Chicken Zucchini Enchiladas

with tomatillo sauce … inspired by delish

Just when I thought I’d definitely done everything possible that you could do with a zucchini, someone comes along and invents another thing.

Low carb zucchini enchiladas! All you need is a zucchini and a vegetable peeler and you can transform the zucchini into the “tortillas” to hold the easy cheesy chicken enchilada filling. A little enchilada sauce on top (hello tomatillo salsa!) and some cheese, and you’ve got yourself a scrumptious meal.

I was looking about online for a zucchini enchilada recipe, thinking more of putting zucchini IN some enchiladas when I stumbled across this idea from delish where they used a vegetable peeler to cut the zucchini into thin strips and then used three zucchini strips in place of the tortilla for enchiladas. What a clever idea! I just had to try it.

I knew I had some leftover cooked chicken breast that I’d stashed in my freezer for such occasions so I pulled it out and thawed it, shredded it a bit and mixed it with some cream cheese and salsa. That was my chicken enchilada filling.

Now for the zucchini “tortillas”. I used a simple vegetable peeler to peel very thin strips of my zucchini. (My zucchini happens to be white … thanks to my mom who grew white zucchini this year. Thanks mom!) I laid the strips side by side, overlapping just slightly. I used 3 – 4 strips for each enchilada (to fit my dish). Sometimes there were holes in the strips so I used some extra bits of strips to cover the holes.

I put a scoop of chicken filling on there, added a little pile of shredded cheese, and rolled it up.

Then I put them in a dish, poured my tomatillo salsa over top and then sprinkled with more shredded cheese. In no time I’d assembled a couple dishes of zucchini enchiladas. I popped them in the oven and tried to wait patiently while they cooked, but I was just dying to taste them …

When they were done, I gobbled up one plateful immediately, thanking myself for making two dishes so I could photograph the other one. Delicious!

Now, I can’t say these taste just like regular enchiladas because zucchini does not taste like tortillas. It just doesn’t. My taste buds were not at all fooled so I’m pretty sure yours will not be either. But these zucchini enchiladas were definitely yummy and totally fun to make, super healthy and hey, they used up some of the zucchini! It’s definitely worth a try, especially if you’ve got zucchini and leftover chicken on hand.

If you don’t have tomatillo salsa on hand, you can use another enchilada sauce of your choice. My cinnamon chipotle enchilada sauce is a good one, if you want a red sauce. This tomate chile verde sauce (made with Hatch green chiles) is scrumptious too.

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Looking for more enchilada recipes?

Here are some more traditional rolled enchilada recipes that could easily be adapted to be zucchini enchiladas (or you could go ahead and use tortillas — whatever you prefer).

• Chipotle Chicken Enchiladas
• Smoky Red Shredded Chicken Enchiladas
• Copycat ChiChi’s Seafood Enchiladas
• Spicy Cheesy Chicken Enchilada Casserole – Cooking with Mary & Friends
• Beef Enchiladas – Southern with a Twist
• Red Chile, Chorizo and Cheese Breakfast Enchiladas – This is How I Cook
• Turkey and Sweet Potato Enchiladas – This is How I Cook

This is totally making me hungry for Mexican food … sooo here are some more Mexican recipes!

• Easy Breakfast Chilaquiles – A close relative of the enchilada that’s much easier to make
• Mexican Street Corn Salad
• Mexican Fiesta Rice Cups
• Mexican Taco Lettuce Wraps
• Taco Stuffed Tomatoes
• Mexican Breakfast Quinoa
• Mexican Carnitas Cobb Salad
• Bacon Zucchini Bean Dip