bean and vegetable burritos

While I haven’t been strictly vegetarian in a long time, I still hold petty grudges, grudges that I work out here in the form of the dishes I’d have preferred as options, over the mediocrity, the afterthought-ness, of most meatless entrees (gloopy pastas or vegetables cobbled together from sides from other dishes), sandwiches (cheese and sometimes soggy lettuce or tomato), and burritos (so much filler). A recent trip to a Tex-Mex chain left me surprised as not much had changed. And as I chewed down my football-sized wrap that was 80% rice, 15% beans, 5% salsa and cheese, my old resentment came back in full force.Vegetarian entrees,sandwiches, andtacoscan be so much more! Let’s start here.

This is my core recipe for a perfect-every-time vegetable burrito, one that’s filling, hearty, and exactly the way I like it. This means there’s no rice in it, but you can of course add it. You can swap the spinach for another green. You can add vegetables you love and remove those you don’t. It’s totally flexible. Even more essential: You can freeze these for another day! For years, I defrosted and rewarmed burritos in the oven. It often took 45 minutes or more for them to be hot again, at which point it seemed like I could have just made it fresh. Not sure why it took me so long to realize you could warm a frozen burrito in the microwave in 3 to 5 minutes (ahem, or realize that’s why there’s even a market for frozen burritos), but my life has had three times the burritos, and thus joy, since.