Tamale pie is a magical casserole with layers of a sweet cornbread with a savoury sauce and plenty of creamy melted cheese that I find irresistible! When I made the Mexican shredded beef I made extra so that I could use some in a tamale pie and when combined with a tasty homemade enchilada sauce it makes for the perfect savoury sauce layer! You can easily bulk this sauce up with the addition of beans and or veggies but I like to keep it simple, and meaty! The cornbread layer of the tamale pie is typically the top layer but I enjoy using it as the bottom layer so that I can top everything off with melted cheese! Given that my sauce layer is pretty much just meat and enchilada sauce I serve this Mexican shredded beef tamale pie topped with fresh pico de gallo and guacamole making for a complete and tasty meal!
Mexican Shredded Beef Tamale Pie
Moist and tender sweet cornbread topped with mouth-watering shredded beef and enchilada sauce all smothered in plenty of gooey gooey melted cheese!
ingredients
- 2/3 cup all-purpose flour (gluten-free for gluten-free)
- 2/3 cup cornmeal
- 3 tablespoons sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1 egg
- 1 (14 ounce) can creamed corn
- 1 1/2 cups enchilada sauce
- 1 1/2 cups mexican shredded beef or beef barbacoa
- 1 1/2 cups cheese (such as cheddar, Monterey jack, etc.), shredded
- 1 tablespoon cilantro, chopped
For the cornbread:
For the tamale pie:
directions
- Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking powder before mixing in the mixture of the oil, milk and egg followed by the corn.
- Pour the mixture into a greased baking pan (an 8 inch square pan or a 9 inch circular pan), and bake in a preheated 400F/200C oven until a toothpick pushed into the centre comes out clean, about 20 minutes.
- Poke holes in the top of the cornbread, spread 1/2 cup of the enchilada sauce over the top.
- Mix the remaining enchilada sauce into the meat and sprinkle over the cornbread followed by the cheese.
- Bake in preheated 350F/180C oven until the sides are bubbling and the cheese has melted, about 15 minutes before garnishing with cilantro and enjoying.
For the cornbread:
For the tamale pie:
Option: Replace the oil with bacon grease!
Option: Use your favourite homemade or store-bought enchilada sauce.
Option: Use shredded/pulled chicken, pork or beef or leftover carnitas, chicken carnitas, cochinita pibil, etc.
Option: serve topped with pico de gallo, guacamole, sour cream, etc.
"Mix the flour, cornmeal, sugar, salt and baking meowed before mixing in the mixture of the oil, milk and egg followed by the corn" Step 1 … meowed is a really weird typo hahaha
I love that your recipes are very tasty but not complicated. Really like it when you give the Nutrition Facts. Thanks for your posts
I made this last night and have a couple comments – first I made it in a 10" cast iron which worked perfect. Overall the recipe worked well, but I'd recommend people consider how sweet they want their cornbread and if it will match the enchilada sauce they're using. I made your recipe for the Mexican shredded beef which was very good, but used a different sauce and my family found the bread was too sweet and the flavor combination disjointed. I think I'd just not add the corn at all if I made it again, which would probably require replacing some of that liquid with more milk or water but I think it would taste better without it. In general I love your recipes, thanks!
Like the last poster said, I reduced the sugar to 2T but I could have even gone lower. I had no creamed corn and so I roasted some green peppers over a flame and chopped up 200g of them and put them in as a replacement and it came out well. I have my own shredded beef and enchilada sauce recipes that I always use so I used those but I liked this better than standard tamale pie with the crust on top. I will do it again and may also try your sauce and beef recipes sometime.
I tried this again this year and reduced the sugar to 1TB and it STILL was too sweet. Next time I will leave it out. I tried your beef too but I would stick with my own recipe or try chicken next time instead.
I tried chicken this year, and it was terrible. I will stick to beef and no sugar in the cornbread.
I’m going to make beef red chili tamales. And I keep forgetting about my slow cooker for the meat. because I can prepare the meat the day before and get to slapping masa the next day. It would go so quickly and they would free me of time, like I’ve been cooking all day in a short amount of time I plan on making double the batch adding more meat to the crockpot with the red chili so it would’nt be watery.