Guys, these White Chicken Enchiladas have to be one of my all-time favorite enchilada recipes EVER — and they’ve been a HUGE reader favorite for years, too.
They’re cheesy, saucy, and downright divine, with that creamy white sauce that tastes like something you’d order at your favorite little Mexican spot. The best part? They come together easily enough to work for a midweek dinner rotation, but they’re absolutely worthy of serving to company.
If you love this creamy enchilada vibe, you might also want to try Creamy Seafood Shrimp Enchiladas — they’re rich and totally crave-worthy. Want something more traditional? My Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas have been in our family’s regular dinner rotation for more than a decade! And for an easier weeknight shortcut, our Green Chicken Enchilada Casserole fits the bill perfectly.
Looking for more dinner inspiration? Browse my Chicken Dinner Recipe collection for more easy chicken meals and family favorites.
Let’s make these!
What I Love About This Recipe
- Smothered in a rich, tangy, homemade sauce
- Quick to prepare
- Loaded with cheesy goodness!
- No Canned Soup
How To Make White Chicken Enchiladas Recipe
My decadently cheesy enchiladas recipe whips up in less than 45 minutes! A double win — delicious and quick.
- In a bowl, combine chicken and 1 cup of Monterey Jack cheese.
- Fill tortillas with this mixture and roll each one up.
- Arrange the tortillas in the prepared pan.
- Melt butter in a skillet. Sprinkle flour and cook for a minute.
- Remove the skillet from the heat and add chicken broth. Place back on the heat until the sauce thickens.
- Add sour cream and chilies, stir until the sauce is smooth.
- Pour the sauce over the enchiladas. Add the remaining cheese on top.
- Bake.
- Top with green onions and serve.
***See the full instructions below.
Best Chicken To Use For This Recipe
This is a great recipe to use a rotisserie chicken in. It greatly speeds up the prep time and it’s infused with great seasoning.
If you’d prefer, you can use homemade poached chicken or any leftover grilled chicken you happen to have. You can use a combo of white and dark meat or just white or just dark meat per your family’s preference.
White Chicken Enchiladas Recipe Ingredients + Notes
- Diced chiles – Our recipe calls for mild chilies. If your family likes spicy food, you can substitute hotter chilies instead. Another tasty option is fire-roasted chilies. They should be on the shelf near the other canned peppers at your grocery store.
- Chicken – You can cook the chicken according to your favorite method, such as roasting or poaching the breasts. If you’re pressed for time, using a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken from your grocer is a great time-saving shortcut. Honestly, 9 times out of 10, that’s what I use.
- Shredded cheese – We love the flavor of Monterey Jack in this dish. It also helps keep the sauce white! If you have a different cheese on hand, feel free to substitute your favorite shredded cheese in this recipe. My son loves when I use Pepper Jack instead of the plain Monterey because it adds another layer of flavor and spice. It might be too spicy for little kiddos though.
- Sour cream – We strongly recommend using full-fat sour cream in this recipe. It’s an important factor in the richness of the sauce. Also, low-fat sour cream tends to separate and get runny when heated. You might end up with gloppy enchiladas!
- Green onions – Don’t have any green onions? A sprinkle of chopped cilantro on top will add a bright flavor, too.
- Tortillas – The recipe calls for using flour tortillas, but if you prefer, you can switch them with corn tortillas. I used fajita sized tortillas.
- Seasoning – I didn’t need to add any salt or pepper to this recipe. The chicken broth I used was very flavorful and had a lot of salt already in it. The chicken was also well seasoned and obviously, the cheese had a good amount of salt.
Tools For This Recipe
- A 9×13 baking pan
- A stovetop skillet
- Mixing bowls
- A whisk: The whisk is important! This helps you get the creamiest, dreamiest sauce imaginable.
How To Shred Cooked Chicken
The quickest and easiest way to shred chicken is to use a handheld mixer or a stand-up mixer. Here’s how:
- Place boneless, cooked chicken in a mixing bowl or the bowl of a stand-up mixer.
- Set the mixer on low and mix.
- Et Viola! Perfect shredded chicken in a fraction on the time!!
Storing + Freezing + Meake Ahead
- How Long Can You Keep This In The Fridge? If you have leftover enchiladas, store them in an airtight container to keep them from drying out. Store in the fridge for 3-4 days for optimal freshness.
- Can You Freeze This? Sour cream can tend to get runny and/or chunky in the freezer. Freezing them will change the texture of the sauce. We suggest freezing the stuffed and rolled enchiladas without the sauce. Then make the white sauce on the day you plan to reheat it and eat it.
- Make-Ahead Tips: If you meal prep at the beginning of the week, these can easily be prepared several days in advance. Store the stuffed and rolled enchiladas in a covered baking dish. Keep the white sauce separate until you plan to cook the enchiladas. This will cut down on soggy tortillas.
- If you’re making the sauce in advance, it may get a bit too thick when it’s cooled and reheated. This is easy to fix. Add whole milk or chicken stock, one tablespoon at a time, during reheating to achieve your desired thickness. Be sure to stir or whisk thoroughly to maintain the creaminess of the sauce.
- Food Safety: If you’d like more info on food safety check out this link.
Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Serving Recommendations
What better way to serve my chicken enchiladas than with a whole Mexican feast? My favorite things to serve with this are my Mexican Rice, charro beans, jalapeno cornbread, Mexican corn salad, and my Southwest salad (my family’s favorite salad! They always eat their veggies when I serve this). All the flavors in the dishes complement each other perfectly and I have a meal on the table that everyone is happy with.
How about some dessert? We like this with our margarita cake (totally nonalchoholic!), pineapple upside down cake, pig pickin cake, or pineapple sheet cake.
If you want to pair this with cocktails, try our pink margarita, pineapple margarita, or our old-fashioned mocktail, lime rickey!
More Delicious Mexican-Inspired Recipes
Tried This Recipe?
Leave a review, I love hearing your feedback! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
White Chicken Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 8-10 small flour tortillas
- 3 cups cooked chicken shredded or chopped
- 3 cups Monterey jack cheese shredded-divided
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 2 cups chicken broth
- 1 cup sour cream
- 1 (4-ounce) can diced green chilies mild
- 2-3 tablespoons green onions sliced
Instructions
- Spray a 9x13-inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside. Preheat oven to 350ºF (177ºC).
- In a small bowl, combine chicken (3 cups) and 1 cup of Monterey Jack cheese. Fill tortillas (8-10) with this mixture and roll each one up then place seam side down in the prepared pan.
- Melt the butter (3 tablespoons) in a skillet. Sprinkle flour (3 tablespoons) over melted butter and whisk to combine. Cook for 1 minute to remove the flour taste. Remove the skillet from heat and whisk in broth (2 cups). Place back on the heat and cook until the mixture has thickened and is bubbly. Cool sauce for 3-5 minutes. (Don't skip this step- if the sauce is too hot and you add the sour cream it will curdle it-yuck!). Add sour cream (1 cup) and chilies (1 can) and stir until the sauce is smooth and the sour cream is completely dissolved.
- Pour sauce over enchiladas and add remaining cheese over top. Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until the enchiladas are heated through and the sauce is bubbly. Turn on the broiler and broil until the top is nicely golden. Top with chopped green onions (2-3 tablespoons) and serve.
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So, not to insult your recipe, but I did the ultimate lazy (yet still gluten free!) version. I used CANNED white meat chicken sauted in olive oil and dusted with a healthy dose of taco seasoning. Corn tortillas. Used the broth I drained from the cans, skipped the thickener and was heavy handed on the sour cream. The flavor was amazing. Thanks!
So glad you liked it Terry!
These are absolutely delicious. However, the chicken broth CLEARLY needs to be cut in half, at least. They are very liquidy and soggy. The bottom half of all the tortillas are mush! Next time I’ll lessen the broth. Other than that…DELICIOUS. I used plain Greek yogurt in place of sour cream and whole wheat tortillas. Thanks for sharing!
Hey Christie. Thanks for your input 🙂 I haven’t found that the chicken broth needs to be cut in half but I appreciate your input!
You have to let it thicken like it says. Furthermore, if you want to avoid sogginess with the tortillas you can always opt for corn. It is JUST as good. Just a suggestion. (I know you posted this forever ago.
Great advice, Stephanie!
Our bakery made flour tortillas disintegrated with all of the chicken broth. We’ll try to change tortillas and cut back on the broth.
Hi sorry I am looking over the directions for this recipe. Where do you add the chicken broth?
Hi Heidi! You add the broth to the skillet after combining the flour and butter. Check it out in step 3. Hope this helps! ?
Never cared for the red enchilada sauce so this was my first time making enchiladas. My couple of additions were a dab of nutmeg in the white sauce (always) and sprinkled a few black beans on the chicken & cheese before rolling just to get some color & extra nutrition. Was fortunate to have leftover beer-butt roasted chicken that was highly seasoned. When I took my first bite, my eyeballs about popped out of my head! Boyfriend had same reaction. This stuff is KILLER. We love lots of heat! Boyfriend is terminally ill, rarely eats, and then very little. He immediately asked for seconds! Blessings to you, Kathleen.
Oh Victoria, thank you so much for your comment. You made my day. I’m so pleased you both enjoyed!!!!
Hi so I’m Irish and our measures are different so how much is a cup?? Pam
Hi Pam, it’s 8 ounces 🙂
Found this through a post on Facebook. Can’t wait to try it. Thanks for posting it!
Hope you have a chance to try these soon, Theresa 🙂
I will be making this yet AGAIN for the 5th time tonight! My guy loves it and so do I! I rarely cook, so 5 times in 2 months is a big deal! The detailed directions you gave were easy for me to follow. I have also used other cheeses when in a pinch and it was STILL good! From 1 to 10, I give this recipe an 11! So pso good!! If I can make it, anyone can! Thanks for sharing!!
Wow! Thanks so much Renee! I’m so happy this was a hit for you and your family 🙂
I can’t get the directions because ads keep popping up over them and I can’t get them to go away. Very very annoyed. I will now make someone else’s that I can actually read.
Hi Kim. If you are seeing ads that block any content, they aren’t ads from my site. Those ads are appearing on mobile devices, including Ipads, that haven’t updated their operating system. They are ads generating from a site previously visited. I can only imagine how frustrating they are! I think I may hate them even more than you do!
Thank you for this amazing recipe! As a season and cook of 45 years, I’m usually particular when I follow a new recipe, however, it was one of those days that the recipe appealed but I had to adapt with what I had on hand. I had good quality shredded chicken; I added a little bit of finely diced yellow pepper to the chicken. I used white Mexican cheese and corn tortillas. I made the sour cream white sauce exactly as you stated and topped with a blend of white Mexican and cheddar cheeses . After it was baked, I topped it with diced avocado and fresh chopped cilantro! Crazy good. Thank you so much for the delightful recipe.
Hi Andrea. You are so welcome. So glad you enjoyed!
I used your same tweaks as well…but also added some chopped onion after softening in some butter with the yellow pepper..and also added sliced avocado to the top. Oh man so delicious and has been answer to my prayers…while.living in Michigan is beautiful…well I definitely miss the cuisine in Houston…and this is the closest replica to my favorite enchiladas from Pappsitos. I thank you…my thighs not so much.. lol
LOL! Wow, I love that you added sliced avocados. Thank you for sharing your tweak. Thank you so much for your feedback! <3
Omg, Pappasitos seafood enchiladas are to die for!!! But these are pretty darn good too. I usually end up using whatever I have on hand but it’s the sour cream sauce I keep coming back for. Delicious ?
I am making these tonight, using low carb whole wheat tortillas, mexican crema instead of sour cream (very similar but has a little more flavor) and a fresh green chili that I will roast first. Also adding some cilantro. Can’t wait, will report back!!!!
Hope you enjoy Marcello!
I’d love to make this recipe but I can’t read it because your stupid ads are in the way. There is no way to get rid of them either.
Very, very annoying.
Hi Charlotte. If you are seeing ads that block any content, they aren’t ads from my site. Those ads are appearing on mobile devices, including Ipads, that haven’t updated their operating system. They are ads generating from a site previously visited. I can only imagine how frustrating they are! I think I may hate them even more than you do!
Update ypur system the ads will stop.its not her STUPID site…geez…
Made these tonight for dinner and they were a huge hit with my hubby who’s very picky. I will definitely be making these again. Made about 10 enchiladas total.
Yay Leah! So glad you guys liked the enchiladas!
These are great! Sending son back to college (first time in apt) Want to freeze them, will the sauce hold up once frozen? Should he add the cheese on top when he’s going to bake them? Also, are they baked frozen?
Hey Kim. I haven’t tried freezing this recipe sorry! Not sure about freezing this sauce.
I make these ahead all the time. Divide them up and freeze them. Take them out about an hour before you microwave them. As good as when you first make them.
Thank you so much Trudie for sharing that! I love that you divide them up. I need to do that!!! Really great idea 🙂
I made a gluten free version tonight by using corn tortillas and gf flour in the sauce. My family loved it.
Gonna try to freeze the leftovers for an easy dinner next week.
Thanks for this!
So glad you likes the enchiladas, Katrina!
Due to a ‘burn ban’ here in Anchorage, we were unable to grill out. Flipping through the internet I stumbled upon your site and was certainly pleased I did! Pressed for time, I boiled chicken breasts on the stovetop, then proceeded with your recipe as written except monterey jack cheese, canned chilies, and sour cream were substituted with a mexican blend cheese, one largish serrano pepper, and plain yogurt due to availability on hand. I too added onion powder to my chicken while shredding and may consider boiling in chicken broth for a future meal if roasted wasn’t available, but my goodness the meal was as if planned! Receiving multiple thumbs-ups, I’ll be happily exploring ‘Gonna Want Seconds’! 🙂 Thanks Kathleen.
You’re so welcome Jean. Thanks so much for sharing your experience. I’m so glad you enjoyed the recipe 🙂