas?

In reality you can use most ‘melty’ cheeses. As mentioned earlier, I use spicy cheese blend in the centre, and here I top with cheddar. Monterey Jack also works nicely!

Process shots: pour sauce in dish (photo 1), stuff in enchiladas (photo 2), pour over more sauce (photo 3) top with cheese and bake (photo 4).

Serving Beef Enchiladas

Once they’re fresh out the oven I go in with a good sprinkling of fresh coriander/cilantro. From there I usually serve individual portions with the following toppings:

• Sour Cream
• Avocado
• Tomato
• Spring Onion
• Lime Wedges (optional)

Can I prep these ahead of time?

I don’t recommend prepping them fully because they’ll go soggy, but you can definitely make the sauce and roll the enchiladas in advance, which actually make up the bulk of prep!

And there we have it! All my top tips for the most glorious ground beef enchiladas.

If you’re after more ground beef Tex Mex recipes check out my Ground Beef Tacos and Ground Beef Quesadillas!

For more similar recipes check out these beauties too:

Delicious Tex Mex Recipes

• Chicken Fajita Nachos
• Sweet Potato Black Bean Quesadillas
• Chipotle Chicken Taquitos
• Mini Burrito Tortilla Cups
• ALL TEX MEX RECIPES

Alrighty, let’s tuck into the full recipe for these beef enchiladas shall we?!

How to make Beef Enchiladas (Full Recipe & Video)

4.93 from 14 votes

Ground Beef Enchiladas

By: Chris Collins

These ground beef enchiladas are made with a homemade enchilada sauce, stuffed with Mexican ground beef and loaded with plenty of cheese!

Prep: 20 minutes mins

Cook: 45 minutes mins

Total: 1 hour hr 5 minutes mins

Servings: 4

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Equipment

• 11" x 14" Baking Dish
• Large Pan & Wooden Spoon
• Sharp Knife & Chopping Board
• Jug (for stock)
• Cheese Grater
• Plastic Spatula/Turner
• Whisk

Ingredients 

1x2x3x

Enchilada Sauce

• ▢ 720ml / 3 cups Chicken Stock
• ▢ 3 tbsp Tomato Puree (Tomato Paste in US)
• ▢ 3 tbsp Vegetable Oil
• ▢ 3 tbsp Flour
• ▢ 1 tbsp Hot Chilli Powder, or to spice preference (see notes)
• ▢ 1 tsp Cumin
• ▢ 1/2 tsp Oregano
• ▢ 1/4 tsp EACH: Garlic Powder, Onion Powder
• ▢ Salt & Pepper, to taste

Ground Beef

• ▢ 500g / 1lb lean Ground/Minced Beef (5-10%)
• ▢ 1 large Red Pepper, finely diced
• ▢ 1 medium White Onion, finely diced
• ▢ 2 cloves of Garlic, finely diced
• ▢ 2 tsp EACH: Paprika, Cumin
• ▢ 1 tsp Oregano
• ▢ 1/2 tsp Salt
• ▢ 1/4 tsp Black Pepper

Enchiladas

• ▢ 8x 6"-7" Flour Tortilla Wraps
• ▢ half a 435g/15oz can of Refried Beans
• ▢ 200-250g / 2 - 2.5 cups Cheddar, to top
• ▢ 100-150g / 1 - 1.5 cups Mexican/Spicy Cheese Blend, to stuff inside (or more cheddar)

To Serve (optional)

• ▢ Sour Cream (recommended)
• ▢ Avocado, diced
• ▢ Fresh Tomato, diced
• ▢ Green/Spring Onion, finely sliced
• ▢ Fresh Coriander/Cilantro, finely diced
• ▢ Lime Wedges

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Instructions 

Sauce

• In a large pot or pan over medium heat add 3 tbsp oil. Once hot, stir in 3 tbsp flour. Stir in 3 tbsp tomato puree and fry it off for a minute or so. By now a paste should form and at this point gradually begin adding in your stock, whisking as you go to avoid any lumps forming.
• Once you've added the stock, season with chilli powder, cumin, oregano, onion powder, garlic powder and salt & pepper to taste. Simmer for a few mins to thicken, then remove from heat (it will thicken more as it rests).

Beef

• In a large pan over medium heat add a drizzle of oil, then add in onion, red pepper and garlic. Fry until it all softens and begins to take on colour, then add in beef. Break up with a wooden spoon and fry until brown.
• Stir in paprika, cumin, oregano, salt and pepper, then stir in 1/4 cup / 60ml of the enchilada sauce. Remove from heat.

Enchiladas

• Lay out all of the wraps and spread each one with a dollop of refried beans in the bottom 1/3 of the wrap. Top with the beef, finish with some cheese then tightly roll up.
• Spread 1/4 of the enchilada sauce in a 11" x 14" baking dish, then place in the enchiladas seam-side-down. Pour over the remaining sauce, sprinkle with cheese then bake in the oven at 350F/180C for 25-30mins, or until the cheese is golden and gooey on top with the sauce bubbling around the edges.

Serve

• Sprinkle over coriander/cilantro whilst in the pan, then serve up individual portions with desired toppings!

Video

Notes

a) Chilli Powder - I use 1 tbsp 'hot' chilli powder and the sauce comes out pretty spicy. You can use regular/mild chilli powder if you'd prefer. In all cases just start off with caution and work your way up.

b) Cheese - I use a 'spicy cheese mix' you can get from Morrisons for the filling. If you can't find something similar just use more Cheddar. Monterey Jack also works nicely if you can find it.

c) Make ahead - You can make the sauce in advance, just allow to cool then tightly cover and store in the fridge. Add a splash of water if needed to loosen up when needed (it will thicken as it cools). You can also roll the enchiladas ahead of time, just tightly cover in the fridge until needed. From there, just construct everything and pop in the oven. Add an extra 5 mins or so if making everything straight from fridge.

d) Calories - whole recipe divided by 4 without additional toppings. Based using 10% fat beef, 2.5 tbsp chilli powder, 1 cup Monterey jack and 2 cups cheddar.

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Nutrition

Calories: 942kcal | Carbohydrates: 58.43g | Protein: 57.77g | Fat: 54.01g | Saturated Fat: 29.996g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 3.271g | Monounsaturated Fat: 16.191g | Trans Fat: 0.612g | Cholesterol: 156mg | Sodium: 1427mg | Potassium: 1186mg | Fiber: 6.2g | Sugar: 9g | Vitamin A: 3695IU | Vitamin C: 54.1mg | Calcium: 769mg | Iron: 8.83mg

Looking for more?

You’ll find plenty more delicious comfort food like this in my Debut Cookbook ‘Comfy’