The Feast of Taste: Mexican Casserole Recipe

This delicious dish is made with corn tortillas, black beans, tomatoes, cheese, and spices. Mexican casserole is a quick and easy way to enjoy authentic Mexican cuisine without having to spend hours in the kitchen.

Mexican casserole is a light dish but with many flavors to be enjoyed with chicken, red chili, tomatoes, ground pumpkin seeds, and different birds with yellow and green chili. Also, it means a round clay or copper container, wider than deep, which is used to cook a good number of traditional Mexican stews.

Mexican casserole recipe with chicken

Ingredients

3/4 pound boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 green bell pepper, chopped
1-1/2 cups of Mexican sauce
2 ounces (1/4 of an 8 oz package) of cream cheese
Cheese, cubed
1 can (15 oz) black beans, no salt added, rinsed
1 tomato, chopped
2 whole-wheat tortillas (6 inches)
1/2 cup finely shredded Mexican cheese of four varieties and with milk, divided

Directions

Heat the oven to 375ºF. Cook, stirring over medium heat for 2 minutes, the chicken with the cumin in a non-stick pan, sprayed with cooking spray. Add the bell pepper; cook for 2 min., stirring occasionally. Add sauce; cook for 2 min. Add cheese cubes; cook for 2 min. or until cheese melts. Add beans and tomatoes.

Place 1/3 of the chicken mixture in an 8-inch square baking dish sprayed with cooking spray; cover with 1 tortilla and half the remaining chicken mixture and half the cheese. Top with remaining tortilla and chicken mixture; cover.

Bake for 20 minutes or until completely hot. Sprinkle with remaining crumbled cheese. Bake, uncovered, for 5 min. or until cheese melts. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro just before serving. To complement the meal, serve with a crunchy, assorted green salad.

Mexican casserole recipe Sinaloa style

Ingredients

½ kg of meat for a casserole
¾ of chickpeas
2 pieces of corn
3 zucchini
4 carrots
Beans to taste
2 medium potatoes in quarters
1 medium sweet potato
¼ of cabbage
1 mallet of chard or spinach
salt, bell pepper, garlic, onion, and tomato

Directions

The meat is cut into small squares and cooked with enough water, salt, pepper, garlic, a piece of onion and tomato, chickpea, and corn in pieces. If you have a pressure cooker, when you release the steam, leave it on low heat for 40 minutes, as long as the meat is cooked.

Add all the other washed and chopped vegetables, liquefy a tomato, a piece of onion, and a clove of garlic and add them to the broth. If you like cilantro, add it and leave it until the vegetables are cooked, taste the salt and if necessary add broth.

Mexican casserole pots as a kitchen utensils

The origins of Mexican cuisine go back to the time of the first inhabitants of Mesoamerica and Aridoamerica, the geographical areas where these first inhabitants settled. Thanks to witnesses like Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), a Franciscan who lived in New Spain and wrote the General History of the Things of New Spain, a work that ended in 1570, we can understand the way of life and how the natives of these lands ate.

According to market vendors, pots for 200, 600, or more people are made. The clay pots are made in the same way as the large pots. The sizes vary, there are from 2 to 12 cm in diameter. They are used as salt shakers, to put table ingredients like onion or chopped chili, oregano, or piquín chili, which are served with pozole or tortilla soup; they are also used as a botanical dish or as decorative elements for the kitchen.

The copper pot is a metal vessel whose shape is reminiscent of an earthenware pot, also called a copper ladle or copper pot. Casseroles of all sizes are made, but the most important are the large ones whose diameters can range from 1 to 3 meters and can be up to 50 cm deep. Small and medium-size pots are used to cook vegetables and are especially suitable for preparing sweets. The biggest ones are almost exclusively used for carnitas since it is clear that a very big pot is needed to fry a whole pig.

Find more Mexicoan recipes here.