This Healthy Mexican Casserole has roasted corn, roasted bell peppers, cheese, enchilada sauce, and corn tortillas. Perfect leftovers for lunches!
Healthy Mexican Casserole with Roasted Corn and Peppers
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I love Mexican food and this. is. perfection. I’ve made it twice now and I’m currently trying to convince my husband that’s it’s all we need to eat forever and ever.
Watch How To Make This Casserole
Reasons Why I Adore This Casserole
A Mexican casserole that’s both healthy AND delicious? Filled with roasted corn and peppers? Yesss.
It is delicious, vegetarian, naturally gluten-free, and loaded with veggies and beans because those are things that are good to have in your life.
This was inspired by one of my favorite meals of all time, a frozen dinner by Amy’s Organic brand. Yeah, yeah, whatever. Judge me for loving frozen food. But I can’t deny the truth which is that those Amy’s Organic Mexican Bowls are delicious and a gift to my life when I don’t have time to make dinner (read: when I don’t have time to make dinner because I’m pages deep in the world’s best memes).
They are a gift and so is this recipe. I hope you fall in love with this Mexican Casserole too!
Ingredients + How To Make This Casserole
We’re layering things up like a lasagna and it’s going to be delicious!
The layers go like this:
- Corn tortillas
- Refried beans
- Roasted peppers and roasted corn
- Enchilada sauce
- Cheese
- And repeat.
It gets pretty full even if you’re using your biggest pan, which I was, so I really only got 1.5 layers jammed in there and baked up to cheesy, veggie perfection.
You might be raising your eyebrows at the mention of the corn tortillas in there, but they actually end up being delicious when completely soaked with enchilada sauce. It just works. If Amy’s can do it, we can, too. Bjork loved this, I loved this, our friend who took some leftovers home loved this, and I super-loved that we all loved it.
Now bake until bubbly, scoop onto plate, top with guac, and devour.
What To Serve With Mexican Casserole
This casserole is a whole meal all on its own, but there are a few options to serve alongside this!
As far as toppings go, I usually like to add some avocado (like that dip) or guacamole, and some Mexican crema on top. Maybe a sprinkle of cilantro, too!
Oh and hey. Guacamole on top is not optional. You must you must you must.
Healthy Mexican Casserole: FAQs
Can I make my own enchilada sauce?
Yes, and that would be soooo good! We have a recipe here.
Can I freeze this and bring it to a friend?
Awww, love this idea! 💛 This totally works – just tell them to thaw before baking. If you need more freezer meal ideas to send to a friend, check out this post.
Is this spicy with the peppers in it?
The bell peppers don’t add any spice, and you’ll get a very minimal kick of heat from the jalapeño. You can always remove the ribs and seeds from the jalapeño if you want to take down the heat more.
Could I add meat to this casserole?
Absolutely. Some shredded chicken could be added as a layer, or some ground beef taco meat would be an excellent addition too.
Healthy Mexican Casserole with Roasted Corn and Peppers
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Yield: 12 servings 1x
Description
This Healthy Mexican Casserole has roasted corn, roasted bell peppers, cheese, enchilada sauce, and corn tortillas. Perfect leftovers for lunches!
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 2 red bell peppers
- 2 green bell peppers
- 1 jalapeno or 2 chipotle peppers (optional – just for more kick)
- 1/2 red onion
- 2 cups frozen corn
- 2 teaspoons chili powder
- 2 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon salt, to taste
- 2 cups Mexican cheese (mine was a Sargento blend)
- 18–20 corn tortillas
- 1 can refried beans
- 2 cups red enchilada sauce
- cilantro, guacamole, or sour cream for topping
Instructions
- Pan-roast the veggies: Dice the peppers and mince the onions. Heat a large nonstick skillet with a little bit of oil over high heat (**note – I used to recommend using no oil, because that’s what worked best for my with my Swiss Diamond nonstick pan, but several readers have ruined their own pans doing that so I am no longer recommending that!). Add the onion and peppers, sprinkle with chili and cumin, and stir, rest, stir, rest until you get a nice browning on the outside of the peppers. Remove and set aside. Repeat the roasting process with the corn, sprinkling with chili and cumin, removing from the heat when browned and roasted on the outside. Sprinkle the roasted veggies with a little bit of salt and toss to coat.
- Prep the ingredients: Grease a 9×13 inch baking pan and preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Cut the tortillas into thin strips. Put the refried beans in a bowl and mix with a little bit of water to make them easier to spread.
- Assemble: Spread a little bit of sauce on the bottom of the pan. Layer in order: half of the tortilla strips, ALL the beans, half of the veggies, half of the sauce, half of the cheese. Cover with the other half of the tortilla strips, veggies, sauce, and cheese.
- Bake: Cover with foil (I usually spray mine with cooking spray) and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the sauce is bubbling and the cheese is melted. Serve with guacamole, fresh cilantro, sour cream, or anything in the world that you want.
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Category: Dinner
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Mexican
Keywords: mexican casserole, healthy casserole, veggie casserole, vegetarian recipe
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Filed Under: All Recipes Avocado Bell Pepper Casserole Dinner Gluten-Free Healthy Jalapeño Legume Main Dishes Sugar-Free Vegetarian Winter
February 24, 2014
Nice to meet you!
I’m Lindsay and I ♡ FOOD. I used to be a teacher, and now making food and writing about it online is my full-time job. I love talking with people about food, and I'm so glad you're here.
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I made this for a potluck substituting orange and yellow peppers for green pepper do to a family preference, DELICOUS!!!!! Other than the green pepper omission everything was just as recipe provided, many many compliments! And easy too!
This was SO GOOD! Unfortunately my pan did get ruined by the vegetables even using oil – no idea what happened! Regardless, will be making again and hoping a new pan doesn’t have the same issue 🙂
Has anyone tried to A symbol this morning of and then stick in the oven Shortly before dinner? Does it result in two soggy of corn tortillas?
Thanks in advance!
WHERE IS THE SELFIE DOG?????????
Recipe would be 5 stars if they had the selfie dogs.
#bringbackselfiedog
Our family did not love this unfortunately. Neither of our kids really touched it, my husband didn’t like it and we ended up throwing it out instead of saving it for leftovers. The tortillas got so soggy, and it was kind of just peppers and corn and cheese. Felt like an incomplete meal maybe?
If making day before, should I pre bake?
Very very good. It is a keeper. Lots of flavor. I think the pan roasting of the veggies adds a lot. I only had orange and red peppers on hand so didn’t use green. I had roasted chiles in my freezer so used those instead of a jalapeno. I got so many compliments! Served it with sour cream and slices avocados. I made the 5-minute red enchilada sauce that is linked to in this recipe. Just my personal taste, I’d use less chili powder and cumin next time. That’s the only reason for 4 stars. And I don’t like cilantro so I left that out. Thanks for the recipe!!
Amazing recipe! My whole family loved it, and so great for leftovers. Thank you!
This was tasty but a bit dry. I will add more enchilada sauce next time. Filling and delicious
I found this recipe of the Mexican casserole. It says that it is gluten-free but I am just finding out but not all of enchilada sauce is a gluten-free can you tell me which one you use this recipe?
Siete Foods has a great enchilada sauce, and it’s gluten free!
Love this recipe! As a household with one gf person and one vegetarian, this is frequently on our rotation and a great dish to bring our new parent friends to stock their freezer.
I wanted to find some recipes that I could make to take to my daughter who just had our first grandbaby. This made 2 8×8 size pans so we get to keep one to ourselves 🙂 Hubby isn’t a fan of green peppers but he just loved this one! I know the kids are going to enjoy this as well as the chicken and wild rice soup of yours (which made a huge batch for us to keep some as well). Thank you for sharing your recipes with us!
looks very tasty
This looks tasty BUT this is NOT Mexican food. There are no Mexican cheese blends, no one in Mexico uses prepared enchilada sauce. Just NO. If you like it, eat it. But this is not not not Mexican food.
This recipe is so delicious and makes a generous portion for leftovers. We make this every few weeks. It’s perfect just as written and also super flexible, sometimes I switch out the peppers, make seasoned ground beef and toss it with pan roasted corn and use that in the ‘veggie’ layer. Yummy!
I just have to tell you I found this recipe while eating that very Amy’s meal. It’s one of my favorites. I was trying to find a way to recreate it at home. It’s just so good. I will definitely try this. thank you!
This tasted really good. But the recipe didn’t state what size tortillas to use. I think mine were too small because I cut up the entire package and it wasn’t really enough for the sauce and veggies.
Next time I make it (and I’ll definitely be making it again), I think I’m skipping the oil for the veggies. I’m not sure how much a “little bit” is, but I used the amount usually required in most recipes: a tablespoon. The veggies got too soggy, which didn’t help the tortillas. And I’ll forget about cutting the tortillas into strips. I’ll just make them the normal enchilada way and put the beans, veggies, and cheese inside and roll them up. Then I know I’ll be good on the right amount of tortillas!
This casserole was very good. I couldn’t find what temperature to bake it at on the directions, so I chose 350 degree Farenheit. I would use less tortillas next time since I thought it was a little too dry. I would make this again.
What size refries? We have tiny to huge cans where we are.
Hi, Lisa! One 16-ounce can works here. Enjoy!
Can I freeze this to cook it later?
Made a version of this tonight….perfect for all the end of summer veggie bounty. Love revisiting the blog post introducing us to memes too 😄
What size tortillas do you use?
We use corn tortillas that are 4-6 inches!
This is delicious and a cinch to make!
Super easy and delicious!! I read the recipe wrong and got carb smart tortillas instead of tortilla chips 😂 but they still turned out really good! I could see them being yummy with other additions too, like olives! Thank you for this recipe!
I have been trying to incorporate more veggie based meals into our rotation and this was exactly what I was looking for! This meal is easy to make and just as delicious as leftovers! We have made this every week since we first tried it. Thank you for the delicious recipe!