Sunday, August 17, 2014

Homemade Yummy Refried Bean Enchiladas Recipe- Vegan, Gluten Free Options

I decided that I'd be making vegan food tonight for supper, and wanted to change it up from the lentils I've been making a lot lately when I decide to cook vegan. In my freezer, I had frozen cooked kidney beans, which I cooked in large batches and froze in can sized portions.
My kids are not bean fans, and I'll be honest, beans aren't my favorite food either... but my wallet loves them, so I decided to try to make them into a fun and tasty dish, that would be so flavorful and appealing that you'd forget that it's made with beans instead of meat.
Enter enchiladas.
Awesome filled tortillas, baked with a delicious sauce and cheese..
Typically filled with gluten, dairy, and meat. Though I figured out how to make them with egg in place of the gluten. And then discovered that egg makes me sick.

So, this is how I made my gluten free, vegan enchiladas.
They're pretty versatile.
And of course, while I made mine entirely from scratch and gluten free and vegan, you don't have to make yours vegan if you don't want to. And you don't have to make them gluten free if you don't want to.
It's just a general idea more than an exact/precise recipe.

Homemade Yummy Enchiladas Recipe- Vegan, Gluten Free Options

Ingredients
Tortillas- I used my homemade buckwheat tortillas/chapatis but you an also use homemade wheat tortillas or store bought tortillas, either gluten free or not.
Refried beans- I made mine by sauteing onion and garlic with salt, cumin, and corriander, then adding the cooked kidney beans, mashing/blending it up, and adjusting the seasonings to taste. You can make this also with navy or pinto beans, or use store bought refried beans. Or you can always just fill your enchiladas with meat instead...
Veggies- I put in canned corn, and in some I added sauteed peppers, and in others purslane that I foraged and chopped tomatoes, but feel free to get creative. You can add all or some of what I added, or zucchini or mushrooms or green beans, or cactus paddles, or greens, etc...
Enchilada sauce- I used homemade enchilada sauce made with homemade chili powder (but I left out most of the cayenne pepper in my chili powder since I wanted my kids to eat the food and not claim it was too spicy), but you can also use store bought enchilada sauce.
Vegan cheese sauce- I used this vegan cheese sauce recipe but you could also use this one or this one. Alternatively, you can use store bought vegan cheese, like Daiya, or if you don't need this to be dairy free, you can use just store bought cheddar or other type of cheese.

Instructions:
1. Either cook or warm your tortillas.

2. Fill your tortillas with your refried beans (or meat) and veggies. Roll them up, and place them seam side down into a baking dish.

3. Once you finished rolling all your tortillas and placing them in your dish, slather the entire thing with enchilada sauce.

4. Either spread vegan cheese sauce or sprinkle cheese all over the enchilada sauce.

5. Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes or so, or until it is all bubbling and starting to brown.

6. You can either remove each enchilada separately from the pan and serve that way, or you can just cut the whole thing up with a knife... I just did it that way...

Enjoy!

For my family, I ended up making 6 tortillas filled with roughly 1 1/2 cups refried beans and a cup or two of veggies. I topped the batch with one batch of enchilada sauce and one batch of vegan cheese sauce.

Have you ever had enchiladas? How do you make yours? Does this look like something you'd try? Which version?

Linking up to Real Food Wednesday and Allergy Free Wednesday.

4 comments:

  1. This sounds delicious! I will say it bugs me to see corn under "Veggies" ;) but I love the idea of throwing in whatever we have on hand!

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  2. Isn't corn a vegetable? I suppose it is a grain however as is it prepared and eaten as a vegetable that is the category that most people put it in, it looks like there is some debate over it.

    Instead of cheese sauce maybe just plain white sauce could be used, that is what I use in lasagna.

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  3. White sauce is a good idea; I'll try that next time.

    We eat enchiladas pretty often, once a month maybe. They're basically "bad for you" enchiladas, but they're so good. It's from Taste of Home, the beef enchiladas with canned soup. (I'd link, but there are lots of pop-ups.)

    Yeah, I know. But they're soooo gooood. With homemade tortillas and homemade white sauce instead of cream of mushroom soup, that makes them better, right?

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  4. i love these! do they fresze well? x

    ReplyDelete

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