Baked Chicken Chimichangas with Monterey Jack Cheese Sauce — Feeding Five When Everything Is Hard

August in El Paso is the month the sun takes personally. One hundred and eight degrees on Wednesday. The asphalt on Dyer Street was soft — actually soft, like warm bread — and I thought: even the road is baking. The whole city is an oven. I am an oven inside an oven inside an oven, and the only thing keeping me sane is the knowledge that September will come, and with September the heat will break, and the desert will exhale, and I will stop sweating through three shirts a day.

Back-to-school preparations have begun. Luis Jr. needs new shoes — his feet grew again, and he is fifteen and his feet are size twelve, which is enormous and expensive and apparently hereditary because Luis wears size twelve too, and I am convinced they are conspiring to bankrupt me through footwear. Isabella needs school supplies. Sofia needs new jeans because she grew two inches this summer and none of her pants reach her ankles anymore. Diego needs a new backpack because the zipper broke on the old one and he "fixed" it with duct tape, which is charming but not practical. Camila needs everything because Camila is four and four-year-olds grow like weeds and destroy clothing with the efficiency of industrial shredders.

The total for back-to-school shopping: four hundred and twelve dollars. I put it on the credit card and did not think about it because thinking about credit card debt at 3 AM while mixing dough is a special kind of torture that I do not recommend. Luis said we'd pay it down next month. Luis always says next month. Next month is the promised land. Next month is where the money lives. I have been going to next month for twenty years and the money is never there when I arrive.

The bakery's new customers — the ones from the newspaper article — are becoming regulars. A couple from the west side drives thirty minutes every Saturday for our conchas and they always buy two dozen and they always say they're the best in El Paso and I always say "Almost as good as my mother's" and they always laugh. But I mean it. Almost. Rosa's are still better. They will always be better, because Rosa's hands had forty years of practice that mine don't have yet, and because there is something in the original that the copy can never replicate — not skill but spirit, the spirit of a woman who made bread because there was no other food, who turned nothing into sustenance, who fed seven children on a bus driver's salary and never once let them go to bed hungry.

I made tostadas this week — flat, fried tortillas topped with refried beans, shredded chicken, lettuce, tomato, crema, and queso fresco. Tostadas are chaos food — everything piled on top of everything, falling apart at the first bite, requiring two hands and complete commitment. Camila ate hers upside down, which I did not think was possible, but Camila has a gift for doing things that are not possible. Diego ate his methodically, in sections, like an engineer disassembling a machine. Sofia ate hers in three bites and reached for another. Luis Jr. ate four and said nothing, which is his highest form of compliment.

I got a phone call from Alejandro on Thursday. He never calls — he is not a caller, he is a man who waits for calls the way rocks wait for rain. He called to tell me that Rosa was in the hospital. A fall. She fell in the kitchen — the kitchen where she stood for forty years, the kitchen where she taught me everything — and she broke her hip and the diabetes is complicating the healing and they don't know how long she'll be in the hospital. His voice was flat. Emotionless. The voice of a man who has broken so many times that the next break doesn't register. I said I would come. He said don't come, she's fine. I said I'm coming. He said okay.

I hung up the phone and stood in the bakery kitchen and put my hands in the flour — just my hands, in the flour, not doing anything, just feeling it — because flour is the closest thing to prayer my hands know, and I needed to pray, and I needed to feel Rosa in the grain and the softness and the dust of it, and I said: please. The same word. The same prayer. Please.

The same week I made those tostadas — the week Alejandro called, the week I stood with my hands in the flour and asked God for something I couldn’t name — I also made these chimichangas, because five people still need dinner even when your heart is somewhere else entirely. Baked instead of fried means I can slide them into the oven and stand at the counter doing nothing for twenty-five minutes, which is sometimes all the rest I can afford. The cheese sauce is the kind of thing that makes Diego eat without complaining and Luis Jr. eat four without saying a word, and right now, that silence is everything.

Baked Chicken Chimichangas with Monterey Jack Cheese Sauce

Prep Time: 20 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 45 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 3 cups cooked shredded chicken (rotisserie works perfectly)
• 1 cup canned refried beans
• 1 cup shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 6 large flour tortillas (10-inch)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter, for brushing
• For the Monterey Jack Cheese Sauce:
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups whole milk
• 1 1/2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese
• 1 can (4 oz) diced green chiles, drained
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
• Pinch of cayenne pepper (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven. Heat oven to 425°F. Line a large baking sheet with foil and lightly grease it.
2. Mix the filling. In a large bowl, combine the shredded chicken, refried beans, 1/2 cup of the Monterey Jack cheese, sour cream, cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, and salt. Stir until everything is evenly combined.
3. Warm the tortillas. Wrap the stack of tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave for 30 seconds to make them pliable and easier to roll without cracking.
4. Fill and roll. Spoon about 1/2 cup of the chicken filling down the center of each tortilla. Fold in the sides, then roll up tightly from the bottom like a burrito. Place seam-side down on the prepared baking sheet.
5. Brush and bake. Brush the tops and sides of each chimichanga with olive oil or melted butter. Bake for 20–25 minutes, flipping once halfway through, until the outsides are golden and crispy.
6. Make the cheese sauce. While the chimichangas bake, melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Whisk in the flour and cook for 1 minute. Slowly pour in the milk, whisking constantly, and cook until the mixture thickens, about 3–4 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the Monterey Jack cheese, green chiles, cumin, salt, and cayenne if using. Stir until the cheese is fully melted and the sauce is smooth.
7. Serve. Plate the chimichangas and spoon the warm cheese sauce generously over the top. Serve with salsa, guacamole, or extra sour cream if desired.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 510 | Protein: 34g | Fat: 24g | Carbs: 40g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 740mg