Late Summer Vegetable Enchilada Pie – A saucy, lasagna-like Mexican-American casserole layered with vegetables, tortillas, sauce and cheese. Perfect if you’re feeding a crowd or to make ahead for the month, once cool you can refrigerate or freeze it in portions.
Late Summer Vegetable Enchilada Pie
More Mexican inspired enchilada recipes I love are Chicken Enchilada Roll Ups, Enchiladas Verdes, (Green Enchiladas), and Turkey Enchilada Stuffed Poblano Peppers.
Because of my love for enchiladas, this recipe caught my attention while paging through the Modern Potluck; Beautiful Food To Share cookbook. A beautiful cookbook with so many recipes I can’t wait to try. With the end of summer here, this is the perfect meatless dish to use up all that zucchini and corn.
I slightly modified this dish to make it lighter, by using less cheese and only two layers of tortillas and it worked out perfect. The enchilada sauce made about 5 cups total, if you want to skip the step of making your enchilada sauce from scratch. This is a great base for other flavor variations. Next time I make this, I will try a version with different veggies and maybe chicken using my homemade enchilada sauce instead (found in my cookbook). Hope you enjoy this wonderful dish!
More Enchilada Recipes:
- Cheesy Rotisserie Chicken Enchilada Skillet
- Spaghetti Squash Enchilada Bowls
- Vegetarian Breakfast Enchilada
- Chicken Enchilada Soup (Slow Cooker or Instant Pot)
- Chicken Enchilada Stuffed Zucchini Boats
Late Summer Vegetable Enchilada Pie
Ingredients
For the Enchilada Sauce (makes 5 cups):
- 1 1/2 2 to 3 dried Ancho Chilies
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 28 oz can whole tomatoes
- 3/4 tsp kosher salt
- black pepper to taste
For the Filling and Pie:
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 medium onion finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 2 jalapenos seeded and finely chopped
- 2 tsp cumin
- 1 lb zucchini diced 1/4-inch (4 cups)
- 2 medium ears of corn kernels cut from cobb (1 1/2 cups)
- 1 cup canned black or pinto beans drained and slightly smashed with fork
- 1 tbsp fresh lime juice
- 1/2 cup chopped cilantro plus more for garnish
- 8 6-inch corn tortillas
- 3 cups reduced fat Mexican blend cheese
Instructions
- Ancho Sauce: In a large deep skillet toast the anchos over medium-high heat turning often, about 2 minutes. When cool remove stems and seeds. Transfer to a blender with hot water and let it get soft. When cool add tomatoes and blend until smooth. Season with salt and pepper.
- Filling: In the skillet heat oil over medium heat, add the onion and cook until soft, 5 minutes. Add the garlic and jalapeno and cook until fragrant, 1 minute. Add the zucchini and cook until tender yet firm, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the corn, beans, lime juice and cumin and cook 2 minutes. Add 1/2 cup cilantro and stir.
- Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking dish.
- Spread 1/2 cup sauce on bottom of casserole, arrange 4 tortillas on a single layer (cutting them in half to fit). Spoon half the veggie filling over the tortillas, and top with half of the remaining sauce and 1 1/2 cups cheese. Repeat with the remaining tortillas, veggies, sauce and cheese. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes, until the filling is bubbling. Let cool 10 minutes before cutting, then serve.
This was delicious! It was a good amount of prep work and then time before ready. Mine was also saucy but I think that made the leftovers even better.
The flavor of this enchilada sauce was the best I’ve ever had! I ended up subbing in a dried chipotle pepper (influenced by Gina’s enchilada sauce) because I didn’t have enough ancho chiles. Not sure if that slight chipotle taste added in made it a little different but it had so much flavor and I will definitely be doing this in the future. My enchiladas came out pretty saucy but i did forget to add a layer of tortillas in the middle so ended up adding them on top with some extra cheese to help with my mistake. I wouldn’t change anything, just maybe gauge a little better next time I make it on how much sauce I should use. I love that there’s no meat and they definitely didn’t need it! So delicious!
I have not made this in ages ( 2017!) and thought I would try it again as I had some dried Ancho Chili’s in the cupboard, and wanted to experiment more with casseroles that could be taken to potlucks. I was a bit confused about how much dried Ancho Chili pepper to use–it was a pack of one ounce dried Chili’s (3 of them) so I toasted them all and used all of them. The sauce was pretty thick, but seemed ok–I decided to forgo the tortillas and just added one cup of the Ancho Enchilada sauce to the mixture only and saved the rest of the sauce. Layered with a bit of cheese on 1/2 of the mixture and then on top. Used less then 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. I added entire can of pinto beans, however but all else the same. I baked acorn squash to have along with it. This mixture would be good stuffed into an acorn squash or over spaghetti squash. I have nearly 4 cups of left over sauce I will freeze for other uses, If anyone has any ideas let me know. Also was thinking of Skinny Taste regular Enchilada sauce recipe which has some broth and other seasonings–thought maybe to add to this thicker sauce and maybe it would be more like the Quick Enchilada sauce which I love. This Ancho pepper has a nice smokey flavor.
This was really good reminded me of a vegetarian dish from my local Mexican restaurant. Next time I’ll use mushrooms in place of the beans and maybe include some yellow squash. Thanks for this recipe!
My go to and favorite end of summer recipe 😊
Thanks so much for all of your expertise.
I’m so appreciative.😊
Thanks Tracie!
I wanted to like this, but for the labor intensiveness of this meal it just wasn’t there.
This is a wonderful recipe. We made it and split into two 8×10 pans and gave one to my parents to bake and have for dinner. Since COVID started we drop off a meal every week and wave from the street. My father actually called to ask if the points were right as he did not believe it and wanted the recipe. They LOVED it. My husband and I also enjoyed it. Really good and easy to make ahead.
This was awesome. I love that you put meat-free entrees on Mondays in your meal plans. No one in my house seems to notice. I loved the sauce. I didn’t have whole tomatoes so I used stewed tomatoes instead. It came out thicker than a normal enchilada sauce but we all agreed we liked it that way. The sauce is delicious!
Really good! After it was cooked, my daughter put the mixture on top of tortilla chips with extra jalapenos.
Wonderful recipe. Makes a lot and the fresh veggies are so good. I use store bought enchilada sauce as is easier and faster. The sauce recipe is good but much less time with store bought. And great leftovers
this is a good recipe when met with some improvisation. i use store-bought enchilada sauce & vegetarian refried pinto beans, and omit the corn, lime juice, cumin, garlic cloves, and jalapenos yet it tastes amazing!!! i don’t follow the measurements to a T either 🙂
i just realized i’ve commented on this recipe before, over a year ago lol