by Texas Homesteader ~ 

 I cooked a huge pork roast & made easy enchiladas the next night with the leftover meat! Planned leftovers is an important part of meal planning in my Homestead kitchen.

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Planned leftovers method of cooking is where I purposely cook more of a main ingredient to use the leftovers in a whole different meal on another night. It’s an important way I’m able to cook Homemade Meals Daily The EASY Way!

Meal Planning with Planned Leftovers

I know meal planning is an important way to save money in the kitchen. But I don’t LIKE to cook!

Thankfully I’m able to employ tricks such as Planned Leftovers to save money and reduce my time in the kitchen too.

You see, Planned Leftovers is where a large amount of one ingredient is cooked all at once, then other completely different meals are made with the leftovers.

For instance, I cooked a huge pork roast and then made many different meals with the leftover meat including, BBQ Sandwiches, Carnitas Tacos, a Meaty Stew and… Pulled Pork Enchiladas!

Meat For Shredded Pork Enchiladas From Leftover Roast

Since the main ingredient (the meat) was already cooked I just needed to pull everything together. 

First I pulled out about 3 cups of leftover pork roast. Then I Shredded the Meat in minutes with my KitchenAid. Finally I placed that shredded meat into my grandmother’s antique cast-iron skillet.

There was no need to add any oil, I just wanted the bottom layer browned. So I  turned the heat onto medium high to brown the meat. And I didn’t stir it during its stint in the skillet. 

It took about 3 minutes before those bits were browned the way I wanted them.

Beans & Corn In Enchilada Ingredients

Then to the meat mixture I added a cup of leftover homemade Ranch-Style Beans leftover from the other night & a cup of my home-canned corn .

I knew I’d need enchilada sauce but I didn’t have any in the pantry. You know my battle cry:

USE WHATCHA GOT!  

Since my ranch-style beans ended up with much more juice than I wanted I used the excess juice to make my own enchilada sauce.

I figured heck, the bean juice already has all the seasonings of enchilada sauce anyway, right??!

So I put about 2 Tablespoons of Bacon Grease in a pan, added about 2 tablespoons of flour and cooked it a bit before adding about 3 cups of the bean juice.

In my opinion it’s much the same procedure as making a thin enchilada-flavored gravy. It worked well for me but you can just use enchilada sauce if you like.

Using Leftover Roast For Enchiladas

Now that I have enchilada sauce I stirred about 1/2 cup of the sauce into the meat and set the rest of the sauce aside for the enchilada assembly.

My enchiladas also need some bell pepper & onion. Luckily I anticipated this and cooked an excess of onions and peppers with the roast last night. Planned Leftovers, bebe!

So I pulled out the leftover cooked bell pepper & onion from my pork roast a few nights earlier and chopped them up. 

I ended up with about a cup of cooked onions & about 1/2 cup of cooked bell pepper. I stirred everything into the meat mixture.

Finally to the whole shebangie I added 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. Now it’s time to start assembling our enchiladas.

I pulled out 3 of my grandmother’s vintage 7″x7″ CorningWare baking dishes since that’s how many would fit in my oven at one time.

To keep the enchiladas from sticking as they cooked, I first smeared just a bit of my ‘enchilada sauce’ on the bottom of each of those baking dishes.

Assemble Pulled Pork Enchiladas

Now I know that corn tortillas roll better without cracking if you heat them slightly first. So they got a few seconds in the microwave to heat ’em up.

UPDATE:  I often make my own quick & easy Corn Tortillas now!

Then I started filling my corn tortillas with the prepared enchilada mixture. It took about 1/3 cup of meat mixture for each enchilada.

The procedure was easy:

Add 1/3 cup meat to a warmed tortilla, roll the tortilla & place seam-side-down in the baking dish.

Each of my grandmother’s dishes held 4 enchiladas for a total of 12. I even had plenty of meat leftover should RancherMan desire to enjoy for lunch tomorrow. 

Leave The Ends Uncovered!

After all the enchiladas were assembled and tucked into their baking dishes I took the rest of that enchilada sauce I’d sat aside and poured it over the middle of the enchiladas. 

I only poured the sauce over the middle, leaving the ends uncovered. This will make them lightly crispy on the ends, RancherMan likes them that way. I must admit, so do I!

Then into a preheated 350-degree oven for 10 short minutes. Everything’s already cooked, I really only want it heated through.

Top With Cheese & Allow It To Melt

After that time I brought the enchiladas out of the oven and spread more cheese evenly over the middle of the enchiladas.  Again I left the ends uncovered.  That’s just the way we roll in our household!

Then back into the oven for 5-10 minutes. After that final stint in the oven the cheese was lightly browned & delightfully melty.

I added a couple of side dishes and BOOM! Hearty, delicious homemade supper. And since we each could eat 2 enchiladas, there were still two more prepared enchilada meals to put into the freezer for later.

I like to have a nice reserve of home-cooked entrees in the freezer so that we can enjoy homemade greatness when the day’s been crazy-busy!

Print

Planned Leftovers: Pulled Pork Enchiladas

Course Main Course

Cuisine Mexican

Keyword corn tortillas, easy recipe, Enchiladas, leftover roast, pulled pork, TexMex

Prep Time 10 minutes

Cook Time 25 minutes

Servings 6

Author www.TexasHomesteader.com

Ingredients

Ingredients:

• 3 cups leftover pork roast shredded
• 1 cup leftover pintos or black beans drained
• 1 cup whole-kernel corn drained
• 1 cup leftover cooked onions chopped
• 1/2 cup leftover cooked bell pepper chopped
• 2.5 cups shredded cheese I used Jalapeno Muenster
• 12 white-corn tortillas
• 3 cups Enchilada Sauce

Instructions

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350F

2. Heat cooked shredded pork (without stirring) on high heat until bottom is nicely browned - about 3 minutes.

3. Add the corn, beans, onions, bell pepper, ½ cup enchilada sauce and ½ cup cheese to meat and mix to combine.
4. Spread a thin layer of reserved Enchilada Sauce on the bottom of each baking dish.
5. Place 1/3 cup of filling into a corn tortilla and roll up and place in the baking dish seam-side down.
6. Pour remaining Enchilada Sauce over middle of enchiladas, leaving ends uncovered.
7. Bake for 10 minutes.
8. Remove from oven and sprinkle remaining cheese on top. Then bake for a further 10 minutes until the cheese is melted.

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