Creamy White Chicken Enchiladas -- The Broth That Holds Everything Together

Week three of lockdown. The construction site is still closed. I'm home all day every day with Clay, which is the first time we've spent this much consecutive time together since he was in middle school. Two men in a house. One kitchen. Three meals a day. The proximity is both medicine and pressure — we're cooking together, which is good, and we're stepping around each other's silences, which is the Hensley version of intimacy: being in the same room without speaking and understanding that the silence is not empty but full.

Clay's Saturday lessons continue, but now they're Monday-through-Sunday lessons because neither of us has anywhere else to be. This week we tackled: fried chicken (his second attempt — seventy percent, better oil temperature), cornbread (eighty percent, he's got the sizzle right), and a new one: Betty's chicken and dumplings. The flat dumplings. The ones that thicken the broth. The ones that require rolling and cutting and the specific patience of not dropping them all in at once.

Clay made the dumplings. He rolled the dough — uneven, thick in places, thin in others — and cut it into rough squares and dropped them one by one into the simmering broth and watched them float and sink and float again. He said "This is meditative." I said "That's the point." Betty never used the word "meditative." Betty would say "It keeps your hands busy while your head sorts itself out." Same thing. Different vocabulary. Different generation. Same kitchen wisdom.

The dumplings were seventy-five percent. Too thick in spots, which made them gummy in the middle. But the broth was right — rich, chicken-flavored, thickened by the starch from the dumplings into something that was halfway between soup and stew. Clay ate two bowls and said "I'm getting better." He meant the dumplings. He also meant everything else. The cooking and the recovery are the same process: attempt, assess, adjust, attempt again. The percentage goes up. The trajectory is what matters.

Connie works. She goes to the vet clinic in a mask and comes home and showers immediately and changes clothes and washes everything and the ritual of decontamination has become part of the routine, like coffee or dinner. She looks tired. The pandemic is wearing on everyone but especially on people who leave the house, who cross the threshold between safe and unsafe every day, who carry the invisible possibility of the virus home with them like a hitchhiker. I make her dinner. It's the least I can do. It's also the most.

Clay’s chicken and dumplings were seventy-five percent — gummy in spots, but the broth was right, and the broth is everything. That lesson about patience and starch and not rushing the simmer is the same lesson that lives inside this recipe. Creamy white chicken enchiladas have the same spirit: a rich, thickened sauce that does the work of holding everything together, the same way a good broth does, the same way a quiet kitchen shared between two people does. I made these for Connie on a Friday after she came home from the clinic, and she ate two without saying a word, which in our house means they were exactly right.

Creamy White Chicken Enchiladas

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 50 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 cups cooked chicken, shredded
• 8–10 flour tortillas (8-inch)
• 2 cups shredded Monterey Jack cheese, divided
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups chicken broth
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 can (4 oz) diced green chiles, drained
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cumin
• Salt and black pepper to taste
• Fresh cilantro and sliced green onions, for garnish

Instructions

1. Preheat and prep. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9×13-inch baking dish and set aside.
2. Fill the tortillas. Combine shredded chicken with 1 cup of the cheese. Spoon about 1/3 cup of the chicken mixture down the center of each tortilla, roll tightly, and place seam-side down in the prepared baking dish.
3. Build the white sauce. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Whisk in flour and cook for 1 minute until lightly golden. Slowly pour in chicken broth, whisking constantly, and cook until the sauce thickens, about 4–5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in sour cream, green chiles, garlic powder, onion powder, and cumin. Season with salt and pepper. Do not let the sauce boil once the sour cream is added or it will break.
4. Sauce and top. Pour the white sauce evenly over the rolled enchiladas. Sprinkle the remaining 1 cup of cheese across the top.
5. Bake. Bake uncovered for 25–30 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling at the edges and the cheese is golden and beginning to brown in spots.
6. Rest and serve. Let the dish rest for 5 minutes before serving. Garnish with fresh cilantro and green onions.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 26g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 720mg