Our delicious homemade Smoked Green Chicken Enchiladas are one of my favorite dinners to whip up for a nice weekend dinner. We make the sauce from scratch, use chicken thighs to keep everything nice and moist, even through reheating, and make it all in the pellet grill.
Smoked Green Chicken Enchiladas Recipe
Enchiladas are always an incredible option when you’ve got a hankering for something Mexican – which is basically every other day around here. Sometimes I hit the easy button and use canned enchilada sauce, but other times. Well – other times I do it up right. Fresh produce, a hot grill, and a good blender are all you need to make legit salsa and enchilada sauce at home, and I could almost drink this verde enchilada sauce, it is so good.
I also use it to dip chips in, for Verde Chilaquiles, and this chicken mixture works GREAT in taquitos too.
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Green Chicken Enchiladas shopping list
Wondering if you have to hit the store? Here’s the list of items you’ll need to make this recipe. For specific amounts, please refer to the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
- Chicken thighs
- Spanglish Asadaro Verde Rub
- Yellow onion
- Garlic
- Poblano peppers
- Anaheim peppers
- Jalapeño peppers
- Tomatillos
- Limes
- Cilantro
- Salt
- Corn tortillas
- Cheddar cheese
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How to make Green Chicken Enchiladas
This is just the overview so you can see what you’re actually getting into here. When you are cooking, you’ll want to use the full recipe at the bottom of the page.
1
Preheat
Fire up your grill and get it preheating to 400°F. We’re going to roast the vegetables.
2
Make the sauce
Once the vegetables are roasted, blend them and add the seasonings.
3
Chicken
Turn the grill down to 250°F. Season the chicken and toss it on the grill. They need to smoke for about 45 minutes.
Put half the sauce into a baking dish. Put the chicken in the dish with the sauce. Turn the heat up to 350°F. Let the chicken simmer in the verde sauce until it is fall-off-the-bone tender.
4
Roll ’em up & fire ’em up
Take the meat off the bone and discard the bones and skin. Put some of the extra sauce in the bottom of a grill-safe pan. Roll up the enchilada shells with the chicken and place into the pan. Top with the cheese.
Cook in the Traeger for another 30-45 minutes, or until the cheese is fully melted and bubbly.
5
Enjoy
Top with your favorite fixings like lettuce, sour cream, avocado, hot sauce, tomato, or whatever strikes your fancy.
Try our Blackstone Steak Fajitas!
Green Chicken Fajitas FAQ
Can this recipe be made in advance?
Yes! The chicken can be made up to two days in advance. It keeps well and reheats well because we used chicken thighs for this dish, they don’t dry out like chicken breasts can.
What’s the best way to reheat the leftovers?
We typically use the microwave to reheat enchiladas. Makes things really simple. It also means that these make GREAT lunches.
Serve with Blackstone Mexican Fried Rice?
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Smoked Chicken Chile Verde Enchiladas
Tender, moist smoked chicken thighs get cooked in our homemade verde sauce for a pan of epic enchiladas! The recipe includes all the sauce you need, too.
Ingredients
- 6 chicken thighs
- 2 tablespoons Spanglish Asadaro Verde Rub
Verde Salsa
- 1 medium yellow onion, diced
- 4 cloves garlic, quartered
- 3 poblano peppers, whole
- 3 Anaheim peppers, whole
- 4 jalapeño peppers, whole
- 12 tomatillos, (peel off the papery outer layer, but leave them whole)
- 2 limes, juiced
- 1 handfull cilantro
- 2 teaspoons salt
Enchiladas
- 12 large corn tortillas
- 6 cups shredded cheddar cheese
Instructions
- Prepare the salsa by preheating your grill to 400°F. Put the onion and garlic on a small grill-safe baking sheet or a double layer of tin foil. Place on the preheated grill. Put the peppers and tomatillos right on the grill grates.
- Let the onion and garlic cook for about 10-15 minutes. The tomatillos can come off the grill as soon as they have some grill marks. Let the peppers cook until the skin is blistered and has some color. Remove the peppers from the grill and put onto a tray. Cover the tray tightly with foil right away. We want them to steam a bit in their own steam.
- Reduce the heat on your smoker or pellet grill to 250°F.
- Season the chicken thighs with the Verde rub. If you don't have any, you can sub in generous amounts of salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.
- Put the chicken thighs on the smoker.
- While the chicken is smoking, peel the skin off of the peppers and toss out the stems. If you keep the seeds in, it'll preserve some of the heat. How hot the end result will be depends on how hot your peppers are.
- Put the freshly peeled roasted peppers and whole tomatillos for the verde sauce into a large blender and pulse until everything is chopped up. Add in the cilantro and lime juice and pulse just to chop up the herb a bit and combine things. Taste, and then add half the salt. Mix. Taste again. Add the rest of the salt, if necessary.
- Put about half of the the verde sauce into a grill-safe baking dish that's big enough to fit all your chicken thighs. Bring it out to the grill and put it in. Once the chicken thighs have smoked for about 30-45 minutes they can go into the sauce to finish cooking. Add a little more sauce if you need to. You want the chicken thighs to have a good amount of sauce to cook in.
- Turn the grill heat up to 350°F. Let the thighs simmer in the sauce for an hour or so. The meat should be super tender and come off the bone easily.
- Remove the skin from the thighs and debone. Pour a little of the verde sauce into a baking dish.
- Take your tortillas and warm them up a little and then dip them into the verde enchilada sauce. Stuff the tortillas with some of the chicken and roll up and place into the prepped baking dish. Repeat until the pan is full. Cover with the shredded cheese and place the pan back into the grill to cook for about 20-30 minutes, until the cheese is melted and bubbly.
- Serve with your favorite garnishes/toppings!
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Nutrition Information:
Yield:
6Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 893Total Fat: 58gSaturated Fat: 27gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 26gCholesterol: 278mgSodium: 1695mgCarbohydrates: 37gFiber: 7gSugar: 7gProtein: 61g
Nutrition data provided here is only an estimate.
Nicole Johnson
Nicole Johnson, a self-taught expert in grilling and outdoor cooking, launched Or Whatever You Do in 2010. Her blog, renowned for its comprehensive and creative outdoor cooking recipes, has garnered a vast audience of millions. Nicole's hands-on experience and passion for grilling shine through her work. Her husband, Jeremiah Johnson, also plays a pivotal role in recipe development, adding his culinary flair to the mix. Together, they form a dynamic duo, offering a rich and varied outdoor cooking experience to their followers.