Sweet Potato Enchiladas

This is the first year that we decided to grow sweet potatoes in our garden. They were ready to harvest last week, so I had to think about what type of dish I wanted to cook.

Around the holidays, we always make sweet potato casserole. Sunny Anderson’s recipe is our absolute favorite – it’s delicious! But since we’ll most likely be making it for Thanksgiving in just a couple weeks, we decided to roast a few of the sweet potatoes and add them to our weeknight enchiladas. We’re so happy we did – they were delicious!

It was the end of the growing season, just before the first frost, so we knew the sweet potatoes were ready to harvest. When you pull them, just cut the greens off and give them a good wash.

Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.

For this recipe, we used 3 small/medium sweet potatoes. Peel and chop into bite-sized pieces.

Add the sweet potatoes to a cookie sheet, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.

Put the sweet potatoes in the oven and bake for 20 minutes. Take them out, flip, and cook for an additional 10 minutes.

While the sweet potatoes are cooking, you can make the rest of your enchilada filling. We always make black bean, corn, and cheddar cheese enchiladas. They’re the perfect combination of sweet and savory.

Add two 15 oz. cans of black beans and one cup of frozen corn to a colander and rinse with hot water. (I rinse with hot water to defrost the corn and rinse the beans all at the same time.)Shred 8 oz. of cheddar cheese. You can also use Monterey Jack, Colby-Jack, queso fresco, or a combination of any of these.Coat the bottom of a 9″x13″ pan with your favorite enchilada sauce. When it’s a busy weeknight, Scott and I use a ready-made sauce in a packet. It’s also really easy to make from scratch. You can find a great recipe here. I don’t recommend using a canned sauce, because they tend to taste metallic. By now, your sweet potatoes should be done. They should look something like this…Lower the oven to 350 degrees.

You can now start building your enchiladas! We like to use burrito-sized flour tortillas. Feel free to use corn tortillas, which are the traditional enchilada tortilla. Put a scoop of the bean/corn mixture in the middle of a tortilla in a line. Then add a scoop of sweet potatoes. Top with a handful of cheese. (Make sure you save a handful of cheese for the end to top the enchiladas.)

You can just roll it up like a regular enchilada, with open ends, but I like to roll it like a burrito. This keeps all of the filling inside and it fits better in the pan. Fold the sides in, fold the bottom up to cover the filling, fold the sides in again, then roll.

Add the enchiladas to the pan. You should have enough filling (and space in your pan) to make five large enchiladas. Top with the rest of the enchilada sauce and the remaining cheese.