American
Cheese Enchiladas
Corn tortillas, melted cheese, and a complex dried-chile sauce — New Mexican comfort at its purest.
Recipe by Cyman Huang
Cooked, styled and photographed in his kitchen.
The enchilada is one of the foundational dishes of Southwestern cuisine — Indigenous in origin, pre-dating Spanish colonization, and elevated into countless variations across the Southwest and Northern Mexico.
The New Mexican cheese enchilada, smothered in a deep, earthy red chile sauce and topped with melted cheese, raw onion, and a fried egg, is the form that has most powerfully shaped the Southwestern identity.
Watch it come together
Ingredients
Red chile sauce
- 8 dried New Mexico (Hatch) red chiles (or ancho)
- 3 cups chicken or beef stock
- 3 cloves garlic
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp dried oregano
- 2 tbsp neutral oil
- 1 tsp kosher salt
Enchiladas
- 12 corn tortillas
- 3 cups Monterey Jack or mild cheddar, shredded
- 1 white onion, finely diced
- Neutral oil for softening tortillas
- Sour cream and fried eggs for serving (traditional NM-style)
Method
- 1
MAKE THE SAUCE: Toast dried chiles in a dry skillet 20–30 seconds per side. Stem and seed. Cover with 2 cups boiling water and soak 20 minutes. Blend with garlic, cumin, oregano, salt, and 1 cup stock until very smooth. Strain.
- 2
Heat oil in a saucepan, add chile sauce, and cook over medium heat, stirring, 5 minutes. Add remaining stock to achieve a pourable but not thin consistency. Taste and adjust salt.
- 3
Preheat oven to 375°F.
- 4
SOFTEN TORTILLAS: Heat a thin film of oil in a skillet. Pass each tortilla through the hot oil 10–15 seconds per side until pliable but not crispy. Drain on paper towels.
- 5
ASSEMBLE: Spread a thin layer of sauce in a 9x13-inch baking dish. Dip each softened tortilla in the warm chile sauce, coating both sides. Fill with cheese and diced onion, roll, and place seam-side down.
- 6
Pour remaining chile sauce over all the enchiladas. Top with remaining cheese.
- 7
BAKE 20–25 minutes until the cheese is melted and bubbling. Serve immediately with sour cream and a fried egg on top — the running yolk mixing with the chile sauce is extraordinary.
Substitutions
- Chef's tip: the red chile sauce keeps 3–4 days refrigerated or 3 months frozen. New Mexican families freeze quarts of it after the autumn Hatch harvest.
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