by Texas Homesteader ~

A family member had a bumper crop of different peppers last year. So she seeded several various kinds of peppers & plunked ’em all in the freezer to share with me. But now I’m trying to put them all to good use.

RancherMan & I both enjoy Tex-Mex food and we absolutely love chili rellanos. But (and I can’t emphasize this enough, y’all) 

I’m a lazy cook! 

So I thought it would be great if I could use my silicone muffin pan to make a quick-cooking chile relleno casserole into single-serve portions.

I gave it a try & RancherMan absolutely raved at this lazy-cook’s version of chili relleno. I must admit, it was absolutely delicious. And such an easy, ‘no fried’ version of one of our favorites. Come see what I did.

Jump to Recipe

Preparing The Chile Relleno Ingredients

I brought out my frozen  peppers & let them start thawing while I was assembling my other casserole ingredients.

I cubed about 6 ounces of pepper-jack cheese & shredded about a cup of the cheese too. Then I mixed up the egg mixture and set it aside.  In just minutes everything was ready to begin assembling my casserole. A lazy-cook’s dream!

Assemble In Jumbo Muffin Cups

I brought out my silicone jumbo-muffin pan and placed it on a cookie tray. This helps support the muffin pan while putting it into and taking it out of the oven.

Then I dropped about a tablespoon of enchilada sauce into each cup. There was some enchilada sauce leftover from that can of sauce. But that worked out perfectly for me to add with a couple of tablespoons of chunky picante sauce to season rice into a mexican-rice side dish. 

In the past I’ve used salsa verde or just a spoonful of salsa instead of enchilada sauce. You know my motto: #usewhatchagot!

Now let’s assemble the casserole! I placed a still-semi-frozen pepper into each muffin cup. If the peppers were small, I added two  instead. Then to give me the melty-cheesy filling we love I stuffed each pepper with cubes of pepper-jack cheese.

Finally I poured the egg mixture over each pepper, and even into the pepper when I could. I was careful to fill each muffin cup no more than 2/3 of the way because those eggs will really puff up in the oven!

I baked my casserole in a 350-degree oven until the egg was set and the tops were lightly brown – about 45 minutes or so.

Chile Relleno Casserole A SUCCESS!

As I mentioned, I often make some rice & season it with a few tablespoons of chunky picante sauce & the leftover enchilada sauce.

It was delicious & as I mentioned, RancherMan absolutely RAVED about this dish. And these little muffin cups would have frozen beautifully as part of my ‘Cook-Once, Eat-Twice’ method of cooking.

But let me tell ya they never got that far!  RancherMan insisted that we have them for supper the next night as well as lunch the day after. Then they were GONE! They never even got the chance to hit the freezer.

Chile Relleno Options

Most of the chile relleno recipes I see are filled only with cheese. And make no mistake, it’s delicious that way! But RancherMan loves hearty meals that include meat.

So it’s not uncommon for me to layer my open-face pepper into the muffin cup, add a few spoonfuls of cooked ground meat/onions and then top with the cheese and egg mixture.

After the chile relleno cups are cooked I can serve them as-is. But sometimes I’ll top them with something fun.

A few slices of jalapeno or Pico de Gallo. Or sometimes I’ll make a creamy hatch sauce using blended roasted hatch chiles and greek yogurt. So many options! But RancherMan loves ’em all.

Now when your man raves this much, I’d consider this Lazy-Cook’s Chili Relleno Cups meal a screaming success, y’all. You can bet your boots I’ll be planting plenty of poblano peppers in the garden this year…

~TxH~

Our Favorite Tex-Mex Recipes

• MYO Taco Seasoning
• Carnitas Tacos
• MYO Crispy Taco Shells
• Easy Corn Tortillas
• Mix-n-Pour Tortilla Recipe – No Kneading, No Rolling
• Pulled-Pork Enchiladas
• Cheesy Enchilada Casserole
• Lazy Cook’s Chile Relleno Cups
• SW Chicken w/Herbed Rice
• Cheesy Chile-Chicken Casserole
• Quick & Easy Taco Soup
• Chicken Tortilla Soup
• Homemade Pork Tamales
• (w/Instant Pot Shortcut Option)
• Spicy Jalapeno Cornbread
• MYO Pinto Bean Seasoning Mix

See All Our Recipes

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