Chicken Tamale Casserole

Photo Courtesy of Buns in My Oven

I adore Mexican food and could eat it every day of the week. I have been known to eat just a cheese quesadilla for dinner with salsa and sour cream on the side. SO good. And SO easy!

I found a link to Chicken Tamale Casserole on Our Best Bites and knew I had to try it. It is a super recipe. Mr. Mac and I both raved about it. Plus, it makes a lot. We ate it again for dinner last night and I still had enough to bring for lunch today.

It didn't occur to me until we had demolished the casserole that I should feature it here. Since I didn't get a photo before its oh-so-delicious demise, I used BIMO's image above. Because I borrowed her image, I want her to get all the credit and traffic to her site so I am sending you there for the recipe. (You can also click on the link in the caption above.)

However, I want to share with you some of the alterations I made to the recipe to account for ingredients we like.

1. I am not big on red enchilada sauce so I substituted green. 

2. I used ground beef instead of ground chicken or turkey because it is what I had one hand. (I used ground chicken the other time I made this dish and it was just as tasty and less in calories.) Also, while I browned the meat I threw in a chopped onion and some taco seasoning. (I keep a big bottle of that stuff on hand.)

3. The recipe calls for 1/4 cup of the total cheeses to be mixed with the cornbread batter and the rest sprinkled on top of the casserole. When I made this dish the time before, I found that there was a bit too much cheese on top. (I can't believe I actually said "too much cheese." Blasphemy, I know.) I just used more of the combined cheeses (1/2 cup) in the cornbread and left the rest for the topping. It seems like a better ratio for my tastes.

4. When baking the cornbread mixture, my oven took about 22 minutes rather than 15. Just touch the middle and make sure it is set before you proceed with the next steps.

5. When I searched this recipe online all versions were pretty much the same verbatim. However, I noticed that many of them use shredded chicken instead of ground meat of some sort. I am definitely going to try that next time. Shredded chicken is always yummy in a Mexican dish. The ground beef worked great though, especially with the onion and taco seasoning tossed in. 

This dish does NOT disappoint. It's a great weeknight or anytime dish, for that matter. It would even be fantastic for a pot luck!

Try it out and let me know what you think!