These creamy mushroom enchiladas will take you by surprise! The easy filling can be made with any kind of mushroom, with mascarpone and tarragon to give it an amazing sweet creamy taste. These can be an easy weeknight dinner if you have a prepared enchilada sauce, and the recipe can be customized in so many ways to make it work perfectly for you.
If you are looking for some new ways with mushrooms, you’re in the right place! We are making enchiladas with them. Specifically, we are cooking them with tarragon, garlic and mascarpone to make a very luxurious creamy, sweet filling for our enchiladas.
I love having that slightly sweet finish to my enchilada fillings. Before these, my favorite ever enchiladas were these Cheese & Caramelized Onion Enchiladas which have that same creamy sweet note about them. I love how a sweet creamy filling contrasts with the deeper smokiness of a red enchilada sauce.
These mushroom enchiladas are surprisingly easy
So, enchiladas are never easy easy. There are always multiple steps, multiple components, usually multiple pans. But I found these relatively simple to make because the filling comes together in one pan, in about 15 minutes.
You’ll simply saute the mushrooms before adding the tarragon, mascarpone and feta cheese into the pan. It comes together perfectly.
So if you use a premade sauce, there aren’t a whole lot of ingredients either. Homemade enchilada sauce is a dream, but it’s usually what tips enchiladas into a full-on weekend project. Using premade makes this more feasible for a weeknight.
There’s a full printable recipe card coming your way, but this is the gist of it:
Ingredient Notes
The right ingredients will make or break this recipe so let’s discuss.
- Mushrooms: you can use whatever mushrooms you like best, or have to hand. As a guide, the darker mushrooms (portobellos, criminis, chestnuts) are more flavorful than the white and button mushrooms, but it can work with those too! For this recipe I used some portobellos and some mixed mushrooms that included shiitakes and oyster mushrooms. You really don’t need the fancy ones though.
- Dried tarragon: a whole tablespoon of it! If you want to use fresh, you can swap that in, but since it’s less potent you’ll want more. Try 3 tablespoons.
- Mascarpone: can’t be beaten for luxurious creamy sweet vibes. If you want to swap in cream cheese, feel free. It’s not exactly the same – a little less fatty, a little more tangy – but it will still turn out well.
- Feta, cotija or queso fresco: Since Mexican cheeses are hard to find in my part of the world, I use feta, but in this recipe I like the cheaper fetas or generic “salad cheese” blocks because they are a little milder and less salty / tangy.
- Red onion could easily be swapped for vidalia onion or shallots.
- Red enchilada sauce: While this will always be its best self with a homemade roux sauce (I recommend this recipe), a good pre-made sauce will do the job very nicely too. Ideally you want something smoky. I enjoyed Potts’ brand with this.
- Corn tortillas: You definitely want to use corn and not flour tortillas for this. So much tastier.
A couple variation ideas
- Adding spinach would always be a great idea – just stir in a couple handfuls of baby spinach along with the mascarpone and let it wilt.
- If you’d rather not use tarragon, try leaning into fresh summery flavors instead and add lime zest, chopped green chili and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro (coriander) instead.
Creamy Mushroom Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 6-8 corn tortillas, see notes
- 2 Tbsp olive oil, for cooking
- 1 small red onion, thinly sliced
- 500 g (1.2 lb) mushrooms , destemmed and chopped – see notes
- 1 Tbsp dried tarragon, or 3 Tbsp fresh
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 Tbsp mascarpone cheese
- 35 g (⅓ cup) feta, cotija or queso fresco cheese, crumbled (+more for topping)
- 100 g (100 g) grated mozzarella
- 1 portion enchilada sauce
- 1 handful chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)
- Optional toppings: avocado or guacamole, sour cream, chili slices, lime wedges
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200C /400F.
- In a large, deep saucepan, heat a couple tablespoons of olive oil and saute your onion slices on a medium heat until soft and starting to brown.1 small red onion, 2 Tbsp olive oil
- Now cook the mushrooms. If you're using a normal sized large frying pan, you will want to do this in two batches to avoid overcrowding the pan. So cook half the mushrooms with the onions, then pour them into a bowl, quickly cook the rest of the mushrooms and then add the first batch back into the pan. (If you're using an extra large pan and feel you can fit all your mushrooms in at once, go for it.) Deglaze the pan with water or white wine if things are sticking.500 g mushrooms
- Add the garlic and tarragon. Cook until fragrant, just a minute or so, and then remove from the heat.3 cloves garlic, 1 Tbsp dried tarragon
- Add the mascarpone to the pan, stir through to melt.3 Tbsp mascarpone cheese
- Finally, add the crumbled feta and mix until just combined (we're not trying to get the feta to melt, we want it to stay a little chunky).35 g feta, cotija or queso fresco cheese
- Now spoon the filling into the corn tortillas, and roll them up.6-8 corn tortillas
- Pour a little bit of the enchilada sauce on the bottom of a casserole pan (only enough to cover the bottom – no more) and place your rolled enchiladas on top, folded side down.1 portion enchilada sauce
- Cover with the remaining sauce.
- Sprinkle the grated mozzarella on top.100 g grated mozzarella
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, uncovered, until the cheese is browned to your liking.
- Add a little more crumbled feta, the chopped coriander (cilantro) and any other toppings you're using.Optional toppings: avocado or guacamole, sour cream, chili slices, lime wedges, 1 handful chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)
Lovely recipe!! Thank you for sharing 🙂
While mushroom enchiladas are a good thing, mascarpone, feta, and mozzarella belong nowhere near enchiladas. Use a Oaxaca or Jack cheese if you want something melty, and feta is NOT interchangeable with cotija or queso fresco. Also, what is a “portion” of enchilada sauce? Unfortunately, this recipe ended up very, very bland, as it’s completely lacking in seasoning for the mushrooms (not sure why an anise-scented herb would be in this instead of chili, cumin, etc.?). We gave it some kick with our homemade enchilada sauce and extra cotija on the outside, but the insides were super disappointing.
I’m really sorry you didn’t enjoy this recipe. But as to your other points – and I do usually mention this in the post of any Mexican inspired recipe I publish but in this one I seem to have left it out – please understand that Mexican cheeses are not widely available outside of the Americas. Jack cheese is a US product that is not exported either. I live in Scotland and I have readers in America, Australia, New Zealand, and all over Europe. European cheeses tend to be available worldwide so it is a useful way to make a recipe universal, with people being able to swap in the legit Mexican cheeses if they have them. Mexican tarragon is a thing (though I used normal French tarragon) so it’s not completely random, the filling was actually inspired by a Thomasina Miers spring tacos recipe. She is a British chef who lived in Mexico, and has books and restaurants in the UK – her take on the cuisine tends not to be the same as the US interpretation of Mexican food but to me, it’s all delicious. I try to make it clear that none of my world cuisine recipes are trying to be authentic, the category is “Mexican Inspired” not “Mexican”. I just try to make things that I like, with what I have available. For me the contrast between the sweet creamy tarragon filling and the smoky chili heavy red enchilada sauce was really good but I am sorry it didn’t work for you.