Should have checked enchiladas in recipe builder...

fastfoodietofitcutie

I love enchiladas but don't make them often and haven't made them since I started tracking food. I found a recipe for green chili enchiladas and I bought all the ingredients. I knew it was going to be high in calories, carbs, fat, etc.. but just figured I would make it work in my day. After putting it all in recipe builder it turns out that 2 enchiladas are almost 1000 calories, 62 grams of fat and over 3200 mg of sodium. I don't even remember the carbs but it was high. I didn't think it was going to be that high!

My options are to make them and fit them in my day. Granted I will barely be able to eat anything all day to make this dinner work. I could have 1 enchilada instead of 2 but then I'll probably be starving. I could forget the whole thing and not make them but I have no idea what I would do with all the ingredients. Not sure what to do here. I'm wondering if I can take a chicken breast and somehow bake it with cheese, chilies and enchilada sauce. Just using a few tablespoons of ingredients and forget the tortillas.

Lesson learned, think before buying ingredients and check recipe builder!

HStheBusyBee

Or create a deficit and enjoy!

puffbrat

Turn it into a stew. There are several ways to make green chile chicken stew, but one way is chopped cooked chicken in green chile sauce (enchilada sauce and chiles thinned with some chicken or vegetable broth). You can add some corn and then put a little shredded cheese on top. You could also slice the tortillas (corn I hope) into strips and bake until crisp, then add just a few pieces on top for some crunch.

TeaBea

This site has some really good lighter recipes......

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/02/chicken-enchiladas.html

http://www.skinnytaste.com/2010/06/chicken-and-white-bean-enchiladas-with.html

AigreDoux

Try decreasing the amount of cheese (probably by about half). Using a lower calorie tortilla (often marketed as low carb) could also help. It's not the chicken or the green chiles that are giving you 1000 calories.

Sometimes I will play with a recipe in the recipe builder to get it to fit into my goals.

Or make the full recipe and eat one enchilada with a humongous salad.

ClosetBayesian

AigreDoux wrote: »

Try decreasing the amount of cheese (probably by about half). Using a lower calorie tortilla (often marketed as low carb) could also help. It's not the chicken or the green chiles that are giving you 1000 calories.

Sometimes I will play with a recipe in the recipe builder to get it to fit into my goals.

Or make the full recipe and eat one enchilada with a humongous salad.

These are good ideas. You could also post the recipe, and some of us might be able to give you suggestions.

You could also have one, and do a veggie salsa on top of salad for a side instead of the other enchilada, and/or a side of refried beans.

fastfoodietofitcutie

I wonder if I could throw the chicken, chilies and enchilada sauce in a crock pot then shred the chicken for tacos and just add a little cheese. I'm just not sure of how much sauce to put in.

AigreDoux

fastfoodietofitcutie wrote: »

I wonder if I could throw the chicken, chilies and enchilada sauce in a crock pot then shred the chicken for tacos and just add a little cheese. I'm just not sure of how much sauce to put in.

Less than you think, generally, though it depends on your pot. The crock pot retains the water in foods (chicken) more so than other dryer cooking methods (baking). It will make messy tacos if it comes out watery

cross2bear

Also, check the ingredients that the recipe builder brings up - I know they are very wrong whenever I try to enter garlic - they tell me a garlic clove has over a thousand calories!!

CrabNebula

I have no idea how you managed so many calories a serving. My enchiladas rarely break 350-400 a serving. I make them with homemade red enchilada sauce (very easy to make!), corn tortillas, black beans and/or brown rice, shredded pork loin or chicken breast, and some shredded cheese. Cheese only goes on top.

Corn tortillas are pretty low cal, 50 a tortilla in most cases, so I think too many of your calories are probably in cheese.

fastfoodietofitcutie

These also have cream cheese. I should have known better!

AigreDoux

Actually that chicken and white bean enchilada recipe from skinny taste that PP posted looks really good, and only 230 calories per enchilada. I'd save the cream cheese for something else and make that one with your chiles and chicken

TeaBea

fastfoodietofitcutie wrote: »

These also have cream cheese. I should have known better!

Yeah - I'll never make a main dish with a brick of cream cheese (again) for as long as I live. Not worth it to me.

Cindy01Louisiana

HStheBusyBee wrote: »

Or create a deficit and enjoy!

Absolutely this!!!!! I did exactly this yesterday so that I could eat a couple bites of wonderfully delicious lemon meringue cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory. I will intentionally burn some more calories today so I can repeat the treat tonight!

lemurcat12

AigreDoux wrote: »

Try decreasing the amount of cheese (probably by about half). Using a lower calorie tortilla (often marketed as low carb) could also help. It's not the chicken or the green chiles that are giving you 1000 calories.

Sometimes I will play with a recipe in the recipe builder to get it to fit into my goals.

Or make the full recipe and eat one enchilada with a humongous salad.

This is the kind of thing I do. Or have one and eat it with something filling -- for me that would be a big serving of vegetables.

liftsalltheweights

You could either:

1) Make half the recipe
2) Decrease the portions so there's more enchiladas which would decrease the calories in each serving.

ElviraMarieCerri

Check the ingredients on recipe builder. Sometimes the same item varies wildly from one listing to another. Watch that the quantity of each item is correct, as well as the unit of measure. For example, one listing for garlic shows the unit as a clove, but the calorie count for it must be for a whole bulb. Imagine my surprise when a clove of garlic showed up as, like, 453 calories! And if it is really that many calories, and you really MUST have it, just eat, record, and enjoy, and trim the calories in the days following. One day does not make or break an eating plan.

melissa6771

Please post the recipe, ingredients at least. I am also curious how on earth they could be that high. And... I recheck everything in the recipe builder, it has gotten some things very wrong.

Adc7225

Basically I agree with all of the above. This is really a great opportunity, you can play with the recipe and ingredients. This will help you in the long run with managing your diet. I actually recently made some chicken enchiladas using the recipe from skinnytaste.com with some edits and they were great and a few calories lower than the stated calories. I cut my tortillas in half and I don't think I noticed any difference. When I am craving something I will either make it with edits or deconstruct it for the same taste with fewer calories.

fastfoodietofitcutie

Here are the ingredients

8 flour tortillas
8 oz. cream cheese
2 small cans diced green chiles
2 cups cooked, cubed or shredded chicken
28 oz can green enchilada sauce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

melissa6771

fastfoodietofitcutie wrote: »

Here are the ingredients

8 flour tortillas
8 oz. cream cheese
2 small cans diced green chiles
2 cups cooked, cubed or shredded chicken
28 oz can green enchilada sauce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

Cooking is my hobby. This is the stuff I live for! Let me know what you think of these ideas. I'm sure we could come up with more.

I would first trade the flour tortillas for low carb tortillas. They are great, lower in calories, high in fiber. Mission makes a good one. Also, make sure you are using taco size tortillas, not burrito size, there is a big difference in size and calories.

Next, I would use 6 ounces of light cream cheese. Maybe 4 oz of light cream cheese and 4 oz of greek yogurt. Or, swap out the cream cheese for refried beans. Maybe mix 4 oz light cream cheese with 4 oz. refried beans. (This would probably be very good!)

I would also use 2% cheddar, better if you shred it yourself from a block and only use as much as it looks like you need. Maybe 1.5 cups instead of 2.

The chicken is obviously fine. Enchilada sauce I'm not sure on calories. I make my own but it's red.

You could also add some homemade pico de gallo to the filling. I always do that. Maybe some black beans? So yummy! I doubt you could eat two. I've made these a lot and they are very filling, especially if you add beans.

fastfoodietofitcutie

Great ideas Melissa, thanks! I knew I should have bought low carb tortillas but I was in a hurry and couldn't find them so I just grabbed the big flour ones. Oh well, live and learn. I find all these yummy recipes and figure I'll just make them and work the rest of my day around them but this one was surprising, it was so much higher than I thought. I've eaten pretty light today so if I decide to make them I shouldn't be over my calories.

ElizabethOakes2

Oh, those sound delicious!
I bet you could make it as more of a casserole, layer the tortillas with the fillings, use half the tortillas. cheese and cream cheese. Cut it into smaller portions and serve it with black beans and green salad for 'fill-up'.

Francl27

This is super tasty!

http://www.thepinningmama.com/healthy-enchilada-chicken-bake-recipe/

It's the tortillas that's the problem. I only use low carb tortillas now.

whmscll

Sorry, no, it's all that cheese that is ramping up the calories in her recipe (didn't look at yours...)

CrabNebula

I have no idea what purpose cream cheese serves in enchiladas. I have never eaten them that way, even while fat, and can safely say you can omit it.

freakymistkd

Sorry to be naive but what's recipe builder, is it a part of this app or is it setting completely different?

ew_david

fastfoodietofitcutie wrote: »

Here are the ingredients

8 flour tortillas
8 oz. cream cheese
2 small cans diced green chiles
2 cups cooked, cubed or shredded chicken
28 oz can green enchilada sauce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

I'd probably lose the cream cheese and increase the chicken. Also, that's a LOT of enchilada sauce. I make a chicken chorizo enchilada casserole type dish and I only use about 6 oz of sauce. Lastly, switch to corn tortillas. 2 corn tortillas are 100 calories, same as 1 flour tortilla.

lemurcat12

freakymistkd wrote: »

Sorry to be naive but what's recipe builder, is it a part of this app or is it setting completely different?

It's part of the app. Under food if you click on recipes. I can never get the new one to work and use the old one (it's there as an option).

CrabNebula

This green sauce looks really good and you can batch freeze it for later:

http://ourbestbites.com/2010/03/green-enchilada-sauce/

melissa6771

_dracarys_ wrote: »

fastfoodietofitcutie wrote: »

Here are the ingredients

8 flour tortillas
8 oz. cream cheese
2 small cans diced green chiles
2 cups cooked, cubed or shredded chicken
28 oz can green enchilada sauce
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

I'd probably lose the cream cheese and increase the chicken. Also, that's a LOT of enchilada sauce. I make a chicken chorizo enchilada casserole type dish and I only use about 6 oz of sauce. Lastly, switch to corn tortillas. 2 corn tortillas are 100 calories, same as 1 flour tortilla.

If you take the cream cheese out completely, they are no longer cream cheese enchiladas!
Probably could cut back on the sauce some, you would know better when you're putting them together.
Corn vs flour tortilla is not much difference in calories. They are much smaller, like half the size maybe less. And a lot more work because you have to heat each one to roll it. They have more fiber, but also more fat.