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.
Thank you soooo much! Your website is awesome. I’m so glad I found it. It’s so well done. Love the pictures and step by step directions. So helpful!
You’re very welcome- hope it goes well!
Would you take all the ingredients times 10??? Don’t ever cook for this large of a group (50-60), so just wondering if that’s right. Thanks!
Yes, if you’re expecting that each person will eat two enchiladas. I’d definitely use the La Tortilla Factory brand of corn-flour blend tortillas as they are really easy to work with- you don’t need to heat them or fry them in oil… they will wrap around the filling easily and won’t crack. Good luck!
Any suggestions for adjusting the recipe to feed more like 60? Planning on making these for my son’s graduation open house. Any advice would be welcomed! Thanks!!!
Make them in a bunch of disposable pans so you have easy clean up!
Just made this and they are awesome!
Very good recipe and easy to make! burp!
Can you make these the night before and bake them the next day?
Perhaps– but if you do that, you should put a little sauce on the bottom as indicated, then stuff the tortillas and put them in the dish. Add the rest of the sauce, etc. just before baking.
oh, sorry, I just read your thread of comments and found my answer. Next time I’ll read comments before posting mine!
Help me, please…I love this recipe, but every time I try to roll corn tortillas they break into a million pieces. I end up either making it lasagna-style, using the tortillas in place of “noodles”, or I use flour tortillas. Any tips?
yes! You can try a wonderful tortilla from La Tortilla Factory that is a corn/flour blend- they are super pliable and never crack. OR… you can heat some oil in a small skillet and lightly fry your corn tortillas before you use them. Let them drain on paper towels. They won’t crack.
Made it, substituting the ground beef with shredded leftover pot roast meat and it was great! Thanks for sharing this recipe! Now I have something new to do with leftover roast.
Hi, I found you when I googled “beef enchiladas”. I was wondering, you said to use corn tortillas but the tortillas in the picture look really light, like flour tortillas. Are they made from white corn? Could you substitute flour tortillas for it? Thanks!
I actually used a brand that is a corn & flour blend for the photo (Tortilla Factory Brand), but you can use corn.