Enchilada Lasagna

So here's the final product, and I know my food photography skills are painfully lacking. So believe me when I say it tastes WAY better than it looks.



With that said, this is a super easy meal that even the kids ask seconds and thirds of. It's kind of different every time I make it, because there's no recipe. It's basically enchiladas, but I very much dislike rolling up enchiladas, so in this version, I just layer it. Read on.....

Ingredients:

1 can enchilada sauce

corn tortillas, white or yellow (about 24)

1 lb. ground beef or 1 can Vegeburger

1 1/2 cups day-old rice

2 cups cheese (or more, depending on your affinity to cheese)

sour cream for garnish

You start with ground beef (in our case, a can of Worthington Vegeburger. Otherwise, for those of you who are carnivores, about a pound of ground beef, cooked and drained.

This is the best part--add old rice. Not moldy-old, but day-or-two old rice that's too dry to eat by itself. Add in, oh, about a cup or a cup-and-a-half. You also see I've added the enchilada sauce, about 2/3 of a can.

Add about a cup or two of cheese, and cook it all together until it's nice and bubbly, and the rice is tender.

Meanwhile, spray a 9x13 casserole dish and coat the bottom with about half of the enchilada sauce you have left in the can. Here I am using the store brand, but I really prefer the Rosarita brand. Yum.


Then, layer your corn tortillas in the bottom of the dish. No need to cook them in butter or anything, just slap 'em on in there.

Then just layer half of your meat mixture, you can add more cheese if you like, then another layer of tortillas, the rest of your meat mixture (and optional cheese), then a final layer of tortillas.

At this point, I would usually be adding the rest of the enchilada sauce from the can over the top of the bare tortillas, but guess who forgot to save some. So if you didn't forget, do that. Then sprinkle cheese on the top of all that.

Bake at 350 for about 30-45 minutes, and voila! Easy, delicious meal that you may or may not have leftovers of.

Oh, and P.S., the rice in the top picture is also old rice, I just added some of Filipe's homemade salsa and cooked it for about 5-10 minutes until the rice was tender. Perfect Spanish Rice!