Ever make more tortillas than you use and have a handful that you just don’t want to throw away?
This is your recipe to reuse a dry old tortilla and make something succulent out of it.

Use old dry tortillas that would have been tossed. The trick is to cut them after your meal when you know they would just be tossed anyway. That way, they are still pliable. Even if you don’t do this trick, you can still crack them up and use them that way. No harm, no foul, it’s all food!

Now, to pronounce the word… Chee-la-KEY-Lays.
But because we like to play with words here, the kids call them Chill-la-KILL-lays. Ugh, you slay me, kiddo. Moving on. Speaking of which, I have two hands in these photos, meaning I had a photographer helping me, likely Lydia, my oldest. She knew what I was doing and was rather saddened by the idea that she was going to have to eat this sometime. Buahahaha!

Cut into one inch strips.  More or less. (More on one side, less on the top.)

Cut across the slices.

This looks good. Each piece is bite sized and will be fried. My mouth is watering just thinking about eating it.

These tortillas were prepared about three weeks ago and kept in cool dark storage.

Onions sliced. I used a half a medium sized onion.

Oil is hot, medium temperature, so the onions go in once the tomatoes are prepped. I have carmelized them, which isn’t the right dish.

Like this.

I added more salt and the consistency needed a bit more liquid, but since I was short on tomatoes, I opened a can of diced tomatoes and blended up a cup. I also like to add cumin or garlic. But garlic fried turns a dark ugly brown and is easy to see in the food.

A way to get around that would be to saute the garlic and pull it out so that it is just flavoring the oil.
You can also add Chile de arbol, a flavorful, yet spicy chili pod. Yes! Chiles can be flavor enhancers without burning the tongue. I prefer Chile de Arbol just for that reason. Since my kids don’t care for the kick and I want them to want to eat chilaquiles, I don’t add any at all. Bah.

Eggs cooked to your preference. Scrambled, fried, over easy, over hard.

Added to the top of these chilaquiles is shredded Parmesan cheese. Two of my kids think it’s torture to eat these, the youngest one takes their shares. She eats them with me for lunch, too. I should tease them and tell them that they aren’t really Mexican if they don’t eat Chilaquiles.