When I was growing up, rice and beans, empanadas, enchiladas, and posole were common in our house. My Mother not only cooked with Puerto Rican flavor, but she cooked with love. Isn’t it funny how you never forget home-cooked comfort meals or just how the brain associates food with comfort and memories? I find it extraordinary.
Sometimes just the slightest smell of garlic, chili peppers and cilantro bring childhood moments rushing back to me. I remember my Mother soaking pinto beans overnight and preparing the fluffiest Spanish rice to serve with her famous enchiladas. My brother always requested posole and tamales, so of course we’d have a feast for an entire week. Often times we felt like our bellies might explode, but the truth is our hearts were full and content. Funny enough, my brother and I never got sick of home-cooked meals or those carb-packed leftovers. We still crave them to this day. In fact, there have been years where we have requested enchiladas, Spanish rice, and posole for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
Perhaps again this year.
Sadly, I can never recreate my Mother’s meals to perfection. Even if she gives me the recipe, it’s not quite the same. But of course, I am my Mother’s daughter. Therefore you should know I make some pretty incredible enchiladas. Like these!
These enchiladas are a bit different. Maybe a little unique. Certainly if you’ve never had sweet potatoes and BBQ sauce together, you need to try these. It’s one of the most delightfully flavorful combinations out there. The addition of chicken reminded me a little of CPK’s BBQ chicken pizza. Yum, yum. HOLY YUM.
I also love these because they’re quite simple to make. I baked them for my Mother actually and she LOVED them! I would totally bake them for a boyfriend though; we all know that men basically live for either BBQ or buffalo sauce.
These particular enchiladas are layered. It’s much easier to make them this way as you don’t need to worry about rolling tortillas when they’re already stuffed. Just layer, add sauce and cheese, and layer again!
Another thing I love is the BBQ and enchilada sauce flavor in these; the two combine to make a unique sauce that you’ll want to make again and again. When selecting your BBQ sauce, I suggest going for ones that have natural ingredients. Also, the less sugar the better! I opted for a sweet and spicy BBQ sauce with 30 calories for 2 tablespoons. Some BBQ sauces have 100 calories per serving, so be sure to check the nutrition labels if you are trying to keep your calories in check.
Of course, I used Just BARE® chicken in my recipe — it’s really the best chicken out there! Even better now that they have new family packs available! Family packs are especially wonderful if you like to cook in batches or if you have a large family to feed. I usually make 2 batches of these enchiladas and freeze 1 pan for later when I’m in a bind. Then you can simply pop it in the oven without the fuss of preparing everything.
So go on… get cooking and create some memories. Then devour!
Get more delicious chicken recipes by checking out the brand’s Just 5 Digital Cookbook. Also be sure to find Just BARE on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest!
Disclaimer: This is a sponsored post. I was compensated to create a recipe by Just BARE® Chicken. However, opinions are my own. Thanks for continuing to support Ambitious Kitchen!
You might like these other chicken enchilada recipes:
Low Carb Chicken Zucchini Enchilada Bake
Small Batch Green Salsa Verde Chicken Enchiladas
Enchilada Chicken & Quinoa Stuffed Bell Peppers
Cheesy Chicken Quinoa Enchilada Meatloaf Muffins
Spicy Blank Bean Chicken Enchiladas with Pumpkin Sour Cream Sauce
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Layered BBQ Chicken & Sweet Potato Enchilada Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce
- 2 - 10 oz cans of enchilada sauce
- 1 pound Just BARE boneless skinless Chicken Breasts
- 2 medium sweet potatoes, cooked and diced
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1/2 small red onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
- 9 - 6 inch corn tortillas
- 3/4 cup reduced fat shredded Mexican or colby jack cheese
- 3/4 cup reduced fat shredded mozzarella
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Whisk BBQ and enchilada sauce together in large bowl. Place chicken in baking pan coated with nonstick cooking spray and drizzle 1/4 cup of mixed BBQ enchilada sauce on top.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until juices run clear and chicken is no longer pink. Remove pan from oven and allow chicken to cool for a few minutes. Keep oven temperature, as you'll be baking the enchiladas! Either shred chicken or chop into bite-sized pieces. I like shredding mine as I feel it absorbs flavors much better.
- While chicken is cooking, heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add garlic and cook a few minutes until golden and fragrant. Add red onion and cook until onion is translucent.
- Turn off heat and immediately add 1 cup of enchilada sauce and diced sweet potatoes. Add shredded chicken, cumin, and cilantro; stir until just combined.
- Place 1/4 cup BBQ-enchilada sauce in the bottom of a 9-inch baking pan. Dip 3 corn tortillas in enchilada sauce and place on bottom of pan; you may need to cut one tortilla in half to make sure the entire surface is covered. Place 1/2 of chicken and sweet potato mixture on top of tortillas and cover with 1/2 cup of cheese and about 1/4 cup enchilada sauce; repeat layers once and top with remaining tortillas, sauce and cheese.
- Cover with foil and bake for 30-40 minutes or until warmed through and cheese is completely melted. Cool a few minutes, garnish with extra cilantro, then serve with sour cream and avocado if desired.
I have made enchiladas with sweet potatoes & they were delicious. But never thought of using bbq sauce. Can hardly wait to try these.
I’m a big fan of Mexican food! I’ve gotta try this sweet potato recipe– what a nice twist! Pinned.
Oh yum ! These enchiladas look divine đŸ™‚
Oh wow! This sounds wonderful. I have been craving barbecue lately!! I need to make this!
These sound so good, will have to try them soon. I love new and exciting recipes and love Mexican food, mom was half Mexican.
My kind of comfort food – definitely need to make this for the boyfriend – he’d love it! Plus, I can’t get enough sweet potato!
Goodness, this casserole looks amazing!
Goodness, this casserole looks amazing! Definitely adding to the menu!
I’m so excited to make these for my boyfriend! It’ll be the first meal that I make in our new apartment this weekend đŸ™‚
This was delicious! And certainly the healthiest Mexican I’ve ever had! It was enjoyed by all đŸ™‚
It was very tasty! Made it for dinner tonight, thanks!
YUM! Wish you would have invited me over! I would have left the kids at home – they won't TOUCH sweet potatoes. (What is WRONG with them???)
I am a sucker for all things saucey, comfort-foody, and mexican. So you bet I made these! And man…the sweet potato with bbq/enchilada sauce is a combination I wish I had discovered earlier. I’ll probably dream about it. Just a few things I noticed:
– your ingredient list calls for cumin but (from what I can tell) isn’t included in the instructions anywhere. I added it to my bbq sauce mix. Sorry if it’s listed and I’m blind.
– I wanted to, but couldn’t add all of the sauce to my dish. It was way too much – i stopped when the sauce was teetering over the edges and sure to drip all over my oven. But I happily saved it for something else (no, I’m not just eating it by the spoonfull. Promise.)
Served with avocado this was amazing. Can’t wait for the leftovers!
Thanks for the feedback. I didn’t have issues with the sauce as you did, but will note the cumin missing – thanks for mentioning that! đŸ™‚
Has anyone tried this with green enchilada sauce? That’s my fave, but am wondering about the combination of it with bbq sauce. Either way, I’m gonna make this recipe!
Hopefully I am not missing something obvious, but what do you do with the sweet potatoes? I only see them come into play at step 5, how do they end up in the mix? Bake, boil, diced?
Also is your 9″ baking pan 9×9, or 9×13?
9×9! đŸ™‚
I added black beans which I think enhanced it! Yummy!
When do you add the cumin?
To the chicken/sweet potato mixture. So sorry about that!
Love this recipe. Thank you! Going to make an extra batch and freeze next time… When doing this should I follow steps 1-5 and then freeze and then defrost and follow step 6 when wanted? Thanks
eating this tonight!
Just pulled this out of the oven–so amazing looking! Can't wait to dig in!
that looks amazing!
I made this last night and was in love!! So good! I didn’t add cumin and used canned sweet potatoes with the syrup rinsed off and a rotisserie chicken from the grocery ( I’m a lazy cook). It was soooo good. I give it 5+ stars and a golden sticker đŸ™‚ thanks for sharing! Keep posting your magical recipes!
Made this tonight and it was YUMMY!! Great recipe! Thank you!
Yummy
I’ve been trying to find tasty nonfattening meals for my family. I saw this & made it last night for dinner. My family was skeptical when I told them what it was but they LOVED it. In fact, they just polished off the leftovers for lunch. Will definitely be making this again, thank you!
How do you cook your sweet potatoes for this recipe? Do you bake, boil, microwave, or pan cook them first? Looking forward to making this recipe, I have made a stuffed sweet potato skin recipe similar to this before and loved the flavors.
You can cook them however you like. I prefer to roast mine in the oven. đŸ™‚ 400 degrees for 30-40 minutes should do the trick!
If I’m freezing this do I follow all the steps and freeze? And like a earlier person asked, do I thaw it out then cook?
Made these tonight – added a can of black beans for a little extra texture (worried the dish would be too mushy), used a rotisserie chicken to save time, used regular bbq sauce, and reduced cheese to 1 cup to save a bit on calories. Holy moly!!! Soooooo good!!! My husband was like, “this is a weird combination, but I love it!”
Perfect! Glad you both loved it đŸ™‚
Wonderful flavors! Love everything about this dish… sweet and savory. If you make this, you must use Monique’s enchilada sauce recipe, though! No canned sauce here!
So glad you loved it! And YES love that homemade sauce.
Maybe that is the trick – homemade sauce
I made these last night and they were fantastic! Although these are labor intensive. I am a mediocre cook and at my fastest speed I cannot chop; sweet potatoes, cilantro, onion, peel & chop garlic and Shredd chicken in ten minutes.
Glad you enjoyed! Noted on the chopping speeds, too – everyone is a little bit different!
so yummy!
This was so delicious! My husband got seconds and he hates sweet potato! This will be a staple in our house now!
Amazing! Love to hear that!
I got caught up in the BBQ chicken notion of this recipe and I have loved every other recipe I’ve tried with Ambitious Kitchen, but I have to say this was not good, sadly. It is mentioned it is a different combo in the recipe, but different can be good so I was willing to try as I have a more traditional stacked enchilada that my family loves. Unfortunately, this was a no go for us. But, we tried and I look forward to trying all the other awesome recipes and flavors of Ambitious Kitchen!
Sorry to hear that you didn’t like this one! I wish I could help troubleshoot as it is pretty close to a “regular” enchilada recipe. Was it perhaps the sauces you used?
Would this freeze well?
It should!
Love! This one has great flavor pairings that are unique but magical together. It’s easily one of our favorite family meals and is a great option to freeze and bake later for easy prep if you are entertaining and want to spend time socializing.
So happy to hear that! Perfect dinner đŸ™‚
Do you cook the sweet potatoes first? In your comments below you mention roasting them but the recipe just states to add diced sweet potatoes.
Yep it says “cooked and diced” in the ingredients list! Roasting them is my favorite way to cook them đŸ™‚
So glad we decided to try this! It was so easy! Never thought to mix enchilada sauce and BBQ but it was delicious!
This recipe was delicious. My chicken was frozen so I boiled it instead of baking in the sauce. Then shredded the chicken and followed the other steps. This was so delicious even our 16 month old cleaned her plate!
I’m so glad you both loved it! Thank you!
The flavour is great but next time I’ll have to cook the sweet potatoes ahead of time. They stayed hard for ages. Had it in the oven for over twice the length, turned the heat up, and they still weren’t optimally soft. I don’t think my pieces were too large or anything.
Hi, Taylor. In the ingredients list, it says to use already cooked sweet potatoes!
How much does a medium sweet potato weigh? Do you have a favorite enchilada sauce brand?
About 4.6oz or 1/3 pound. Try my homemade enchilada sauce or I get Hatch from the store đŸ™‚
This was amazing! Made my own enchilada sauce and added black beans to it. My family really enjoyed this!
Making this tonight and psyched for it! What is the best way to pre-cook the sweet potatoes?
I recommend dicing them and baking them at 400 degrees F for about 25-30 minutes or until just fork-tender! They’ll soften a bit more as the casserole bakes.
The perfect balance of tang, sweet, and scrumptious. I love how all the flavor components come together, keeps me coming back to this recipe.
Absolutely!