Don't Skip This Step If You Want Truly Next-Level Beef Enchiladas

A good plate of beef enchiladas should be exceptional, with supple but strong corn tortillas that can hold their shape and tender, well-seasoned beef inside, all smothered in a tangy, flavorful sauce sprinkled with salty, creamy cheese. Although enchiladas may be considered a relatively simple dish with few ingredients, if just one of those minimal ingredients isn't up to snuff, it can throw the entire dish off. In an exclusive Tasting Table interview, Mexican chef, cookbook author, and television host Pati Jinich shared her best tips and tricks for making enchiladas, and the biggest takeaway was that each and every ingredient should be as fresh and of the highest quality possible. 

What Jinich believes is of the utmost importance is that all the individual components in enchiladas need to be able to stand on their own in terms of quality and flavor. The tortillas should be fresh and need to be heated to become pliable before using. The beef should be well-seasoned, and the sauce should be packed with flavor and spiced to your heat preferences. If your beef filling is bland and boring, even the most delicious enchilada sauce won't cover up the fact that your beef is lacking. If the tortillas are cracked and dry, the moisture from the beef filling or from the sauce slathered on top still won't provide enough moisture to bring life back into sad, stale tortillas. 

Pati Jinich also mentions that while every part of the dish needs to be of good quality, shortcuts are allowed. If you have leftover shredded or stewed beef, it's perfect to use as the filling. However, it's imperative that you taste the beef before assembling the enchiladas, and if it's not seasoned properly or lacks flavor, you must adjust the filling and make sure it's great before you use it. Although using shredded stewed beef is ideal for fork-tender enchiladas, there are ways to cook extra-flavorful ground beef for enchiladas if you don't have the time to slow cook whole cuts of beef until the meat falls off the bone. 

Corn tortillas are a must for making beef enchiladas, but those corn tortillas need to be as fresh and high-quality as possible. If you have a Mexican market or supermarket chain in your town, like Northgate, Vallarta, or H-E-B, they'll likely have in-house corn tortillas made fresh daily, which is your best option for enchiladas since the tortillas need to be pliable and not stale or dried out. If you can't find freshly made tortillas at a store near you, they're very easy to make at home from scratch, or as a last resort, you can bring back a bit of life into store-bought tortillas.