These Easy Beef Enchiladas are a wonderful, family-friendly dinner. Watch the video showing you how to make Easy Beef Enchiladas, then scroll down to the bottom of this post and print out the recipe so you can make them at home.
How to Make Easy Beef Enchiladas:
Heat oil in a large skillet, and add a pound of ground beef.
Break the meat apart and let it brown.
Tilt the pan to let the oil pool along the edge of the pan. Use a spoon to scoop out the oil and get rid of it. You don’t need any of that extra fat in there. Remove the meat to a bowl.
Add chopped onion and finely chopped zucchini to the hot skillet, and cook until the vegetables are slightly softened. Trust me on the zucchini. No one in your family will even notice it, and it’s really good in this Easy Beef Enchiladas recipe! If you hate it, I suppose you could leave it out… but I hope you’ll choose to trust me 🙂
Add the vegetables to the bowl with the beef and stir them together.
Add 1/2 cup enchilada sauce to a 13×9-inch pan. I make homemade enchilada sauce… SO good… and SO much better than the metallic-can tasting stuff. It’s simple to make.
Tilt the pan to swirl the sauce around and make sure it coats the entire bottom of the pan.
Assembly time! You’ll need corn tortillas, the meat/veggie mixture, cheddar-jack cheese and enchilada sauce. Note that in the photos, I am using a corn-flour blend tortilla. You can use any tortillas you want!
Spoon the beef mixture down the middle of a tortilla.
Sprinkle some cheese on top.
And drizzle about one tablespoon of the enchilada sauce on top of the filling.
Roll up the stuffed tortilla tightly and place seam-side-down in the sauce-coated pan. Continue with all of the tortillas until you have created 12 enchiladas.
Drizzle the remaining sauce on top of the rolled-up enchiladas.
Spread the sauce around so you get a nice coating all along the top of these Easy Beef Enchiladas. At this point, you’re going to cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
Take the enchiladas out of the oven, remove the foil cover and sprinkle cheese on top. Put them back into the oven to melt all that cheese.
Just like that.
Ready for eating!
Serve these Easy Beef Enchiladas with whatever you’d like. I served them on a simple bed of shredded iceberg lettuce with some freshly sliced avocado. My husband added a generous spoonful of sour cream. And my kiddo– one who would never, ever willingly eat zucchini if it were placed in front of him– ate this meal as-is and with great enthusiasm. Apparently he didn’t spy the zucchini in the midst of all of that wonderful sauce and cheese.
If you’re looking for recipes to serve with these Easy Beef Enchiladas, try my Mango Guacamole or this Enchilada Rice. Mexican Chopped Salad and Seasoned Black Beans are also delicious choices!
Easy Beef Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
- 16 ounces lean ground beef
- 1½ cups finely diced onion
- 1½ cups finely diced zucchini (about 2 medium)
- 12 taco-size corn tortillas (heated or fried to soften)
- 2½ cups enchilada sauce (canned or homemade)
- 3 cups shredded cheddar-jack cheese
- serve as desired with lettuce, sour cream, avocado, etc.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a 9x13-inch pan with nonstick spray.
- Heat oil in a large, nonstick skillet. Add the ground beef; break apart with a spoon or spatula to crumble the meat. Saute the meat on medium heat until browned (about 5 minutes). Tilt the pan and spoon the fat out of the pan; discard. Remove the cooked meat to a bowl.
- Return the pan to medium heat, and add the onion and zucchini. Saute until just softened, 3 to 4 minutes. Remove the vegetables from the pan and add to the meat mixture; set aside.
- Add 1/2 cup of sauce to the prepared pan. Spread it around so it coats the entire bottom of the pan.
- Assemble the enchiladas: Place a tortilla on a work surface. Spoon 1/4 to 1/3 cup of the meat mixture down the middle. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of cheese on top of the meat. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of sauce on top. Wrap the tortilla around the filling tightly and place it seam-side-down in the pan. Repeat with remaining tortillas and filling until you have finished filling 12 tortillas. Place the tortillas side-by-side in the pan- it's okay if they are all snuggled in there tightly.
- Pour the remaining enchilada sauce over the top of the stuffed enchiladas. Cover the dish with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
- Remove the pan from the oven and take off the foil. Sprinkle the remaining cheese on top; return to the oven and let the cheese melt (about 5 minutes). Serve immediately with desired condiments.
Notes
- *I like to use tortillas for this recipe that are a corn/flour blend. They're easy to roll (they don't break), and you don't need to fry them!
- *If you are preparing this recipe as GLUTEN-FREE, just make sure that you are using brands of enchilada sauce and corn tortillas that are designated as GF
- *Be sure to check out my recipe for homemade enchilada sauce.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I’ve never thought to add zucchini to my enchiladas! Thanks!!
Enchiladas are one of my favorite dinners! Love these and the added veggies!
these are amazing!
The perfect dish for a homestyle fiesta!
Can these enchiladas be frozen? If so, at which point in the recipe do I stop and freeze? Thank you!
I haven’t tried freezing them, but I suppose I’d make them entirely with sauce and all and then freeze.
Lori, I tried it and it was delicious!!!!!!! Extraordinary!!!
Thanks so much for sharing.
You can use canned enchilada sauce however you will need to jazz it up some but works great. I use Old ElPaso sauce but add 2 good shake of garlic salt, 1 teaspoon of chili powder, and 1/2 teaspoon of Mexican oregano directly to the enchilada sauce before mixing with the chili. After adding these spices cook on low heat (do not boil) for 10 minutes and then add it to your chili. It makes all the difference in the world. I also added a 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne for a little warmth.
I thank you so much for your homemade enchilada sauce recipe. I’ve tried others and didn’t like them, but this was so smooth tasting and I can control the heat so my young children can enjoy it too without saying it’s too spicy. I agree the canned stuff does taste like the tin can. I was looking for an easy enchilada recipe to make tonight, it was 4:30, and I found this and was like YES! I even had all the ingredients to make the enchiladas and sauce, Thank you!
My husband and I made these tonight! Instead of using onion salt and Garlic Powder for the Enchilada sauce, we blended one medium onion, and ground up 2.5 cloves of garlic ! It was super fresh and delicious!! We put ground beef,crushed up tomato, blended green pepper, salt,black pepper, cumin, and cheese! then baked as recommended! the whole family LOVED IT!!
This recipe is awesome. I made your homemade enchilada sauce, your enchiladas well as the ground beef with the zucchini. My daughter loves enchiladas, I always used to used to buy store bought enchiladas for her. My husband has never eaten enchiladas in his life. So I plucked up the courage to make them for supper on Friday night and all I can say is Wow. I got so many compliments, I’m thrilled. The enchiladas are so nice and soft, the sauce is delish, to top it all off my husband does not enjoy zucchini but commented that the zucchini was divine. Thank you so much for a wonderful recipe that Iam going to add to my recipe book.