Best King Ranch Casserole Ever | Recipe

Kick the condensed soup to the side for a better King Ranch Casserole! This famous, Texas-born, stacked enchilada casserole features shredded chicken, corn tortillas, hearty vegetables, cheese, and a creamy Tex-Mex sauce made from scratch. Welcome to the table your new favorite dinner casserole.

WHAT IS KING RANCH CASSEROLE

King Ranch casserole is a stacked enchilada casserole with layers of chicken, cheese, corn tortillas, and quite possibly the best part -- a spiced chicken gravy. This is not your average chicken gravy, folks. It's chock-full of vegetables like mushrooms, bell peppers, celery, and onion, and gets its Tex-Mex vibe thanks to chili powder and cumin. But wait! There's more. Cans of diced, fire-roasted tomatoes, along with green chilis are added to the sauce as well, and I gotta tell ya, the flavor is here is deep, and nothing if not phenomenal.

HOW TO MAKE KING RANCH CASSEROLE

1. Have the chicken cooked and shredded.
2. Make the sauce by first sauteeing vegetables, then sprinkling with flour and stirring in the chicken broth. Allow to simmer and thicken.
3. Soak the tortillas in broth and assemble the casserole.
4. Bake the casserole.

HAVE THE CHICKEN COOKED READY

To make King Ranch casserole, you'll need to have cooked and shredded chicken ready to rock. You can bake your own chicken breasts, or pick up a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.

MAKE THE SAUCE

Then, it's time for the sauce, which as I said earlier, is essentially a chicken gravy. Oil, flour, and broth = gravy. However, like I also said earlier, this is not your average gravy, and it begins with a sautée of all those yummy vegetables on the stovetop.

After the vegetables have softened, they get a sprinkling of flour (you could substitute gluten-free flour to make this a gluten-free meal), and the chicken broth goes in, followed by the spices and cilantro. The mixture bubbles until thickened, and the sauce is ready to go to work.

ASSEMBLE THE CASSEROLE

King Ranch casserole is a stacked enchilada casserole, which basically means you're working with layers of corn tortillas. It begins with a little sauce on the bottom of the casserole dish to keep it from sticking on the bottom. Then on goes the first layer of the casserole: Corn tortillas, sauce, shredded chicken, and cheese. The pattern is repeated once more (so that's two full layers) and ends with a top layer of tortillas, sauce, then cheese.

BAKE THE  CASSEROLE

The casserole is baked until bubbly, and as hard as it may be, I would advise you to let this one rest for about 15 minutes or so before digging in. This will give the sauce time to set up so that when you cut into it, ingredients don't go oozing out all over the place. However, if you just can't find the willpower to resist digging in right away, it does taste the same...no matter where it sits on your plate.

KING RANCH CASSEROLE FROM SCRATCH

Fresh vegetables and herbs not only add vibrant, new flavors of the casserole, they add a pleasing variation in texture as well. Now, don't get me wrong, as a child, I loved mom's version of King Ranch casserole, but after trying out Texas Monthly's made-from-scratch version, going back to a make-shift Tex-Mex gravy would never be an option.

NEW AND IMPROVED

In comparison to the Texas Monthly recipe I started out with, I cut back on both the amount of butter and garlic but upped the quantity of chili powder and cumin. Hello, flavor. Next, rather than roasting green chilis, peeling and seeding them, I opted for canned diced green chilis, and while I know using the fresh chilis would add more texture to the casserole, the freshly sautéed mushrooms, bell pepper, and onion were more than sufficient. Lastly, good-bye Rotel, hello fire-roasted tomatoes. Fire-roasted tomatoes have a deep, unparalleled flavor, and are total perfection in King Ranch casserole.

5 MORE TEX-MEX RECIPES YOU'LL LOVE

• Doritos Casserole
• Chicken Taco Casserole
• Sour Cream Enchiladas
• Crock-Pot Chicken Tacos
• Ground Turkey Casserole with Ranchero Sauce

Print Recipe

3.70 from 43 votes

King Ranch Casserole

A recipe for the best King Ranch Casserole ever!  A famous Texas-born, stacked enchilada casserole featuring shredded chicken, corn tortillas, hearty vegetables, cheese, and a creamy Tex-Mex sauce. 

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time25 minutes mins

Total Time55 minutes mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Keyword: King Ranch Casserole

Servings: 12 Servings

Calories: 306kcal

Author: Kelly Anthony

Ingredients

• 15-20 corn tortillas cut in half
• 5 cups unsalted chicken broth, separated
• 2 cups cooked and shredded chicken
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 2 stalks of celery diced
• 1 white onion diced
• 1 green bell pepper seeded and diced
• 8 ounces White Button Mushrooms chopped
• 2 cloves of garlic minced
• ½ cup all-purpose flour
• 1 (14 ounce) can of fire-roasted, diced tomatoes drained
• 2 (4 ounce) cans of diced green chilis
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 teaspoons Kosher salt
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• ¼ cup finely chopped, fresh cilantro, separated
• 1 ¾ cup freshly grated Cheddar cheese
• 1 ¾ cup freshly grated Monterrey Jack cheese

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 375° and have ready a 9x13” greased baking dish. Place the halved tortillas in a shallow dish (like a pie dish), and pour over 1 cup of chicken broth. Set aside and allow to soak.
• In a large rimmed sauté pan over medium-high heat, melt together butter and olive oil. Add celery, onion, and bell pepper and sauté until softened and onions are translucent, 5-8 minutes.

  Add mushrooms and sauté until juices have released and they begin to take on a brown color, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and sauté 30 seconds to a minute. 
• Sprinkle over the flour and stir until a paste coats the vegetables. Slowly drizzle in the remaining 4 cups of chicken broth, whisking constantly until flour has completely dissolved and no lumps remain. 

  Allow mixture to come to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium and allow to simmer about 5 minutes, or until the mixture has thickened.
• Stir in the tomatoes and green chilis and allow to simmer for another five minutes. Add the chili powder, cumin, salt, pepper and 2 tablespoons of cilantro. Stir once more, remove from heat and set aside. 
• Combine the Cheddar and Monterrey Jack in a small bowl, and set aside.
• Spoon a thin layer of sauce on the bottom of the dish and then add a layer of tortillas. 

  Add a layer of sauce over the tortillas, followed by a layer of chicken and then a third of the cheese mixture. 

  Repeat with another layer of tortillas, sauce, chicken, and half of the remaining cheese.
• Add one more layer of tortillas, along with the remaining sauce, and cheese. Bake for 25-30 minutes until bubbly. 

  Sprinkle with the remaining cilantro and set aside to cool for at least 15 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 306kcal | Carbohydrates: 23g | Protein: 18g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 8g | Cholesterol: 52mg | Sodium: 687mg | Potassium: 418mg | Fiber: 3g | Sugar: 1g | Vitamin A: 940IU | Vitamin C: 9.8mg | Calcium: 288mg | Iron: 1.8mg

Would pair well with:

At-Home Margaritas, Homemade Garlic Bread, Classic House Salad