How To Make Delicious Beef Enchiladas

With a handmade enchilada sauce smothering the filling, the beef enchiladas are extremely flavorful and spicy. Use the same basic Enchilada spice blend for the filling and sauce to save time!

By popular demand, I've included this dish from my first cookbook, "Dinner," which is a reader favorite.

Making Beef Enchiladas

I adore the fact that beef enchiladas can be made in so many different ways across the globe.

Simple ones with a simple cooked beef filling, enchilada sauce, and (a lot of) cheese on top. fancy ones with extras like bacon, olives, beans, corn, and even chilies. (Never attempt that on me; I can spot hidden vegetables from a mile away.)

Short rib enchiladas with meat shredded inside.

And now I'll share mine. 🙂 It is made of:

• A quick and easy homemade enchilada sauce that is SO MUCH BETTER than store-bought;
• Tex-Mex spices, ground beef (mince), refried beans, and black beans are used to make a flavorful beef and bean filling. Bean excess? Absolutely not! We can have wonderful, huge, plump enchiladas because the refried beans give the filling volume while maintaining its juicy quality.

Refried beans, a strong dose of spices, and some Enchilada sauce give the filling of these beef enchiladas more oomph!

What is required to make Beef Enchiladas?

Here are the ingredients for my beef enchiladas.

A brief comment on a handful of the ingredients:

• Refried beans are the "secret ingredient" that really fills out the beef mixture to produce large, plump, liberally filled, excellent, and juicy enchiladas. This works great in my chicken enchiladas as well.
• Black beans are used as filler and to give the filling a different texture. It's also a terrific idea to add diced vegetables, particularly red peppers and capsicum.
• Homemade enchilada sauce is created with Tex-Mex seasonings and either tomato passata or canned tomato sauce (I like Hunts in the US).
• Ground beef is used because this is a recipe for beef enchiladas. But turkey, chicken, or pork can be used instead!

Here’s my little time-saving trick: one spice combination to season both the meat filling AND the Enchilada Sauce.

Preparing Beef Enchiladas

This is well-seasoned with Tex-Mex flavors! The homemade enchilada sauce uses a portion of it, and the remaining portion is utilized to flavor the beef and bean filling.

Ahhh. Enchiladas with carne de vaca. Since everyone has a different palate and what I may deem to be the "best" may not be to someone else's liking, I truly detest using the phrase "these are the BEST!" in reference to any of my recipes.

But in all honesty, I still believe these are superior, even after eating more than my fair share of enchiladas at Tex-Mex restaurants across America. Much, much better than the popular franchise eateries!

I hope your weekend was wonderful! - Nagi x

Watch Video How To Make It

My first cookbook Dinner includes a version of this recipe. The majority of the recipes in the book are brand-new, but by popular demand, we added this reader favorite!

Related: Make Delicious Lasagna [Watch Recipe Video]