Easy Mexican Casserole

Hey friends, today we’re going to make easy Mexican casserole. It’s a fun dinner that you can have ready in 35 minutes. 20 minutes of that is cooking, so you just need a few minutes to throw this casserole together and dinner is going to be delicious.

Why You’ll Love This

This recipe, kids love it.
The entire family is going to go crazy for it and it freezes great, friends.
It’s a fun dinner that you can have ready in 35 minutes.
Dinner is going to be delicious.
It’s really easy to keep on hand.
You do not have to cook it right away.
You can cover this and store this in the fridge or you can even freeze it.

Ingredients

one pound of ground beef (you can also use ground turkey or even ground chicken)
a can of crushed tomatoes
a can of chili beans
a can of salt
two tablespoons of taco seasoning (you can just do like a packet and measure out your taco seasoning or you can use our homemade taco seasoning recipe)
can of Rotel
two cups of shredded cheese
12 to 16 corn tortillas (yellow corn or white corn)
nonstick spray
about a cup of sour cream (or a half a cup if you’re not a fan)

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a large skillet, we’re going to brown ground beef over medium-high heat.
While that beef is browning, I’m going to go ahead and get my cans open that we need for the rest of the recipe.
Once your beef is completely browned, go ahead and drain any of the excess grease off.
Now, we’re going to add in our taco seasoning, can of Rotel, crushed tomatoes, and the chili beans.
Now, we’re going to stir it to combine and let it heat through.
Once you’ve gotten it all mixed together, let’s just turn it off and we’re going to leave this here while we assemble the casserole.
So, what we’re going to do is get everything ready to assemble our casserole.
We’re just going to use a measuring cup. This one is a two cups and then we’re just going to fill this up with our hand shredded cheese.
We’re going to cut all the tortillas into quarters.
Cut them into corners in these perfect little triangles.
We’re going to need a 9 by 13 pan and we’re going to spray it with nonstick spray.
Your corn tortillas that you’ve already been cut, I want you to divide them into thirds.
Our first stack, we’re going to line the bottom with these tortillas.
And we’re just covering the bottom.
Now, we’re going to take our meat mixture and we’re going to put half of it in this pan.
Just eyeball it.
And then just spoon it out on top of those tortillas.
Get that spread out.
Then we’re going to take that other third pile of your tortillas and make a layer right on top.
Then add one cup of cheese.
Just spread them out.
Now we’re going to do that last layer of tortillas on top.
We’re going to top the rest of that meat in here.
Spread it out.
Then we’re going to add about a cup of sour cream.
And our last step is the cheese.
Now it’s ready for the oven.
Now we’re going to go plop this in the oven.
Now we’re going to bake for about 20 minutes until that cheese is nice and bubbly.
Now we’re just going to take it out and we’re going to let it set for about 10 minutes before we cut it.

Cooking Tips

I love using this tool to help separate the beef. It’s great so you get that perfect little crumble.
I highly recommend you hand shred your cheese. Anytime you want cheese melted, it’s better to buy the block and then hand shred it.
It’s so much easier to make, especially if you know how to shred cheese without hurting yourself.
I like doing corn tortillas in a casserole because flour tortillas tend to get gummy when they’re baked in a casserole.
If you don’t like sour cream, go ahead and include it. You could cut it to a half a cup if you’re not a fan.
The trick is that you want to let it set for about 10 minutes. So that way when you try to get it out of the casserole, it actually comes out whole like a lasagna looking Mexican casserole. But if you do it when it is not let set for a little bit, it just falls apart. So go ahead and be patient so you can get these beautiful yummy layers.

Serving Suggestions

Top it with whatever you want and you can serve it with a side salad and dinner is done.

It’s time to dig in friends. Top it with whatever you want and you can serve it with a side salad and dinner is done. I can’t wait. I’m so excited about this. I am hungry. Thanks so much for joining me and I’ll see you next time in my kitchen. Bye friends.