Leftover Rotisserie Chicken Makes Homemade Enchiladas Even Easier

While roasting or baking a chicken isn't the most difficult of culinary tasks, it does take time and heat up the oven. However, rotisserie chickens, which have been a supermarket staple since the '90s, provide a nearly effortless shopping-day supper with ample leftovers. They also make a convenient ingredient for enchiladas.

To turn the leftovers into filling for easy enchiladas, you'll first need to debone the bird — try the viral hack of doing it in a plastic bag if you want to keep your hands clean. Next, shred the meat, roll it up inside some flour tortillas, and cover everything with our enchilada sauce (or pick up a can if you're feeling less ambitious). Sprinkle the dish with shredded cheese, then bake it until the cheese melts and the filling is warm. You won't need to worry about hitting a specific internal temperature because the chicken is already cooked. This means you could even eat stone-cold enchiladas with little risk of becoming ill.

Even though rolling shredded chicken in tortillas isn't exactly brain surgery, still, it does take a teeny bit of effort to make the rolls nice and neat and tight and ensure that the tortillas don't rip (or that you skillfully hide the ripped part inside the roll). It's also harder to swap out the flour tortillas for corn ones if you prefer these because they're not quite as flexible. Well, there's an easy way around the rolling issue: Make a chicken version of our enchilada casserole, instead.

To do this, you'll first cut the tortillas in half, or even just tear them. Smaller pieces, after all, make for better coverage. Spread some sauce on the bottom of a baking pan, then add a layer of tortilla pieces, covering the sauce as best you can. Follow this with shredded chicken and cheese, then add more sauce, more tortillas, and so on until you reach the top of the pan. Finish up with a layer of tortillas topped with cheese. (You can also mix in canned beans, sliced green onions, or chopped jalapeños if you like.) Again, bake the casserole until the filling is warm and the cheese is melty.