Venison Enchiladas – Hunter Angler Gardener Cook

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Classic venison enchiladas are easy to make, delicious and are fantastic as leftovers. What’s more, you have plenty of option for the filling.

If you have ever traveled in Mexico, you know there are a zillion varieties of enchiladas depending on where you go. These venison enchiladas are pretty standard Northern Mexico and Texas-style enchiladas, which is to say shredded or ground meat, rolled corn tortillas and lots of cheese.

Plus, these are baked, and not all enchiladas are. The net effect is more or less a Mexican casserole, although not so casserole-y as pastel azteca, which is essentially a Mexican lasagna.

I’ll walk you through the process, which involves making the sauce and filling, and then constructing the enchiladas.

Making the Filling

OK, so let me start by noting that you can fill venison enchiladas in a variety of ways. This recipe uses a very simple, picadillo-like mixture with ground venison, but you have options.

Enchiladas have always been a great option for leftover meats, so get creative! A few especially good fillings would be:

Actual Mexican picadillo, which is basically really good “taco meat.” There are various kinds of picadillo, but I prefer the Sonoran version, which is not sweet.
Leftover venison barbacoa. Using the shredded meat in venison enchiladas is a great use for it.
If you’ve made venison tacos with backstrap or steaks, dice any leftovers small and use that as a filling.

One thing I like to add to the filling is queso fresco, a fresh farm cheese widely available in supermarkets. It’s not a melty cheese, so it plays well with whatever filling you choose.

Making the Sauce

I’ll be the first person to say that yes, you can use canned enchilada sauce — if you have one you really like. If you live in Texas or the desert Southwest, there are lots of good ones.

That said, I make a simple red enchilada sauce from a puree of ancho, chipotle and either guajillo or New Mexican dried chiles, a touch of tomato paste, onion and garlic, all thinned out with broth.

This sauce keeps for weeks in the fridge, so you can use it as a salsa later, or for more venison enchiladas or for the filling in venison tamales.

Building Venison Enchiladas

The general instructions for building standard, rolled enchiladas are to either briefly fry the corn tortillas in oil, or reheat them on a comal or flattop, then paint or dip in the sauce, fill, roll, arrange in a dish, top with cheese and bake.

I find that briefly frying the tortillas in oil helps them hold up a little better than if you just reheat them to make them supple. And let’s face it, fat equals flavor, so it adds a li’l sumthin.

Building venison enchiladas is messy, so do it near the sink. I find just going for it with your hands is the best option. Having sauce-spattered hands also keeps you focused, so you won’t be tempted to look at your phone midstream.

As for the cheese topping, ideally you’d top venison enchiladas with hand-shredded queso asadero, queso quesadilla or queso chihuahua. They’re all real-deal Mexican melty cheeses. But you can certainly use pre-shredded “Mexican blend,” if you want, or if you want to lean Tex-Mex, go for classic longhorn cheese.

A dish of venison enchiladas, with two taken out.

Serving and Storing

I will often serve venison enchiladas solo, maybe with a crunchy salad alongside. Nopales salad is a great choice here. You can of course make them part of a larger Mexican feast with maybe a soup like pozole, stuffed jalapenos and, if you’re a hunter, maybe some guajillo smoked doves or fried quail to dig into.

Leftover venison enchiladas keep for a week in the fridge, and they freeze well in the dish.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me at huntgathercook.

SAUCE

To make the sauce, boil the seeded and destemmed ancho and guajillo chiles for a few minutes, then turn off the heat and let them soak. Heat a cast iron pan or comal on medium-high heat and lay down the pieces of onion and garlic. You want to blacken the onion on both cut sides, and get some char on the garlic peel. This process takes about 8 to 10 minutes. Remove the onion and garlic to a cutting board. Peel the garlic.
Put the garlic and soaked chiles into a blender. Roughly chop the onion and add that, too. Add all the remaining sauce ingredients, including about 1 teaspoon of the salt. Puree, adding chicken broth as needed, to make a pourable sauce. In some cases, you’ll need to add some water, too. Taste and add salt if needed.
OPTIONAL STEP: I always do this, because it results in a smoother sauce that removes bits of seed and skin, which are undigestible. Push the sauce through a fine strainer with a rubber spatula into a bowl. Set aside.

FILLING

To make the filling, heat the lard or oil in a large pan over high heat. Add the chopped onion and the venison and brown well. This takes about 8 minutes or so, and stir the meat occasionally. When it’s mostly browned, add the garlic and oregano and cook a minute or two more. Turn off the heat.
Mix in a ladle or two of the sauce, using it and a wooden spoon to scrape off any browned bits stuck to the pan. Once this cools, add the queso fresco and mix well.

TO FINISH

Preheat oven to 350°F. Pour some oil in a frying pan, enough to float tortillas, and heat the pan over medium-high heat. Get paper towels or a kitchen towel ready. When the oil is shimmering, fry one tortilla at a time in the oil, flipping once or twice, for only a few seconds – you want to see them puff up. They should be very flexible. Do this for all the tortillas, setting them on the towel.
Spread a little sauce on the bottom of a casserole dish.
Set up a station where you can dip a tortilla into the sauce (or paint sauce on both sides of each tortilla with with your fingers or a brush), then grab a bit of the filling (maybe 2 to 3 tablespoons) and roll up the enchiladas. Set each one, seam side down, into the casserole. Fill the dish snugly.
Sprinkle the shredded cheese on top and bake for 30 minutes.

You can use canned enchilada sauce if you want, especially if you have a favorite.
For cheese, I shred queso asadero or queso Chihuahua, but you can use pre-shredded cheese like the “Mexican blend” in supermarkets.