Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Why Sour Cream Instead of Traditional Enchilada Sauce?

If you love Mexican food as much as I do, you’re probably well-acquainted with the boldly flavored red enchilada sauce. Made with a tomato base, plenty of spices, and a dash of vinegar, the traditional sauce packs a strong flavor punch.

Even at its mildest, red sauce screams heat from its very color to the spices that elevate it from a simple tomato sauce. If you have family members who are sensitive to spicy food, enchiladas can be a hard sell when they’re dripping in red sauce.

In contrast, sour cream is cool and refreshing. In fact, it’s one of the best ways to cool your mouth if you’ve eaten something too spicy.

❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe

This delicious casserole is creamy, hearty, and picky eater approved. It’s a great meal for a busy weeknight meal when you need something in a hurry.

• Because it’s a casserole, you’ll basically just put all the ingredients in a baking dish so it’s super easy to make!
• Even the pickiest eaters typically love dinners smothered in sour cream and cheese! You won’t be getting any dinner complaints when you make this dish.
• Your oven is going to do most of the work so while it’s cooking you’ll have time to help the kids with homework, fold a load of laundry, or finally sit down and catch a rest!

If you love chicken enchiladas, then next time you may also enjoy these Instant Pot Chicken Enchiladas.

🥘 Ingredients

You only need a few simple ingredients to help you make this hearty meal. All of these ingredients are easy to find at your local grocery, so make a quick trip to town and grab the items you need to make this comfort food recipe.

• Chicken: You will need cooked chicken for this recipe. You can use leftover chicken or poached chicken breasts.
• Salsa Verde: By using a jarred salsa, you can skip half a dozen steps and still get great flavor and texture in the sauce.
• Dairy: From the dairy aisle, you need to grab some shredded cheddar cheese and sour cream.
• Soup: Cream of chicken soup will help you make the creamy sauce.
• Tortillas: Small flour tortillas are great for this delicious casserole.

See recipe card for quantities.

🔀 Substitutions

Salsa: If you can’t find salsa verde, you can use regular salsa instead. Alternately, you can use 2 small cans of diced green chiles.

Soup: Cream of mushroom soup can be swapped out for the chicken soup if needed. For an extra cheesy dish, you can use canned cheddar soup.

🌈 Variations / Options / Add-Ins

Are you looking for a way to personalize this delicious recipe? Here are a few of my favorite tried and true swaps for this recipe.

Spicy: If you want to add more heat to these enchiladas, you can add some diced jalapenos to your sauce, or an additional can of green chilies.

Turkey: Switch out the cooked chicken for cooked turkey, if you have leftover turkey on hand.

Gluten-free: Use gluten-free tortillas or corn tortillas, if you need to stick to a gluten-free diet.

To try enchiladas made with red sauce, try these Chicken Slow Cooker Enchiladas.

🔪 How to Make Sour Cream Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Making this creamy enchilada casserole is so simple. Just follow the steps below, and you will have a delicious Mexican-inspired casserole that your entire family will love, in no time at all.

Step 1: Preheat the oven and prepare your baking dish

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a casserole dish.

Step 2: Mix together the wet ingredients

In a medium sized bowl, combine sour cream, cream of chicken soup and chopped chicken until well mixed. Set it aside.

Step 3: Spread the salsa into the casserole dish

Spread a small amount of green salsa into the bottom of the casserole dish, until the bottom is coated.

Step 4: Add the tortillas

Place a layer of tortillas into the bottom of the casserole dish. Tear them to fit into the corners.

Step 5: Build the layers

Top tortillas with 1/3 of the chicken mixture, salsa, and cheese. Repeat until you have two or three layers of tortillas, chicken, salsa and cheese.

Step 6: Make the top layers

The top layer should be tortillas, salsa and cheese only.

Step 7: Bake the casserole

Bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until hot and bubbly.

🍽️ Serving Suggestions

I love to serve a Mexican inspired casserole like this one with a side of Air Fryer Tortilla Chips and Queso. You can also end this meal with a sweet treat like these Instant Pot Churro Bites.

👩‍🍳 Pro Tips

Here are a few tips to make sure that your casserole turns out perfectly every time that you make it.

• Grease your casserole dish well, so that clean up is a breeze. 
• This recipe is a great way to use up leftover rotisserie chicken. 
• You will need to tear the tortillas to make sure that you cover the entire casserole dish. 
• Don’t skip the salsa on the bottom, this prevents your tortillas from sticking and becoming hard. 
• For a tasty garnish, you can sprinkle some fresh cilantro, tomatoes, green onions, diced avocado or even guacamole. 
• If you want to add more flavor to the amazing sour cream sauce, you can add in chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, green chiles, or cumin.
• I used cheddar cheese, but you could also use Monterey jack cheese or even Mexican blend cheese.

❓ Recipe FAQs

Do you have questions about this sour cream enchilada casserole recipe? Here are the answers to the most commonly asked questions for this recipe.