Mexican-Inspired Sweet Potato and Chicken Casserole is made with black beans, corn and Pepper Jack cheese with a Guajillo pepper sauce.
Sweet Potato and Chicken Casserole
This Mexican-inspired casserole is made with spiralized sweet potatoes, shredded chicken, black beans and corn in a delicious guajillo pepper sauce topped with melted Pepper Jack cheese – SO good, and the portions are very generous! Spiralizing your sweet potatoes is quick and easy! For more spiralizer recipes, try my Spiralized Winter Veggie Gratin or these Zucchini Noodles with Shrimp.
I’ve been experimenting with my Paderno Spiralizer, last week I spiralized broccoli stems with turned out awesome in this Spiralized Beef and Broccoli dish. This week I decided to spiralize a sweet potato. Normally I simply roast them, but my friend and I brainstormed thinking about what else to do with it and came up with this dish.
Guajillo Pepper Sauce
The sauce is AMAZING, a recipe she got from her Mexican friend made from dried guajillo peppers which are very mild in heat. If you want this spicy, you could add some chipotle en adobo to the sauce as well. If you cant find dried guajillo chili peppers, I suggest using 2 to 3 tbsp chipotle chilis in adobo sauce in it’s place although it will be spicier.
The quickest way to make this is using leftover chicken. I usually have shredded chicken on hand that I make in the slow cooker, you can see that recipe here or boil it 10 minutes on the stove as mentioned in the recipe below:
How to Make Easy Shredded Chicken in Your Slow Cooker
- Grab a few skinless breasts, and throw them in your crock pot. 24 oz (about 3) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, trimmed of all fat.
- Add enough water or reduced sodium chicken broth so it covers the chicken. You can season your water with salt if you wish. For more flavor you can add a quartered onion, 1 celery rib, and/ or a sprig of fresh parsley.
- Set it for 4 hours on HIGH.
-
Remove the chicken and shred with 2 forks. Use the shredded chicken in any recipe that calls for it or refrigerate for up to 3 days. Discard the rest. Makes about 18 oz cooked chicken.
Spiralized Mexican Sweet Potato and Chicken Casserole
Ingredients
- 1 lb boneless skinless chicken breast, or 12 oz shredded cooked chicken
- 2 sweet potatoes 12 oz total, spiralized and cut into 6-inch lengths
- 4 medium vine tomatoes
- 4 dried guajillo chili peppers
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 1 onion, quartered
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1/2 tsp cumin powder
- 1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
- 1/8 tsp black pepper
- 1 cup frozen corn
- 1 15 oz can black beans, rinsed and drained
- 5 oz pepper jack cheese, shredded chopped scallions for topping (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Spiralize the sweet potatoes with the smallest noodle blade and place them in a 9 x 13 oval casserole dish.
- If you're cooking the chicken, bring 2 cups of water to a boil in a medium pot and add chicken breast, cook 10 minutes. Remove from water, set aside to cool and shred the chicken. Place in a large bowl.
- Bring a large pot of water to boil and add guajillo peppers, cover and simmer on medium until the peppers are soft, 10 to 20 minutes depending on the pepper.
- Remove peppers and let cool, cut the stem and and remove the seeds and the inside of peppers. Transfer to a blender.
- Add 4 tomatoes to the same boiling water and cook 10 minutes.
- Remove with a slotted spoon, peel the skin and transfer to the blender. Blend until smooth.
- Meanwhile, in a medium skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat and add the garlic and onion, saute until browned. Transfer to the blender with the sauce along with cumin, salt, and pepper and blend well.
- Pour the mixture into the large bowl with the shredded chicken, black beans and corn. Mix to combine, then pour over the spiralized sweet potatoes, making sure the sauce mixes well and gets in between the spirals.
- Top with cheese, cover with aluminum foil and bake 1 hour, or until the sweet potatoes are tender.
- Top with scallions and serve.
Last Step:
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How many servings is this for please ?
6 🙂
So good! I did substitute elk grind for chicken, added a zucchini and carrot for bulk, and ampped up the spice a wee bit. I think this would be great as a dip also.
I made this for the first time. I didn’t have dried chilis, so I used chipotle in adobo (I like spicy food anyway). I also didn’t have corn, so I skipped that. Still a big hit with me and my husband, who used to claim he didn’t like sweet potatoes!
Would this freeze well to be eaten later? Trying to find good healthy recipes to make and freeze before baby comes 🙂
OMG! This was SO good! I’m trying to sneak in more sweet potato into my diet (fiber, beta carotene…you know), but I’m not crazy about them. The base of this casserole is spiral sliced sweet potato, and even though I was very skeptical, I went full speed ahead and made it as written. (Note: also the first time I made sauce with dried red chile…SO easy with Gina’s instruction) I absolutely LOVED this meal and am very much looking forward to having this for lunch tomorrow. I’ve not made a bad dish yet from any of Gina’s recipes. My husband has loved them all as well. Thank you, Gina♥️
Thanks Susan!
Made this dish tonight. My county on restriction. So I made a few adjustments. Used Compari tomatoes, shoshinto peppers , and queso cheese. Also hard TJ’s sliced sweet potatoes ribbons. I also did not put in blender, so I added 8 oz of tomato sauce. Everything else the same. Put the ribbons in bottom of casserole pan. Put the other ingredients together in sauce pan. , and poured on top . Did not pre- cook anything but onion and garlic. Made sure sweet potato ribbon Nd were throughly covered , layered on sliced queso, covered with foil and put in oven for 1 hr. Serious yum!
Would strongly suggest you either prep everything the day before, or don’t do it on a day you do housework, and laundry !
I was a little nervous about this one because my husband is not a sweet potato fan. He loved it.
Going to follow the guidance of another poster and use the leftovers for breakfast with eggs over it. Yummae!
Saving to make again for the fam.
Added bonus: bought a spiralizer; can’t wait to try it out on other recipes.
This recipe looks delicious. Is it possible to convert this recipe to the crock pot or skillet? I have your Insta pot, crockpot, and stovetop conversions. We travel to Mexico for 3-4 months per year and I do not have access to an oven. I use many, many of your recipes while in Mexico.
Thank you in advance.
Polly
I used chipotle peppers in adobo instead of dried guajillo, and it turned out amazingly.
I plan on making this tomorrow night, but I will be using fresh Anaheim peppers instead of the Guajillo peppers. What should I do differently? Should I still boil them before putting them in blender? I also plan to use crushed or diced tomatoes instead of fresh. Thanks!
I would not recommend this dish for dinner. Maybe I did something wrong, but it was way too mushy and not hearty enough to be satisfactory for dinner. On that note, It was absolutely DELICIOUS the next morning for breakfast. I heated it up in the skillet then topped it with two fried eggs. I would definitely make this again and serve at a brunch, but definitely not for dinner.
Family loved it! Healthy and happy, cheap and cheerful. Will make again😋
Can we substitute butternut squash for the sweet potato?
Got a new casserole baking dish so I looked for a new recipe that I hadn’t tried before. This was absolutely delicious!! Thanks, Gina!
This one has been on my want to make list for awhile and I am glad I did. I had some left over chicken and used it here. This was wonderful. My husband said better then eating out any day and please make again. We
loved it. Thank You.
Made this tonight for dinner and even my sick-with-a cold hubs loved it. I couldn’t find the dry chili peppers at the store so used chipotle chilis in adobo sauce but only 1 tablespoon since the hubs doesn’t like spicy hot food. I would have used 2 T if just for me.
One problem: the cheese stuck to the foil so I lost most of it. I added more cheese and put it back in the oven uncovered for 5 mins to brown cheese. Any ideas on how to prevent the cheese sticking to foil problem?
Thanks, Gina, for another delicious recipe. And the best news: there are leftovers!!
OH, and I loved using my little spirallizer!!.
Another hint: instead of using my big blender, I used my Breville stick blender in the little pitcher that came with it to blend up the sauce. Worked great! And, easier to clean………..
Yes, don’t make it too tight, I give it extra space so it doesn’t touch the cheese.
Any time you add cheese to a dish and have to cover the pan with foil, spray the foil with cooking spray and then cover. The cheese doesn’t stick.
I always spray the foil with oil so the cheese doesn’t stick. Hope that helps.
This was so delicious and easy to make and I finally used the spirallizer on my food processor. Loved it! Tasted even better the next day for lunch.
Very tasty! I substituted a 7 oz jar of roasted red peppers (without the liquid) since I did not have guajillo chili peppers and I put a very small amount of jalapeno in the blender. The sweet potato taste is uniquely tasty. Mine looked beautiful but there was a lot of watery liquid left in the pan when you scoop out a serving. I suspect it was the fault of my tomatoes . That part wasn’t pretty but it doesn’t take away from the fantastic flavor.
Made this recipe on Tuesday. I am not typically a fan of the sweet potato, but I thought I would give this a try.. This dish WOWED me! It was the perfect combination of savory and sweet!
This site has been a fantastic resource for me in my quest to reduce my calorie intake and choose healthier options with amazing flavors!! What a Win! Thank you.
Made this for dinner last night. Absolutely delicious!! I will definitely make this again
No spiralizer so I shredded the sweet potato and it worked just fine. Everyone even my sweet potato disliking daughter enjoyed it.
If you get the chipotle peppers in adobo sauce do you still have to boil them?
Didn’t like this flavor and it is every food group my family likes. ?
I followed the recipe exactly, except kept the seeds from the chile peppers when blended and thought if lacked flavor, which is surprising since it had so many different ingredients. I added some more salt and smoked salsa and it tasted significantly better. I am usually a huge ST supporter but I’m not sure if I’ll make this again.
Make this one often! Use canned tomatoes generally (until the garden produces) and I sub the sweet potato noodles for butternut squash noodles. Very Weight Watcher friendly. Freezes good. It’s even better warmed up as leftovers!
We forgot to buy tomatoes so we subbed 12oz of crushed tomatoes instead.
OMG!!
We had already loved this, but the substitution of crushed tomatoes changed the text of the dish into wonderful comfort food. That’s a permanent change for us.
Hi,
Has anybody tried this with another kind of meat? I’m guessing it would taste good with turkey breast… do you think it would taste good with ground turkey?
update: I went ahead and made it ground tukrey- seasoned the meat with some cumin, paprika and whatever else I had on hand..t turned out great! Will definitely make it again!
I used chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce and was a bit heavy handed, sauce was very flavorful but just a bit too hot. Did a quick glance around my kitchen for an answer to tame it down a bit and ended up making a sorta mole with some unsweetened cocoa powder, Mexican instant espresso and just a bit of sugar. Turned out Amazing! This definatley will be included in our go-to-list, with either version of the sauce.
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