Pulled Beef Enchiladas with Homemade Refried Beans

When my wife tells me that something is "my favourite thing you've ever made," I know it must be good. First of all, my wife is my second harshest critic, and I wouldn't have it any other way. Second of all, I trust her opinion over anyone else's. So, I say with absolute confidence that these pulled beef enchiladas are good, like really, really good.

Jump to:

• Prepping and Cooking the Beef
• Homemade Refried Beans
• Jalapeno Monterey Jack Cheese Sauce
• Pulling the Beef
• Assembling the Pulled Beef Enchiladas
• Cooking the Enchiladas
• Serving the Pulled Beef Enchiladas
• Recipe
• Final Thoughts

Imagine beef, rubbed with spices and slow-roasted, then shredded like pulled pork. Now imagine that beef is wrapped in a corn tortilla with homemade refried beans and some salsa, covered in a jalapeno cheese sauce and baked to perfection. Doesn't that sound good? The technique of slow-roasting the beef until it pulls apart is pure braising at its finest.

Prepping and Cooking the Beef

The first thing to do is cook the beef. I used a blade roast, which was a pound and a half. Season the roast with cumin, coriander, salt, pepper, and oregano, then rub the meat down with a few tablespoons of chipotle in adobo. (You can find all the measurements in the recipe below.)

Put the beef in a small roasting pan with half a cup of water, cover with parchment paper, then wrap tightly in foil. Cook the beef at 300°F for three hours. Remove it from the oven and allow it to rest for twenty minutes.

Homemade Refried Beans

While the beef is cooking, make a batch of homemade refried beans. Start the beans by sauteing half a cup of diced onion in some olive oil over medium-high heat. Once the onions soften, add two cloves of minced garlic and cook for another minute. Add chili powder, cumin, and oregano. Cook the spices for about a minute, then add half a cup of water and a can of drained and rinsed pinto beans.

Let the mixture cook for about five minutes, stirring, then mash the beans using a potato masher. Season them to taste with salt and pepper. Continue to cook the beans until they form a thick paste.

Jalapeno Monterey Jack Cheese Sauce

For the cheese sauce, I used a jalapeno Monterey Jack cheese. If you can find this, great. If not, use cheddar instead and saute half a diced jalapeno in the butter before adding the flour. This is essentially a classic bechamel, which is one of the foundational techniques I cover in my sauce making guide.

To make the sauce:

1. Melt two tablespoons of butter in a medium pot over medium-high heat
2. Add two tablespoons of flour and cook, whisking, for two minutes
3. Add two cups of whole milk and cook, whisking gently, for about ten minutes until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon
4. Whisk in one cup of grated jalapeno Monterey Jack cheese
5. Season with salt and white pepper to taste

Pulling the Beef

Now that the beef is cooked and rested, take two forks and shred it like pulled pork. Make sure to discard any large pieces of fat or gristle. Once the meat is shredded, add three-quarters of the liquid from the bottom of the roasting pan back into it, mix, and season with salt as needed.

Assembling the Pulled Beef Enchiladas

Everything is ready. The beef is cooked and pulled, the refried beans are smooth and tasty, and the sauce is creamy and gooey. Time to put it all together.

Put a ladle full of the sauce in the bottom of a 9 x 13 oven-safe dish. Set a tortilla on your work surface. For the tortillas, I bought a pack of ten blue corn tortillas. You can use small flour tortillas or corn tortillas, store-bought or homemade. If you've never made tortillas, check out this post I did all about making them.

Spread a serving spoon full of refried beans on the tortilla, top with some of the beef and a bit of your favourite salsa. Roll the tortilla and place it in the dish. Repeat until all of the tortillas, meat, and beans have been used. Cover the rolled tortillas with the remaining sauce and half a cup more of grated Monterey Jack cheese.

Cooking the Enchiladas

Cover the enchilada dish with parchment and foil and bake at 350°F for twenty minutes. Take the pan out of the oven, turn on your broiler, and remove the foil and parchment from the pan. Put the enchiladas under the broiler only long enough to brown the cheese. Watch closely, as browning will happen quickly, and you really don't want to burn these. Once the cheese is browned, take the enchiladas out of the oven and let them rest for five minutes before serving.

Serving the Pulled Beef Enchiladas

To round out the meal, I served my enchiladas with whole boiled sweet potatoes and rice. You can do the same or serve them with whatever you'd like. Alternatively, you can boil and mash the sweet potato and put it right in the enchilada along with the beans, meat, and salsa. And as with everything Mexican, serve with a bit of lime.

Recipe

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of components to these pulled beef enchiladas, and they're not something you'll just throw together on a Tuesday evening after work. But I promise you, the effort is absolutely worth it. Plan a weekend around these, and you won't be disappointed.