The recipe here is based on a dish created by Josef Centeno's great-grandmother, who raised 12 kids. Because meat was expensive, she often made enchiladas using only vegetables, like carrots and potatoes. For his enchiladas, Centeno makes a sofrito, cooking carrots low and slow in olive oil with garlic and tomatoes.
These are certainly not no-bake! Lots and lots of baking. But I split this into two days, made some spaghetti while the carrots baked, and assembled the enchiladas for dinner the next day.
I eyeballed the filling so I had a perfect amount. I used small corn tortillas and a 9x13 baking dish. I found a roasted tomatillo salsa at the grocery store. I live in central Texas so I had options.
I also thought they needed baking for a bit after they were assembled (before adding the creme). The cheese was cold, so I heated them at 350 for 15 minutes. I thought they were delicious. I do have enough carrot sofrito to make an entire second batch, so I’ll do these again soon.
I was so excited to try this vegetarian recipe and so disappointed in the outcome. I followed the recipe, the only change was I could not find the tomatillo sauce recommended and used mild salsa. As mentioned by someone above I have a ton of carrot sofrito left and there was barely enough cheese mix to fill all the tortillas. The flavor was "meh" and it took a lot of time to make. My recommendation is to pass on this.
When I see “no-bake”, I am thinking I don’t have to turn on the oven in the summer heat. How can you call these “no-bake” when the sofrito has to be baked in the oven for an HOUR AND A HALF! They do sound delicious, but please consider another title for this recipe!
Truly awesome. Like delicious gourmet baby food. I skip the oven and doi it low and slow covered on the stovetop. Need to make more filling as always run out. I use crumbled goat cheese instead of queso fresca as my wife does not eat cow dairy. And goat yogurt for the crema.
I used a block of queso fresco that was 12 oz and there still wasn't enough to fill each tortilla with a 1/4 cup of the cheese mixture as directed. I first noticed the no-bake in the title while I was looking for recipes to make during the heat of summer. I decided to use my Instant Pot instead of the oven and cooking the softrito on high for thirty minutes made it plenty soft.
The title IS... NO-BAKE Vegetarian Enchiladas... aYET the Instructions in STEP-#1: "Preheat the oven to 225°"... STEP-#2: "Transfer the skillet to the oven and BAKE for 1½ hours until the carrot sofrito is softened... Does NOT sound like NO-BAKE to Me.... Pretty Amature-ish to me... & probably most... May I suggest FOOD&WINE 're-title' the Recipe.... T.Roget ~
This took a VERY long time to make and was not great. The red onion flavor is overpowering. I'm not sure that cooking the carrots for 1-1.5 hours really made a difference. I would not recommend. Now I have a ton of the carrot mixture and cheese mixture left and I will have to figure out what to make with it. We assembled a few enchiladas to try but won't be making the rest of the recipe.
I like
