Feb 27

Beef and Black Bean Enchiladas

Name: Beef Enchiladas
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: Mexican
Ingredients: 1 28oz tin of San Marzano Tomatoes; 2 tbs. Tomato Paste; 1 cup of Chicken Stock; 2 tsp. Garlic Powder; 2 tbs Chipotle Peppers in Adobo Sauce. - adjust to your liking (this ingredient is spicy! - I use one very small pepper (about the size of a strawberry) and a tablespoon of the adobo sauce.; 1 tsp Ground Cumin; 1/4 tsp. of Salt; Black Pepper to taste; 2 lbs Lean Ground Beef; 3 tbs Homemade Taco Seasoning (*See notes); 1 19 oz tin of Black Beans - drained and rinsed; 10 - 6ʺ Flour Tortillas; 2 cups Shredded Marble Cheese; 1 cup Diced Tomatoes or Cherry Tomatoes - quartered; 3 Green Onions, cut on the diagonal; Cilantro; Sour Cream; Additional toppings as you like - Diced Avocado, Jalapenos, Salsa Verde

Comfort Food with the Heat and Gooiness to Satisfy Your Cravings

A Serving of Beef and Black Been Enchiladas — Beef and Black Been Enchiladas

Anything with ground beef, melted cheese, and some Mexican-inspired heat is a hit in our house.

I don’t make enchiladas often because it’s so much easier to let everyone decide for themselves what they want layered into a tortilla. Still, when I want something gooey and comforting and ready-made without the lineup for taco sauce and sour cream, this is the recipe I turn to.

Enchiladas are flour or corn tortillas filled with well-seasoned meat and/or veggies. The filled tortillas are laid into a baking pan and drowned in a rich and flavourful sauce with the best little spice hit. Everything bakes together in the oven. The tortillas soak up the sauce: at the end, a layer of cheese melts over everything, sealing in all the umptuousness.

Yes, I’m drooling a little.

Some people like to stop at the cheese and serve with a simple dollop of sour cream. I prefer to add a few veggies to the top of these Beef and Black Bean Enchiladas for a colourful presentation and an effort to put more vegetables onto plates in our house.

Beef Filling

Keep it simple. I want a quick meal without all the fuss of chopping and mincing onions and garlic, so I saute ground beef with our homemade taco seasoning blend. I add a can of black beans and a cup of the enchilada sauce to the cooked meat and pulse about ½ of the mixture with an immersion blender. This sounds weird, but it lends a great texture to the ground beef that holds together in the tortillas as they bake. Getting some of the sauce into the beef mixture is also a significant flavour boost. Making the beef this way is also great for tacos - it keeps the taco meat in place.

Tortillas

Use corn or flour tortillas. I like flour tortillas. One, because I don’t like corn tortillas, but the flour tortillas also soak up the sauce beautifully. Some recipes call for large 10” tortillas. The smaller 6” size are easier to manage and nestle into the baking pan. The smaller size is good for smaller appetites as well. Big eaters can still come back for seconds and thirds, but a smaller eater - like me, can enjoy an entire enchilada instead of cutting a big one in half.

The Sauce

This sauce is so easy you’ll wonder why anyone would buy it ready-made. San Marzano tomatoes impart a strong tomato flavour, and the added tomato paste boosts the sauce's richness. Heat comes from the addition of Chipotle peppers packed in adobo sauce. Adobe is hot stuff, and so are the chipotle peppers! Dial in the heat to your liking. One small pepper and a spoonful of sauce is plenty hot. Use less if you aren’t a heat fan; add more if you are a fire breather.

Make the sauce ahead and store it in the fridge for up to 5 days if you like.