Sour cream chicken enchiladas recipe

When I was in college, on Saturday afternoons a large group of us would celebrate the weekend by going to lunch at the local Tex-Mex restaurant. We’d toast our break with tall glasses of iced tea and salty chips dipped in salsa, and as we were in North Texas, most of us would order the house special—sour cream chicken enchiladas.

Tex-Mex is the large umbrella phrase that covers what people have determined to be Americanized Mexican food, but it’s a very broad term as a Tex-Mex plate found in North Texas will be very different than a Tex-Mex plate found near the Gulf.

This is what I discovered when I went to college in the small town of Sherman near the Oklahoma border. Green sauce was gone, with sour-cream enchilada sauce to be found in its place. Different, yes, but just as satisfying.

The sour cream enchiladas were stuffed with shredded chicken that had been spiced with generous amounts of salt and black pepper, a simple formula that still yielded plenty of flavor. The sauce itself was a creamy blend of sour cream and chicken broth.

Sometimes, a few pickled jalapeños were added, yet they provided more color than fire, as all that dairy mitigated any heat. What this sauce lacked in piquancy, however, it made up for it in creamy comfort and a taste so smooth I’d always order an extra bowl on the side.

My love for these enchiladas is firmly embedded into those four years I was in college—I hadn’t eaten them before and I had rarely eaten them since. While my tastes have changed since those days, I am still a fool for sour cream (give me a spoon and a carton and I’ll be eating myself silly in no time) so I decided to revisit this North Texas classic.

After following what was purported to be a close approximation of this restaurant’s recipe, I was struck by how bland the sour cream sauce was—I couldn’t believe I used to love it so much! I tried punching it up with some cayenne, garlic, and cumin, but it was still too flat for me—it needed some tang.

Because I was afraid lime juice would curdle the sauce, I pureed it with some tomatillos instead. A handful of cilantro was also added for an herbal boost.

I took another bite. This time, I wasn’t bored! In fact, this sauce was a nod to two long-ago favorites as it was the marriage of my Houston green sauce with my North Texas sour-cream sauce.

But I shouldn’t have been too surprised. While I’ve certainly changed since I was 18, why couldn’t my sour cream sauce change as well? And if I do say so myself, we’re both much improved by the changes made through the years.
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