Zucchini and Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Zucchini and Chicken Enchilada Casserole

These lasagna-style enchiladas are made with spiralized zucchini that's layered like a lasagna, but built with the classic enchilada bake ingredients, including a healthy homemade enchilada sauce! 

Zucchini and Chicken Enchilada Casserole

The Inspiralizer isn’t just for making noodles out of vegetables – it also slices and shreds vegetables like a mandolin would (or a knife!) I love using my Inspiralizer to shred cabbage and make chip style slices for lasagnas or layered vegetable dishes like gratins and like here, with these Zucchini Chicken Enchiladas.

Zucchini and Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Typically, any casserole baked with spiralized zucchini would be soggy and watery, but the enchilada sauce is thick enough that the moisture released from the zucchini doesn’t make this casserole too watery. There is definitely some liquid in the bottom, but I like to drizzle it over each serving of the casserole for more flavor.  If you don’t want any moisture at all, you could carefully dip the casserole dish over the sink to get rid of the extra liquid.

The zucchini only needs to cook for 15-20 minutes to become soft enough, which makes this meal prep friendly casserole an easy and quick weeknight meal. It reheats well, too. The beans, chicken, spinach, and cheese pack a serious nutritional and flavor punch!

Zucchini and Chicken Enchilada Casserole

To see a step-by-step of this same recipe, just using spiralized sweet potatoes instead of zucchini, click here.

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Nutritional Information & Recipe

Zucchini and Chicken Enchilada Casserole

Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

  • Cooking spray
  • 4 large zucchinis
  • 2 15oz cans black beans, drained and rinsed
  • 2 cups shredded chicken breasts
  • 3 cups shredded Mexican blend cheese
  • 4 cups baby spinach
  • sliced avocado to serve
  • For the enchilada sauce:
  • 4 tablespoons avocado oil or extra virgin olive oil
  • 2 tablespoons arrowroot powder
  • 15 oz tomato sauce
  • 1.5 cups low sodium chicken broth
  • 1 teaspoon ground cumin
  • 2 tablespoons chili powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • salt to taste

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Coat a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.
  • Prepare the enchilada sauce. Heat the oil in a medium pot over high heat. When the oil is shimmering, add the arrowroot powder. Reduce the heat to medium and whisk until combined, about 1 minute. Add the tomato sauce, broth, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, and salt. Increase the heat to high to bring to a simmer, then reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15 to 20 minutes, until thickened.
  • While enchilada sauce cooks, spiralize the zucchinis. Slice halfway through the zucchinis lengthwise, careful not to pierce through the center. Spiralize on Blade A to yield chip slices. Set aside.
  • Spread ½ cup of the enchilada sauce on the bottom of the baking dish. Arrange zucchini slices in a single layer, overlapping slightly to cover up any little gaps. Sprinkle over with half of the beans, half of the chicken, 1 cup of the cheese, ½ cup of the enchilada sauce, and half of the spinach. Repeat starting with laying out the zucchini slices and then the beans, chicken, cheese, enchilada sauce, and spinach. Finish the casserole with the remaining zucchini and enchilada sauce.
  • Bake the casserole for 20 minutes, and sprinkle with remaining 1 cup of cheese. Bake until the cheese melts and casserole bubbles, about 5 minutes. Let cool for at least 10 minutes before serving. You should expect excess moisture (because zucchini is very water dense), so you can pour out the liquid before serving, if you wish. Otherwise, embrace it!
  • Drizzle the top of the casserole with the remaining sauce. Top with avocado and cilantro. Serve.

with love, Ali

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  • Ali, just printed the Zucchini and chicken enchilada casserole recipe. I've looked at my OXO inspiralizer, and the blades are colored green, red, and orange, but you say to use Blade "A", and I don't know the color to letter coversion. Help. Thanks, Tim
    • Hi Tim! The OXO spiralizer is a different brand than our Inspiralizer. The blades on the Inspiralizer are: blade A- Make thick, wide ribbons, blade B - Make fettuccine noodles, blade C - Make linguine noodles, and blade D - Make spaghetti noodles. Hope this helps!
  • This recipe does not indicate if the "shredded chicken" is supposed to be pre-cooked or not. Since it says shredded, I assume you pre-cook it, then you put it in the casserole already cooked? But it does not specify, so it's very confusing if I should put raw or cooked chicken in.
    • Sorry about that Lora! Yes the chicken should be pre cooked and shredded!
  • I think it's just great!! Incredible work!!
    • Thanks! Let us know if you give this one a try!
  • This is a great recipe, the enchilada sauce is delicious! I've made this twice now, and both times split the recipe into 2 smaller pyrex dishes. First time, I put the 2nd uncooked dish in the fridge and used it the next day. It was just as good! This time I'm toying with the idea of putting the 2nd uncooked dish in the freezer. Thoughts?
    • Give it a go and let us know how it comes out! We'd love to know!