This Easy Sour Cream Enchilada Salad came from an inspired combining of sour cream and enchilada sauce – just used to top a fresh green & veggie salad with grilled steak strips – yum!
Easy Sour Cream Enchilada Sauce came from an inspired whim where I blended sour cream and canned enchilada sauce and … wow, really tasty! So the very first thing I did with it is throw together a salad with a pile of greens and veggies, some freshly grilled steak that I just cut into strips, a bit of cheese (melted on) – then I just drizzled my Sour Cream Enchilada Sauce over. It’s not like most salad dressings (well, no vinegar) but it sure is tasty. It’s very easy to pig out on.
Did I try other dishes with my new sour cream enchilada sauce? Of course – my second try was scalloped potatoes made with this sauce instead of classic milk and flour roux. It was actually very good, but it looked really strange. Can you imagine dark pinkish orange scalloped potatoes? I’m not going to publish that one as it just doesn’t look like scalloped potatoes are supposed to look. Sometimes creativity should have limits. But anything you pour this on becomes “Easy Sour Cream Enchilada X“, like “Easy Sour Cream Enchilada Steak Salad.”
Naturally, I had some of the Easy Sour Cream Enchilada Sauce left over. I’ve poured it over steamed broccoli, cauliflower, baked potatoes, and as a dressing for cole slaw. It’s quite versatile. It makes good enchiladas, too.
I also added a half cup of medium diced green chiles to it, which makes it hot and spicy but just as good (or even better! ). Personally, I’m just getting started with what I can do with this. Sure hope you like it, too!
Chicken Salad with Chiles Grapes & Walnuts is a meal in itself with interesting complex flavors – and it gets better as the flavors blend
Chicken Salad with Chiles Grapes and Walnuts is an elegant main dish salad, very satisfying and ideally served on a bed of greens. It’s easy to make and keeps well in the fridge.
I made this for dinner, but we had quite a bit leftover. I noticed that the next day, the green chile flavor had blended in more with the other flavors. Of course, you can also serve this in a sandwich; I would use pita bread as it works better for keeping the chicken salad from falling out. This is loaded with interesting and varied flavors. It may seem like a lot to have chiles, grapes and blue cheese all in the same chicken salad, but the combination is very complementary. In this case, I served it over a bed of iceberg lettuce and fresh spinach. Then I had it for lunch the next day all by itself.
This would be a perfect dish for a pot luck or buffet. I would serve it next to fresh greens and bread so guests could choose to have it in a sandwich or as a salad. Plus it can sit out for a few hours and still be just as good.
This one’s really worth trying – hope you like it!
Chile Cheese Ciabatta Toast is one of those super simple, throw together appetizers that is fabulous and elegant – I’ll be making it again and again. It only uses three ingredients, but the secret is the quality that you buy to start with. Fortunately, great ciabatta is easy to find.
I happened to bring home a loaf of ciabatta from Lucky. Didn’t expect anything special, but it was very good – full, well-rounded flavor and it had that rustic texture with big holes in it. I instantly knew I was going to use it in at least one recipe. I happened to also have some very interesting cheeses from Trader Joes. In the photo, I used their Blueberry Vanilla Chevre. Boy, was that good. I also used the Trader Joe’s Dutch Smoked Pasterized Process Cheese; it has a great smokey flavor and melts well. Another that was great was Trader Joe’s White Stilton Cheese with Apricots (not in photo). There are probably a dozen cheeses at Trader Joe’s that make this appetizer special. Of course, cheddar is also good, but doesn’t have that distinctive flair that makes this a stand-out appetizer.
I toasted the ciabatta as I like it to have some crunch, but I also had some leftover that I wrapped up and ate the next day. Of course, it was cold and soft instead of crunchy; but it was actually quite good as a leftover too.
If you have company coming over and have these basic ingredients, you can throw this together in about 15 minutes. It’s a great appetizer for a party. Try experimenting with different cheeses – you can’t really go wrong here.
Spicy 3 Bean Salad is a very flavorful twist on the classic American favorite with a distinctive extra flavor and bit of heat – guaranteed to be a hit!
This Spicy 3 Bean Salad is an especially flavorful and addicting version of the American classic – with a bit of heat and that special green chile flavor. This batch got gobbled up in no time. I found the chiles blend in with the other flavors so well, you might realize they’re there … but you can tell there’s something different and extra flavorful about it.
I’ve always loved 3 bean salad – the classic sweet-sour vinegar dressing makes ordinary beans into something memorable. Adding green chiles punches it up while only changing the flavor in a very subtle way. It doesn’t really come across as Mexican or Southwestern – just a bit more interesting and flavorful. I used 505 Southwestern Medium Flame Roasted Green Chile – so convenient. I get the big 40 ounce jars from Costco when they go on sale (about twice a year). Note this is not the 40-ounce 505 Southwestern Green Chile Sauce (which Costco also sells). You have to cook a lot with green chile to go through these jars quickly enough. If I’m not using the whole thing up, I freeze it. It freezes pretty well, though you shouldn’t thaw and refreeze more than a few times.
Often 3 bean salad is made completely with canned beans, but the fresh green beans make a big difference in the taste of this salad. It’s worth the small amount of extra work for this.
This is a very easy, fail-proof dish that’s perfect for parties and picnics; double the recipe and take it to the next get together. Hope you all try this one and like it as much as I do!
Easy Folded Hatch Omelette is elegant, yummy, just a few ingredients, and brain-dead simple to make; tailor the fillings as you wish…
This Easy Folded Hatch Omelette got rave reviews, plus it’s fun to make and is simple to customize with whatever fillings you want. Well, within reason – if you add lots of fillings it won’t fold very easily and will probably look like a pile of egg and other stuff. The way I made it here it only has 6 ingredients.
The filling (and topping) here is just shredded sharp cheddar cheese, sauteed bell pepper slices, and 505 Green Chile. A key factor is that the bell pepper slices were very thin, probably 1/8 inch max. I sauteed them up in butter and set them aside. I used my little Cuisinart food processor with the vegetable slicer attachment (which I’ve had for a million years) on the bell peppers – perfect. You can use whatever fillings you want, but I’d keep it simple.
If you’re feeding a group, the key challenge is that the omelettes are cooked one at a time. I used a 10-inch nonstick skillet. If you have 4 of them, 4 burners, and 4 lids you could make them simultaneously – just stagger the cooking 1-2 minutes apart. Each one cooks about 5 minutes. If you’re filling them with bell peppers or onions (something you will sautee first), sautee each ingredient in one batch and set them aside in separate portions for easy cooking assembly.
I used a 6 ounce Corelle cup to mix the eggs and milk – perfect size, so convenient. My biggest challenge was folding the omelette right before serving. My first attempt was pretty lopsided. The photo is my second attempt. Not perfect, but I like the way it turned out.
Crack the eggs into a cup and add the milk and salt. Beat well with a fork until smooth and set aside. Letting it sit 5-15 minutes results in a smoother final texture.
In the meantime, melt about 1 tsp of the butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet and sautee the bell pepper over medium heat until soft, about 3 to 5 minutes. Dump onto a separate plate or bowl and set aside. Set aside some extra bell pepper and green chile for garnish if desired. (Note: You can substitute other vegetables like onion, mushrooms or spinach - instructions are the same.)
Lower heat to low. Melt about 2 tsp butter in the same skillet. (I did not wipe it out, but you can if you want.). Pour the egg mixture into the skillet so that it coats the bottom.
Sprinkle the cheese on ½ of the egg in the skilet, then the bell pepper, then the green chile. Place a lid over the omelette and cook until egg is mostly cooked, checking as needed.
Remove lid. With a spatula and your hands, fold the half without topping over the other half (so you have a half-circle). Then fold in half again, so it's shaped like ¼ of a circle (as in photo).
Slide onto a plate and garnish with a bit of bell pepper and green chile.
Hatch Cauliflower Cheese Soup is easy to make, full of cauliflower, chiles, flavor, and lots of nutrition – with that green chile heat and distinctive flavor
This Hatch Cauliflower Cheese Soup is now one of my all-time favorites, with a robust and unique taste. The Hatch chiles were a perfect compliment to the combination of vegetables and I was surprised to discover how much the buttermilk added. It blends in well, so you may not realized there is buttermilk; yet it adds a distinctive and exceptional taste.
Since the main ingredients are blended together, it’s not obvious exactly what is in this soup. Yet the combination works beautifully. This would be served at a buffet in the slow cooker. I’d have bowls of scallions, diced chiles, and shredded cheese on the side for garnish. This would also be good with the addition of paprika or cumin, but it does not need them – the flavor is already complete and robust.
Note that this essentially has a full head of cauliflower, so it’s a great way to get everyone eating lots of vegetables. A variation that works well is that you can substitute sweet potatoes for some or all of the potatoes; I tried it and it’s hard to tell the difference. Except that the soup will be much oranger with sweet potatoes. (And prettier, right?)
If you’re up for a great vegetable cheese soup, this is one you gotta try. Hope you enjoy it!
1½ cups small cauliflower florets (in addition to above)
¾ cup diced medium or hot green chiles (505), to taste
1½ cups grated cheddar
¾ cup milk
½ tsp dry mustard
1 tsp fresh ground pepper, or to taste
2 tbsp butter
¾ cup buttermilk
Additional grated cheese, sliced scallions and/or diced green chiles for garnish
Instructions
Place first 7 ingredients in slow cooker (potatoes, cauliflower, carrots, garlic, onion, salt, broth) and cook until vegetables are fork-tender - about 3-4 hours on high or 5-6 hours on low. Let cool for 10-15 minutes.
While the vegetables are cooking, steam the additional cauliflower for about 20 minutes or until soft and set aside.
Puree entire slow cooker mixture in blender until smooth and creamy. Add half the green chiles and puree, then taste and add the rest of the green chiles gradually to get desired heat level. (Or if you know you like it at least medium hot, go for it and dump all the green chiles in.)
Transfer to a pot and whisk in the cheddar cheese, milk, mustard, and pepper.
Sautee the steamed cauliflower florets in butter until brown around the edges. Save some for garnish and stir the rest into the pot of soup along with the ¾ cup buttermilk.
Serve in bowls and top with shredded cheese, browned cauliflower florets, and sliced scallions or diced green chiles. Enjoy!
Baked Cowboy Dip is practically a whole meal & super tasty – sausage, corn, chiles, lots of cheese – great for parties
Baked Cowboy Dip – a cheesy, meaty mixture of sausage, chiles, corn, tomatoes and cheese – all heated up and gooey to scoop up with tortilla chips. Where did the name come from? Supposedly from Cowboy Caviar; back in 2007 I made some scrumptious Cowboy Caviar that is a spicy mixture of black beans, tomatoes, corn, chiles and more – it’s downright addictive. I made another souped-up version in 2019 called Loaded Colorado Caviar. Add sausage, sour cream, cream cheese and lots of shredded sharp cheddar … then bake it and serve it with chips and you get Cowboy Dip. Well, that’s the general idea anyway. It’s easy to make, failproof, and perfect for that Super Bowl Party or get together.
Be careful of the type of cheese you buy; I’ve found the Kroger brand of shredded cheese does not melt well. Kraft melts very well, though it also helps to buy finely shredded cheese instead of the coarse shredded. Or you can buy block cheese and shred it yourself. Most pre-shredded cheeses are coated with starch to prevent clumping. This starch interferes some with melting. So a quality block of sharp cheddar is likely to give best results. With this dish, though, it will be a hit even if the cheese does not melt smoothly. It’s hard to screw this one up.
This is a good amount for a 8″x8″ (1.5 quart) baking dish, but for a party I like to split it between 2 smaller dishes. This is a very forgiving recipe with respect to size of dish and length of baking. You can make it anywhere from an inch deep to about 2 inches deep. In the photo I used about a 5″x7″ dish and a 5″ round dish.
This dish also can be made a day ahead of time and popped into the oven a half hour before serving. Plus it keeps well and can just be microwaved to serve again. Hope you like it!
16 ounces hot Italian sausage (1 chub or remove casings)
8 oz cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sour cream
8 oz sharp Cheddar cheese, grated (about 2 cups)
2 cups frozen sweet corn, thawed and drained
1 10-oz can Rotel fire-roasted diced tomatoes with green chiles
4 oz diced Hatch green chiles (I used 505)
½ cup diced fresh jalapeño peppers
1 tsp dry mustard
½ tsp salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 cup sliced black olives (canned, 6.5 oz dry wt)
¼ tsp cayenne pepper, or to taste
½ cup sliced green onions
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
Place sausage in a dry pan over medium heat and use a spoon to break them up as they cook. Continue to cook until browned and crumbly, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the heat and drain excess grease.
Combine cream cheese, sour cream, 6 ounces grated Cheddar, thawed corn, cooked sausage, fire-roasted tomatoes with chiles, green chiles, jalapeño peppers, ¾ cup olives, salt, pepper, and mustard in a large bowl; mix until thoroughly combined. Transfer into a 8"x8" (~ 1.5 qt) baking dish and smooth out the top. Top with remaining Cheddar and olives, and sprinkle with cayenne.
Place the baking dish on a cookie sheet and bake in the center of the preheated oven until cheese is melted and dip is bubbling around the outside, about 30 minutes.
Sprinkle green onions over top before serving, and serve hot with tortilla chips.
Southwestern Sausage Biscuits are great as a main breakfast dish, on a buffet, or for a brunch – easy, yummy, and plenty filling. Not a diet dish!
These Southwestern Sausage Biscuits are now a family favorite … and have also become a standard breakfast brunch dish for us. They are easy and especially yummy – plus this is the final result after 2 days of experimenting.
My series of experiments took an interesting path. I happened to have a tube of Pillsbury Buttermilk Grands! Flaky Layers Biscuits. This is not a product I usually buy, but I was thinking they could make some interesting baked Southwestern appetizers. My first attempt was separating each biscuit in half (the flaky layers make it easy to separate each biscuit into 2 halves) and layering cheddar cheese slices, ham slices, and mild chiles (I tried both Anaheim & Poblano). The result was nondescript. I hadn’t realized that the biscuits actually have a lot of flavor, so I could barely taste the ham even with 2 slices. That was yesterday.
So … this morning I pulled out my 1-lb chub of breakfast sausage. I used Tennessee Pride Mild Country Sausage, a pork breakfast sausage that has a whole lot more flavor than ham. I cut the chub up into 8 disks, flattened each to about 4 inches diameter, and fried them up on the skillet. Then on a cookie sheet I assembled them with the same smoked cheddar cheese and 505 Green Chiles – it needed hotter chiles than the Anaheims or Poblanos. I also made some of these with the Pillsbury Grands! biscuits and some with English Muffins. My son, Nick, was my official taste tester. He proclaimed this a winner and declared the Pillsbury Grands! version to be far superior to the English muffin version. Then he asked me to make another one with the Pillsbury Grands! He ate three total, which is an awful lot for one person.
Well, I realized that this dish is actually perfectly suited to serving at a brunch. Why? The amounts for each ingredient are perfect for making 8 at a time. A tube of Pillsbury Grands is 8 biscuits, a 1-lb chub of country sausage is cut into 8 disks of just the right size, and a 6-8 oz package of cheese slices is just about right. After frying the sausage, you assemble all 8 Southwestern Sausage Biscuits and bake them for 15 minutes. They all come out of the oven at the same time, piping hot and ready to eat. This is really an ideal brunch dish. You can assemble them hours ahead of time and pop them into the oven right before you’re ready to serve them.
Can you make half one day and half the next? Yup, I wrapped half the biscuit dough in plastic wrap and stored it in the fridge. The next day it was a little denser, but still good when it came out of the oven.
So this goes right into my file of family favorites. Hope you like it as much as we do!
* 16 oz chub of either mild or hot Italian sausage is also good.
* If you want less heat, use just ½ cup green chiles (1 tbsp per biscuit).
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350°. Lightly spray nonstick cookie sheet with cooking spray.
Slice the pork sausage into 8 equal disks (or patties). Flatten each disk to about 4 inches diameter - they will be between ¼ and ½ inch thick. Fry in large skillet over medium high heat until completely cooked and partially browned on outside, but not crisp. Set aside to drain on plate.
While sausage is cooking, separate each biscuit into 2 halves - they pull apart easily.
Assemble the 8 biscuits on cookie sheet: layer ½ biscuit, 1 slice cheese, sausage patty, 2 tbsp green chiles, another cheese slice, other ½ biscuit.
Optional: Melt butter, brush on top of each biscuit, and lightly sprinkle with paprika or chili powder.
Bake for 15 minutes; biscuits will be puffed up and lightly browned on top.
Chicken and Peppers in Spicy Cream Sauce is a medley of vegetables, chicken thighs, bell peppers, and green chiles, with classic Southwestern spices for robust flavor
This Chicken and Peppers in Spicy Cream Sauce originated from an Italian recipe, and I morphed it over a few tries into one of my all-time favorites. Very easy to make and super flavorful, but definitely not a diet dish. I’ll definitely be making this again and again with variations primarily in my choice of vegetables.
What really makes a difference in this recipe is the garlic, green chiles, parmesan, and spices. It’s very forgiving with respect to how long you cook it; you can simmer it on low for longer without a problem. I used 505 green chiles, which are rather hot. You may want to use milder chiles or reduce the amount for lower heat level. Likewise, you can adjust the spices to make it milder or hotter. I used Bel Gioioso Parmesan Romano from Costco. I buy the 2 lb bag, keep it in the freezer and replenish a shaker jar that holds about 8 oz.
In the photo, I served it over brown rice. I’ve also used red lentil spaghetti noodles. This would actually be prettier over white rice, but you could serve it over anything appropriate for a meat-vegetable-sauce mixture. This would be very good over mashed potatoes. I just might have to try that one.
Got any ideas for variations on this? Share them! Hope you like this one!
Melt the butter and heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat.
Add the chicken and cook until starting to brown.
Add the onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers and cook until the onions are tender, about 5-10 minutes.
Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute.
Add the cream, sun dried tomatoes, green chiles, parmesan, spices, bring to a simmer and cook until the cheese has melted into the sauce, about 5 minutes. Note this will be fairly soupy rather than thick and creamy; you could thicken it, but I think it's fine the way it is.
Season with salt and pepper to taste, garnish with parsley, if desired.
Red Enchilada Sauce is a simple homemade sauce that is also quite versatile in both use and ways to vary the flavor and texture.
Homemade Red Enchilada Sauce always has a different character than canned, and you can tell when it’s homemade. But one thing I really like about it is the vast number of ways to vary it and get countless other sauces. Can you do that with canned enchilada sauce? Well, sure, but to me it always seems like you’re more confined to the basic type of sauce that you started with.
In this case, I started with a classic homemade enchilada sauce: olive oil, chili powder, seasonings, thickener, and chicken stock. This is one of those dishes where I can’t help but experiment – as I’m cooking it, I tend to think about lots of interesting ingredients to add. In this case, the sour cream and heavy cream were not particularly imaginative. It’s very common to have cream versions of classic sauces. The impulse that was a revelation here was when I added the bean juice from a 19.75 oz. can of La Costeña Whole Black Beans. I had nearly a cup of juice that had a very nice flavor … and the texture was perfect. It’s rather thick and smooth. So I added it to the basic enchilada sauce. Mmmmm – much better. Smooth with a well-rounded flavor. Homemade enchilada sauce can have a bite and spiciness to it, so I liked the finished character that the bean juice added. I will make this variation again and again.
Now, with respect to adding sour cream, I generally like to add dollops of sour cream on top of casseroles and tacos, etc. Is it different to stir it in? A bit, but the flavor overall is essentially the same. Adding cream (rather than sour cream) adds the richness but also tends to counter the sharpness and spiciness of the basic sauce a bit more.
In the photo, the sauce has bean juice and sour cream in it. That’s what I used to make the chicken enchilada casserole. Casseroles like this are a family favorite. My casserole was 1.5 lbs boneless, skinless chicken thighs, cut up, coated with ranch seasoning, and browned in olive oil, 1 19.75 can of black beans, about 8-10 corn tortillas, torn up, 2-3 cups Mexican cheese blend and about 1 1/2 to 2 cups Red Enchilada Sauce (bean juice variation). I just layered the ingredients, and baked at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour. Yum! Here’s the photo:
Chicken Enchilada Casserole made with homemade Red Enchilada Sauce
¼ cup dark chili powder (I like Great Value from Walmart)
½ tsp cumin
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp dried oregano
1 14.5 oz can chicken broth
salt to taste
Instructions
Cook the roux with the spices: Heat olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add flour and cook for 1 minute while whisking constantly, then add the chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, and oregano and cook another minute while whisking. It will be rather crumbly.
Gradually pour in the chicken broth, whisking constantly to blend with till no lumps remain.
Continue cooking till it begins to boil, then reduce to medium-low and simmer uncovered for 10-15 minutes until slightly thickened. Add salt as needed.
Use in casseroles, enchiladas, whatever and enjoy!
Variations:
- Add ½ to 1 cup juice from canned black beans, stirring in thoroughly to blend
