Vegetarian Slow Cooker Enchilada Casserole

Give your oven a break and whip up this vegetarian slow cooker enchilada casserole chock full of chopped vegetables layered between cheese and tortillas. This recipe is classic comfort food at its best!

Normally, I consider my crockpot more of a fall/winter appliance, but I have recently fallen in love with using the crockpot during the hot summer months. It’s such a great way to avoid warming up the house by turning the oven on.  To make this casserole a little more summer friendly, I incorporated a lot of vegetables that are abundant at the farmers market right now like zucchini, corn, and peppers. Layer those with cheese, flour tortillas, and enchilada sauce and this simple casserole is ready to go!

Note that the tortillas tend to get very soft when making enchiladas like this in the slow cooker, but the recipe still tastes great! If you want to add some more texture, I like to crumble some tortilla chips on top when serving for some crunch. If you want a more classic baked enchilada casserole recipe, check out my walnut mushroom enchilada casserole.

Ingredients You’ll Need

• Enchilada Sauce: I like using red enchilada sauce for this recipe, but you can also use green enchilada sauce if you’d like.
• Diced Tomatoes: fire roasted canned tomatoes are my favorite.
• Veggies (Bell Pepper, Zucchini, Jalapeño and Corn): feel free to mix up the veggies here if you’d like based on what you have on hand. 
• Aromatics (Onion & Garlic): Use fresh onion and granulated garlic for this recipe. You can use fresh garlic too if you’d like.
• Beans: I used canned pinto beans but you could also use black beans, kidney beans, or chili beans for this recipe. You could also use a plant-based ground meat product like Beyond Meat or Impossible instead of beans, but you’ll want to pre-cook it in a skillet first before adding it to the crockpot.
• Flour Tortillas: Flour tortillas hold up best in this recipe, but you can use corn or gluten free tortillas. To make layering even easier, buy large burrito size tortillas as one tortilla can be used for the layer.
• Shredded Cheese: I used cheddar, but you could also use a shredded Mexican blend. To easily make this dish vegan, simply use a vegan shredded cheese – I like the vegan cheddar shreds from VioLife brand.

How to Make this Enchilada Casserole

STEP 1: Gather all of your ingredients. Stir together the enchilada sauce and canned tomatoes in a small mixing bowl and set aside.

STEP 2: Chop all of your vegetables (onion, bell pepper, zucchini, jalapeño)

STEP 3: Layer all your ingredients in a crock pot/slow cooker.

STEP 4: Cook on low for 4 hours and then warm until ready to serve.

Make-Ahead and Storage

• Make Ahead: Pre-chop all of your ingredients ahead of time to make prep go a lot faster when you are ready to put this recipe together in the crockpot. You can freeze individual servings of this casserole in the freezer and reheat when ready to serve if you’d like.
• Storage: Store leftovers in an airtight container for up to 1 week in the refrigerator. Leftovers can also be frozen and reheated when ready to serve.

Variations

• Make it gluten free: use gluten free tortillas or corn tortillas instead of flour ones in the recipe. The gluten free varieties tend to fall apart more that flour ones, but it still tastes just as good.
• Make it vegan: it’s super simple! Just use dairy free/vegan cheese instead of the cheddar cheese.

More Tex Mex Recipes

• 4 Bean Vegan Crockpot Chili

Vegetarian Slow Cooker Enchilada Casserole

Created by: Deborah Murphy

Course Entree, Main Dish

Cuisine Vegetarian

Prep Time 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time 4 hours hours

Total Time 4 hours hours 20 minutes minutes

6 servings

Give your oven a break and whip up this vegetarian slow cooker enchilada casserole which is chock full of chopped vegetables layered between cheese and tortillas.

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Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• ▢ 1 (12 oz) can red enchilada sauce
• ▢ 1 (15 oz) can diced fired roasted tomatoes
• ▢ 1/2 onion, chopped
• ▢ 1 bell pepper, chopped
• ▢ 1 zucchini, chopped
• ▢ 1 jalapeno, seeds removed and chopped
• ▢ 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• ▢ 1 (15 oz) can pinto beans, drained
• ▢ 1 cup corn (fresh or frozen)
• ▢ 1/8 teaspoon sea salt
• ▢ 9 (6" round) flour tortillas OR 3 large (10" burrito size tortillas)
• ▢ 8 ounces shredded cheddar cheese

Instructions

• Stir together the enchilada sauce and diced tomatoes in a small bowl and set aside.
• Chop all of your vegetables (onion, zucchini, pepper, jalapeño, garlic) and add them to a large mixing bowl. Add the kidney beans and corn to the bowl as well. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and toss to coat.
• Spread 1/4 cup of the enchilada sauce/tomato mix evenly onto the bottom of your slow cooker. Add one layer of 3 flour tortillas over top. (I was able to set 2 tortillas side by side and then cut the third in half to cover the leftover space.)
• Add 1/2 of the chopped vegetables and 1/4 of the sauce/tomato mixture. Sprinkle with 1/3 of the cheese and then repeat.
• Top with one last layer of tortillas, sauce, and cheese. Poke a few holes into the top tortilla with a knife to let some steam escape or else that top layer will puff up as it cooks.
• Cover with a lid and cook on low for 4 hours.
• Turn to “keep warm” setting until ready to serve.
• Serve with chopped cilantro, hot sauce, and sour cream.

Notes

• ***Note that the tortillas tend to get very soft when making enchiladas like this in the slow cooker, but the recipe still tastes great! If you want to add some more texture, I like to crumble some tortilla chips on top when serving for some crunch.
• Make it gluten free: use gluten free tortillas or corn tortillas instead of flour ones in the recipe. The gluten free varieties tend to fall apart more that flour ones, but it still tastes just as good.
• Make it vegan: it’s super simple! Just use dairy free/vegan cheese instead of the cheddar cheese.

Nutrition

Serving: 1/6 Recipe | Calories: 505kcal | Carbohydrates: 63g | Protein: 22g | Fat: 19g | Saturated Fat: 8.5g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 10.5g | Cholesterol: 39mg | Sodium: 800mg | Fiber: 9g | Sugar: 11.5g

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