Low Fat Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

I was excited to make these low fat chicken enchiladas that I had found through MyRecipes.com, since I'm always looking for guy-friendly meals.

These were a delicious change of pace, and about 8 Weight Watchers points a piece (454 calories). Both Ben and my roomate's boyfriend liked them a lot, which begs the question: if these pass the "not-so-diet-conscious-guy" taste test, why would you make them with full-fat ingredients?

(I also just noticed the Cooking Light picture has these in a green casserole dish as well!)

These call for normal flour tortillas (medium sized), but I was wondering how they would be with low-carb flour tortillas? Maybe it would compromise the taste. I may experiment at report back. Normally I'm a sucker for cutting out the calories of normal flour tortillas since they can be so "expensive" calorically.

A serving is one enchilada, and this makes 8. Here's the recipe from Cooking Light below. Enjoy!

Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas, Cooking Light May 2009

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken breast
• 2 cups (8 ounces) preshredded reduced-fat 4-cheese Mexican blend cheese
• 1 2/3 cups plain low-fat yogurt
• 1/3 cup butter, melted
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1 teaspoon minced garlic
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1 (10 3/4-ounce) can condensed reduced-fat, reduced-sodium cream of chicken soup (such as Healthy Request), undiluted
• 1 (4.5-ounce) can chopped green chiles, drained
• 8 (8-inch) flour tortillas
• 1 tablespoon canola oil
• Cooking spray
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces) finely shredded reduced-fat sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/4 cup chopped green onions

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 350°.
2. Combine first 9 ingredients in a large bowl. Remove 1 cup chicken mixture; set mixture aside.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat. Working with 1 tortilla at a time, brush oil over both sides of tortilla. Add tortilla to pan; cook 5 seconds on each side or until toasted and soft. Remove from pan; arrange 1/2 cup chicken mixture down center of tortilla. Roll jelly-roll style; place filled tortilla, seam side down, in a 13 x 9–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray. Repeat procedure with remaining 7 tortillas, remaining oil, and remaining chicken mixture. Spread reserved 1 cup chicken mixture evenly over enchiladas. Cover and bake at 350° for 20 minutes. Uncover; sprinkle evenly with cheddar cheese and green onions; bake an additional 5 minutes or until cheese melts.

Nutritional Information

Calories: 454

Fat: 20.3g (sat 10.4g,mono 6.7g,poly 1.5g)

Protein: 30.8g

Carbohydrate: 36.6g

Fiber: 2.2g

Cholesterol: 73mg

Iron: 2.3mg

Sodium: 757mg

Happy Belated Cinco de Mayo!

I was craving Mexican food when I came home from work on Friday (perhaps as a belated Cinco de Mayo craving), and decided to whip up a variation of those goat cheese and roasted corn quesadillas from the March 2009 Cooking Light.

I mentioned these quesadillas briefly in my other post because they were delicious, and have inspired me to looks at quesadillas in a new (healthier) way using smaller corn tortillas and goat cheese. I used the Cooking Light recipe, but added some black beans I had left over from another recipe. After roasting the corn in the pan, I removed it from the heat and added the beans till they just warmed through before setting the mixture aside to add to my quesadillas.

I quickly found that roasted corn is DELICIOUS with black beans as a side and nothing but a little salt. I munched on this in a bowl for a while until my quesadilla was done!

My Not-So-Cinco de Mayo celebration was a total success: a roasted corn and black bean quesadilla, with a dab of light sour cream and salsa verde on the side (oh and another helping of the leftover corn and beans!). It was a totally satisfying meal. The quesadilla was about 4-5 WW points, and another 4 points came from the additional corn and beans....

When was the last time you had a super filling mexi-feast for about 8 points? I'm still craving the corn and bean mixture, and plan to make it again to take to work as a small meal.