Save time and money by transforming those leftovers in your fridge into a completely new dish. These Smoked Turkey Enchiladas with Black Beans and Corn are a family favorite!! And they don’t even realize they are eating leftovers!!!!
Like many American’s, I myself, have a hard time eating leftovers. Either it doesn’t sound good, so I make something else or go out to eat, or I forget it is even there and it goes bad before I can eat it. In order to cut back on my waste, I started to transform our leftovers into completely new dishes like these Turkey Enchiladas.
In a 2017 report, NRDC sought to measure how much food and what type of foods Americans waste. The study analyzed 1,151 households in Nashville, Denver, and New York. These households agreed to keep diaries of the items they tossed and allowed researchers to check their trash cans afterward.
The findings: The average person wasted 3.5 pounds of food per week. Of that, only a third consisted of inedible parts, things like bones and peels. The trash can checks found twenty-three percent consisted of prepared leftovers, from any source. The remaining percentile was fruits, vegetables, baked goods, liquids, and oils.
So, to sum this up American consumers throw away twenty million tons of food each year reported by the food waste coalition ReFED. This is costing the economy an estimated $144 billion not to mention clogging landfills and generating greenhouse gasses.
Yes!!!! Crazy!!! So, what are we going to do about it?
How about we transform these leftovers? Make new meals, that don’t taste or look like leftovers. Because like I said I am not a fan of leftovers either!
These Smoked Turkey Enchiladas with Black Beans and Corn are amazingly simple and full of bold flavors transforming that leftover turkey into another weeknight meal your family will love.
Besides being simple to make they can be prepped in advance frozen or refrigerated for when you are ready to eat. This dish is a win-win for any busy mom because let’s face it us moms don’t have hours to spend in the kitchen prepping and cooking dinner every night.
So next time you have boring overplayed sick of eating turkey in that fridge instead of wasting it and adding to this national food waste epidemic whip up some Smoked Turkey Enchiladas with Black Beans and Corn.
Smoked Turkey Enchiladas with Black Beans and Corn
Ingredients
- 2 cups shredded leftover smoked turkey
- 1/2 small onion chopped
- 1 ear corn kernels removed
- 1 15.25 oz can black beans drained and rinsed
- 4 oz sharp cheddar cheese shredded and divided
- 4 oz Monterey jack cheese shredded and divided
- 12 flour tortillas
Simple Enchilada Sauce
- 2 tbsp butter unsalted
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 1/8 cup chili powder
- 2 cups turkey or chicken stock
- 1 3 oz can tomato paste
- 1/2 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
Instructions
Simple Enchilada Sauce
- Add the butter, flour, and chili powder to a medium pot over medium heat and whisk until well combined and mixture begins to bubble and continue whisking for 1 minute.
- After one minute, whisk in the stock, tomato paste, cumin, garlic powder, cayenne pepper, and salt until smooth. Allow the sauce to come up to a simmer. Once it reaches a simmer it will begin to thicken slightly. The sauce is ready to use
Enchiladas
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and grease a 13X9 baking dish. Place enough enchilada sauce in the baking dish to coat the bottom of the dish.
- In a medium mixing bowl combine turkey, onion, corn, black beans, half the sharp cheddar and Monterey jack cheese.
- Spoon turkey mixture evenly down centers of tortillas. Roll up tortillas; place, seam sides down, in the 13X9-inch baking dish. Once all tortillas are in the dish ladle the remainder of the enchilada over the top of the enchilada. Sprinkle top of the enchiladas with the remaining cheese and bake for 20 minutes or until enchiladas are thoroughly heated and cheese melts.
- Remove from the oven and allow to cool slightly before serving.
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