These enchiladas verdes have a zesty green tomatillo sauce and a flavorful veggie filling. Topped with gooey, melty cheese, they’re a delicious dinner!

Whenever I see enchiladas verdes on a restaurant menu, I’m tempted to order them. I love a bright salsa verde, so green enchiladas always sound so good. But more often than not, they’re filled with shredded chicken. If I want veggie enchiladas verdes (not traditional, but delicious), I’m better off making them at home.

These green enchiladas are my go-to recipe. I smother them in a homemade green enchilada sauce that has a tangy tomatillo base and jalapeños for a spicy kick. They’re stuffed with roasted vegetables and creamy pinto beans and topped off with fresh fixings like avocado, radishes, and cilantro (plus a layer of melty cheese).

My whole family loves these—I hope you will too!

Ingredients You’ll Need

Here’s what you’ll need to make this enchiladas verdes recipe:

• Green enchilada sauce – I make my own with tomatillos, onion, jalapeños, garlic, avocado oil, and cilantro. To streamline the prep, you can roast the sauce ingredients alongside the filling ingredients, or you can make it ahead. Of course, if you’re short on time, store-bought sauce works here too. Use your favorite green enchilada sauce or salsa verde.
• Tortillas – I like to use corn tortillas or corn and flour tortillas in this recipe because I love the corn flavor. If you prefer flour tortillas, feel free to use them instead.
• Cauliflower and jalapeños – They give the filling a veggie kick.
• Pinto beans – They add plant-based protein and creamy texture to the filling. I season them with cumin, oregano, and garlic to bump up their flavor.
• Mexican blend cheese – I top these enchiladas with a melty layer of cheese. I typically use a pre-shredded cheese blend, but if you prefer to grate your own, cheddar, Monterey Jack cheese, or a mix would be great.
• And toppings – Load these up with whatever fixings you like! Cilantro, radishes, Cotija, avocado, Mexican crema, sour cream… Any and all are fair game.

Find the complete recipe with measurements below.

How to Make Enchiladas Verdes

You can find the complete recipe with measurements at the bottom of this post, but for now, here’s a quick overview of how it goes:

Start by roasting the vegetables for the sauce and the filling. They all take about 30 minutes at 450°F.

Then, blend the sauce. Add the roasted sauce ingredients to a blender with raw jalapeño, garlic, onion powder, avocado oil, and salt. Blend until smooth, then add the cilantro and blend again.

Next, assemble the enchiladas. Spread 1/2 cup of the sauce at the bottom of a 9×13-inch or similar baking dish.

Lightly mash the beans with their seasonings, then fill each tortilla with some of the beans and roasted veggies. Roll to close and place seam side down in the prepared baking dish. Once you’ve filled all the tortillas, pour the remaining sauce down the center of the enchiladas and top with the cheese.

Bake at 400°F until the cheese is melted and the edges of the tortillas are crisp, about 20 minutes.

Top with your desired garnishes before serving. Enjoy!

What to Serve with Enchiladas Verdes

We love this recipe as a meal on its own, but if you’re looking for something to pair with it, you can’t go wrong with any of these sides:

More Enchilada Recipes

If you love these enchiladas verdes, try one of these enchilada recipes next:

How about pizza tonight? It’s hard to beat classic pesto pizza. This simple vegetarian pizza recipe is a guaranteed crowd pleaser. It offers an irresistible combination of fresh, bright flavors from the basil pesto and tomatoes, plenty of cheesy mozzarella, and a bubbling crust with a satisfying chew.

This easy pesto pizza recipe comes together quickly with the help of your food processor. You can whip together the dough and pesto in about 15 minutes—just wipe down the processor in between the two components. If you’re looking for a super simple weeknight meal that’s better than take-out, use store-bought dough and pesto instead!

Pesto Pizza Ingredients & Topping Options

Here’s what you’ll need to make this pizza:

Pizza dough

As usual, I started with my favorite Whole Wheat Pizza Dough Recipe, which is a breeze to make. I recommend using white whole wheat flour, which is now called Golden Whole Wheat by King Arthur, so the whole wheat flavor doesn’t distract from the bright pesto. The recipe works with all-purpose flour, too.

Change it up: Use your favorite pizza dough recipe that yields around one pound of dough. Store-bought pizza dough works, too—just follow the package’s instructions on letting it rise at room temperature, if necessary.

Pesto

This recipe includes instructions for making basil pesto from scratch. It calls for fresh basil, pine nuts, Parmesan, lemon juice, garlic and olive oil.

Change it up: You can substitute another nut for the pine nuts, including almonds, walnuts, pecans or pepitas. You can also use arugula instead of basil, which is generally more affordable and easy to find year-round.

Mozzarella cheese

Mozzarella is perfect on pesto pizza. I loved the results with mini fresh mozzarella balls, called ciliegene, which are just the right size to dot your pizzas. You can also use larger mozzarella balls, torn into one-inch pieces. The trick to making great pizzas with fresh, water-packed mozzarella balls is to lightly pat the cheese dry before topping your pizza to avoid excess moisture.

Change it up: You can also use grated part-skim mozzarella for delicious results. I slightly preferred the fresh mozzarella’s texture and loved seeing the pesto’s green color shine through.

Toppings

Tomatoes are the classic choice. I recommend cherry tomatoes, which are not too watery and generally more flavorful year-round. They bake up best on pizzas when they’re quartered lengthwise, which helps distribute them evenly across the pizzas and gives them ample surface area to help roast away any excess juice.

Change it up: You can omit the tomatoes altogether, or substitute other thinly sliced veggies like bell pepper, marinated artichoke, olives, mushrooms, or zucchini or yellow squash (cut like this). Well-drained, oil-packed sun-dried tomatoes would offer extra flavor.

Watch How to Make Pesto Pizza

What to Serve with Pesto Pizza

If you’re building your meal around pesto pizza as your main course, it’s hard to go wrong. Pesto pizza complements many other fresh, herbed dishes. Here are my top suggestions organized by category.

More Recipes Featuring Pesto

Pesto is one of my favorite sauces! Here are a few more top recipes with pesto on Cookie and Kate:

Please let me know how your pesto pizza turns out in the comments. I love hearing from you.

Print