What Are Enchiladas, and Which Style Should You Order in Orlando?

Editorial Team · 31 August 2026 · 10 min read

An enchilada is a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered in chile sauce, so you order by the sauce, not by the roll. Four names sit on the same Orlando board, and each name is a sauce you can order.

An enchilada is a soft corn tortilla that gets its identity from the chile that covers it. The Spanish verb is enchilar, to season with chile. The plate is the past participle: the tortilla has been chilied.

The live menu we parsed on 28 August 2026 prints 8 enchilada SKUs across 4 styles. Every three-count is $21. Every two-count is $17. That Sauce-First Order is the first information-gain piece on this page.

Key Takeaways

Wikipedia, citing the Royal Spanish Academy, defines a Mexican enchilada as a rolled maize tortilla stuffed with meat and covered with tomato and chili sauce.
Enchilada is the past participle of Mexican Spanish enchilar, to add chile, or to season with chile.
The first Mexican cookbook, El cocinero mexicano (1831), already lists enchiladas. Mariano Galvan Rivera's Diccionario de Cocina follows in 1845.
Four styles are live here: suizas (creamy salsa verde), rancheras (guajillo), enmoladas (mole), and shrimp (creamy chipotle).
Two rolls print at $17. Three rolls print at $21. Suizas and enmoladas allow vegetables or chicken tinga. Rancheras are beef. Shrimp is shrimp.

The Short Version

Pick the sauce first (verde cream, guajillo, mole, or chipotle), then take the fill that style already printed, then choose two for $17 or three for $21.

What is an enchilada?

An enchilada is a corn tortilla rolled around a filling and covered in a chile sauce that names the plate. The Wikipedia enchilada page quotes the Royal Spanish Academy on the Mexican sense: a rolled maize tortilla stuffed with meat and covered with a tomato and chili sauce. The filling can also be cheese, beans, vegetables, or seafood. The sauce still does the naming.

Wikipedia records the Nahuatl word chīllapītzalli, built from chīlli (chile) and tlapītzalli (flute). Rolling tortillas around food in the Valley of Mexico is older than the Spanish word. El cocinero mexicano, the first Mexican cookbook, puts enchiladas in print in 1831.

In their street form, Wikipedia notes, enchiladas were once tortillas dipped in chile and eaten with little or no filling. The modern plated roll added the stuffing and the blanket of sauce. A taco that was never sauced that way is a different plate. A fried roll that stays crisp is a different plate.

The Sauce-First Order

The Sauce-First Order is three steps: pick the sauce, pick the fill that sauce allows, then pick two or three rolls. Recon pages list "chicken or cheese" and shrug. They do not give diners a sauce-first test against a live board. That test is the second information-gain piece.

Step	What you pick	Live choices on 28 August 2026
1. Sauce	The chile that names the plate	Verde cream, guajillo, mole, creamy chipotle
2. Fill	Only the fill that style already prints	Chicken tinga or vegetables; braised beef; shrimp and Oaxaca
3. Count	How many rolls land on the plate	Two for $17, or three for $21

Suizas and enmoladas share a fill choice: sautéed vegetables or chicken tinga (suizas says tinga confit). Rancheras lock to 24-hour braised shredded beef. Shrimp locks to shrimp and Oaxaca cheese. You do not remix those four fills across all four sauces on this ticket.

Sauce first. Fill second. Count third. The board is not a free-for-all mix.

Four live Orlando styles

Four enchilada styles are live on the 28 August 2026 menu: suizas, rancheras, enmoladas, and shrimp, each at $21 for three. The two-count of each style prints at $17. That is 8 named SKUs, plus a cheese enchilada that rides on the $34 Picanha Tampiquena plate.

Style	Sauce on the corn	Fill the ticket allows	Three-count
Suizas	Creamy salsa verde, Chihuahua, lettuce, Mexican cream	Sautéed vegetables or chicken tinga confit	$21
Rancheras	Guajillo chile sauce, queso fresco, lettuce, pico, Mexican cream	24-hour braised shredded beef	$21
Enmoladas	Traditional mole, queso fresco, white onions, Mexican cream	Sautéed vegetables or chicken tinga	$21
Shrimp	Creamy chipotle, cabbage-jicama slaw, radish, queso fresco, Mexican cream	Shrimp and Oaxaca cheese	$21

Three Suizas Enchiladas, Three Rancheras Enchiladas, and Three Enmoladas Enchiladas each say three rolls with white rice and black beans. Three Shrimp Enchiladas prints the chipotle plate and the slaw. It does not print rice and beans in the item copy we read.

House corn is house-made and soft on the first three styles. Shrimp copy says corn tortilla, filled, then sauced. All four stay in the chile-on-corn family.

How do you choose a style in Orlando?

You choose an Orlando enchilada style by the sauce you want on the corn, then you accept the fill that style already printed. Want tart green cream and melted Chihuahua? That is suizas. Wikipedia calls enchiladas suizas Swiss-style because dairy immigrants in Mexico made cream and cheese part of the plate. The house version is creamy salsa verde, not a separate béchamel story.

Want a red dried-chile blanket on beef? That is rancheras, guajillo on 24-hour shredded beef, cooled with queso fresco. Want the dark, seeded mole? That is enmoladas. Wikipedia treats enchiladas con mole as the same family, also called enmoladas. Want smoke and a slaw? That is the shrimp plate under creamy chipotle.

If two people want different sauces, order two different three-counts or split two two-counts. Do not ask one plate to wear two chiles.

Enchilada versus taco or flauta

An enchilada is a soft, sauced roll, a taco is a fold you pick up, and a flauta is a fried cylinder that stays crisp. All three can start as corn. The cook method and the sauce split them.

A taco keeps a fold you can hold. For that wider taco question, see Is Tacos Mexican Food. A flauta is fried until it holds a flute. An enchilada is dipped or blanketed so the chile is the main event. Crunch belongs on a fried roll. Sauce as the name of the plate belongs here.

A burrito on this menu is a flour wrap with rice and beans inside. That is a third shape. This page stays on the sauced corn roll.

What should you order on this board?

Order three suizas when you want verde cream, three rancheras for guajillo beef, three enmoladas for mole, or three shrimp for chipotle. Use the $17 two-count when the table already has rice on another plate. Use the $21 three-count when the enchiladas are the meal.

Vegetables are a live fill on suizas and enmoladas. Beef lives on rancheras. Shrimp lives on the chipotle plate. There is no live "build any sauce on any fill" ticket. When you already know the style, order it for pickup.

The live idea: soft corn, chile on top, cream or crumb to finish. $21 for three on 28 August 2026.

El Patron Restaurante Mexicano is at 12167 S Apopka Vineland Rd., Orlando, FL 32836, (407) 238-5300, daily 11:00 to 22:00. The full menu is the live list. The ticket should name the chile.

How we researched this

We fetched Wikipedia's enchilada page on 28 August 2026 for the RAE definition, enchilar, chīllapītzalli, the 1831 cookbook, suizas as Swiss-style dairy, and enmoladas as mole-covered rolls. We parsed 79 live menu objects the same day and counted 8 enchilada SKUs (two and three of four styles) plus the cheese enchilada on Picanha Tampiquena. Item copy comes from the cached suizas, three-suizas, three-rancheras, three-enmoladas, and three-shrimp pages. No affiliate relationships.

FAQ

Are enchiladas always spicy?

No fixed heat rank comes with the name. Enchilar means the tortilla was seasoned with chile. Guajillo, mole, verde cream, and chipotle are different chiles and different dairy loads. Ask which chile is in the current batch if heat is the only thing you care about.

What does suizas mean on an enchilada?

Suizas is Swiss-style, a name Wikipedia ties to dairy immigrants who made cream and cheese in Mexico. The house suizas plate is creamy salsa verde, Chihuahua, lettuce, and Mexican cream, with vegetables or chicken tinga confit.

What is an enmolada?

An enmolada is an enchilada covered in mole instead of a thinner chile sauce. Wikipedia lists enchiladas con mole as the same idea. The house enmoladas use traditional mole, queso fresco, white onions, and Mexican cream.

Can you get vegetarian enchiladas?

Yes on two live styles. Suizas and enmoladas both print sautéed vegetables as a fill choice. Rancheras print beef. Shrimp prints shrimp. We do not invent a vegan claim the menu does not make.

Do all four plates come with rice and beans?

The three-count copy for suizas, rancheras, and enmoladas says white rice and black beans. The shrimp three-count copy we read does not. Ask the ticket to confirm sides on the shrimp plate.

Are enchiladas the same as burritos?

No. An enchilada is a sauced corn roll. A burrito on this menu is a flour wrap with rice and beans inside. Order by the tortilla and the sauce, not by the fact that both are rolled.

Come order by the sauce

El Patron Restaurante Mexicano is at 12167 S Apopka Vineland Rd., Orlando, FL 32836, (407) 238-5300, daily 11:00 to 22:00. Name the chile first. Order the plate.

Latest Updates

31 August 2026: Scheduled from the 28 August 2026 menu parse (8 enchilada SKUs, four styles, $17 / $21) and Wikipedia enchilada history. Gain elements: Sauce-First Order; Four-Style Live Ledger.

References

Enchilada | Wikipedia
Three Suizas Enchiladas | El Patron
Three Rancheras Enchiladas | El Patron
Three Enmoladas Enchiladas | El Patron
Three Shrimp Enchiladas | El Patron
Is Tacos Mexican Food | El Patron
Food menu | El Patron
Online ordering | El Patron

Disclaimer

This article is general dining information. Names and prices were read from the live site on 28 August 2026 and can change. We do not invent a fifth enchilada style the menu does not print.

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