Green Chili Chicken Casserole

I don't think I've posted this recipe here. It's one I created a while back that my hubby love, love, loves.  It's really easy to make and freezes very well, so if you do OAMC, then this recipe would fit nicely into your repertoire.

Here are the ingredients:

Shredded Monterrey jack cheese, cream of jalapeno soup, Green Chile Tomatillo salsa, chicken breast, white corn tortillas

Ingredients:
1lb. cooked, shredded chicken breast*
1 to 1 1/4 cups shredded Monterrey Jack cheese (you can grate your own instead of buying the already shredded stuff. I'm just lazy.)
1 10oz can of Cream of Jalapeno soup (This might be regional. It's available in Texas along with a lot of other traditional Mexican soups.  If you can't find it, you can sub Cream of Chicken)
2/3 cup Green Chile Tomatillo salsa (Again, this is a variety found in my local grocery store. You can sub any kind of green chile or tomatillo salsa. Heat intensity is personal preference.)
15-20 White tortillas, cut in half or quarters

Directions:
1) If preparing to eat immediately, preheat oven to 350 degrees.  If preparing for the freezer, skip this step.
2) Spray a 9X13" baking pan with non-stick spray. Set aside.
3) In a bowl, combine shredded chicken, soup, 1/3 cup salsa and mix until the chicken has been thoroughly coated with the wet ingredients.  Set aside.
4) Spread 1/3 cup of salsa on the bottom of baking pan and build your first tortilla layer. Spread about 1/4 of the chicken mixture over the tortillas and then sprinkle with 1/4 cup of the shredded cheese.
5) Repeat the layering process for two to three more layers (of until you run out of the chicken mixture.)
6) Loosely top the casserole with the remaining tortillas and spread the last 1/3 cup of salsa over the top. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
7) Bake in a 350 degree oven, loosely covered with foil for about 25-30 minutes. Uncover and bake an additional 5-10 minutes until the cheese on top browns.  Or if you have a broiler safe baking dish, brown the top for about 5 minutes under the broiler.

To bake from frozen - Allow casserole to thaw completely in refrigerator. Preheat oven to 375 and bake for 35-40 minutes until completely heated through. 

Green Chile Chicken Casserole - Ready for freezing or to pop in the oven.

*A note about cooking the chicken -
The best way I've found to cook chicken for these kinds of recipes is in a slow cooker.  The chicken will be extremely tender and moist and it's an easy way to infuse flavor.  The the casserole in the photo in this post, I cooked thawed chicken on high for about 4.5 hours. I flavored it with one small can of hot green chilies, 2T of olive oil, 1 peeled whole garlic clove, and about 2 tsps of salt.  The resulting juice and chilies from the slow cooker were incorporated into the sauce for this recipe (as was about 1/3 c of left over Creamy Jalapeno dip from Chuy's!). 

Another option for the chicken is to make up a big batch of KA's Chicken Tacos chicken. The flavors would be perfect in this recipe! If you really wanted to coordinate ingredients, I would use a tomato based salsa and a sharp cheddar cheese (in lieu of tomatillo salsa and Monterrey Jack cheese.)