Hearty Turkey, Quinoa And Bean Burrito Recipe

Hearty Turkey, Quinoa And Bean Burrito Recipe

Ingredients

1 c. quinoa + 2 c. Water
1-1.5 lbs. ground turkey
1 lg. yam
1 (8 oz) brick of Muenster Cheese
1-2 jalapenos
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can black beans
7(approx.) mini portabella mushrooms
A bit of butter

Step One: Prepare The Parts

This is a simple enough burrito recipe that tastes incredible, is cost-efficient and is reasonably healthy! My approach to burritos is always similar but staple ingredients may change. To me, the one constant is the quinoa. It is the healthiest part of the entire dish, is an excellent filler and honestly I like it quite a bit more than rice. To begin, first prepare all the stuff:

Quinoa – Take a cup of quinoa and rinse it really well as it has a natural coating that is bitter that you need to wash off. Bring 2 cups of water with your quinoa to a boil, then turn down and simmer for 20 min covered. The timing is approximate, just wait for the water to be soaked up and you’re good. Use a fork to fluff, stir and check on the quinoa most of the way through cooking it to be sure you don’t over do it! Watch that it doesn’t stick to the bottom!

Meat – For this burrito recipe I used about 1.3lbs of Turkey Meat. I like to generally season the meat to account for the overall flavor (on a veggie dish I’d likely season the yams). This one was my typical seasoning of onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper and a hint of cayenne. I’m used to using these spices so I do it all without measuring. To me, you almost can’t have enough onion and garlic powder, however, salt, pepper and spicy pepper spices are hard to come back from if you overdo them so a good rule is to take it as easy as you can. You always add more after it’s done!

Yam – Take your sweet potato and cut it thinly then dice in chunks. You don’t want huge pieces, but they don’t have to be super tiny either. I like to melt a small amount of butter with a bit of olive oil in a pan over medium/high heat and brown them. They are ready when the thickest one is cooked through.

Now I have a massive frying pan that fits a ton of stuff in it so, having made the turkey in this pan, I simply added the cans of beans and tomatoes as well as the package of mini portabella mushrooms,, sliced, and cooked it all on medium-high just enough to get everything hot. If you feel like things are getting dry, you can add a bit of water at any time but be sure to not make the mixture too wet or “juicy”. Nobody likes a wet and sloppy burrito! Next, add your chopped jalapenos and browned yams. At this point I would suggest grabbing a large bowl or two and combining all of this with the quinoa. My frying pan is that large that I could add the quinoa straight to it and had just enough space to stir it without making an absolute mess. 

Step Two: Make the parts work together

From here you basically have to wrap the burritos. I like to pull out a flat oven pan to work on. I take two thin slices of cheese and place them side to side across, put two reasonable scoops of our burrito filling in and wrap it up. Before the final steps I like to wrap them all up first. This frees up my frying pan but also lets me clean up while I’m finishing the burritos off. If you are unsure of how to wrap a burrito, check out this post from the Food Network!

Once it’s all wrapped up, the last thing to do is get the frying pan warm with a bit of butter (again for flavor) and gently brown all sides of your burrito. This is the hardest step as it’s really easy for the heat to get away from you and the burritos end up burning. If you sense any smoke, you’re in trouble and need to turn it down. Finally, while fresh off the pan I like to lightly salt them on the outside for that extra flavor touch!

Closing Thoughts

It’s up to you how much butter you use, but you certainly don’t need to use a lot. You can cut it out of the yams but I do recommend it for the finishing step. Nothing like the taste of butter and salt hitting you every time you take a bite! You can also opt to cut back on the cheese but I’m no monster! Once cool I like to wrap them in foil and freeze whatever I don’t eat within the first few days. They reheat very well, especially in an air-fryer, but the microwave and oven work as well.

Outside of that, this burrito recipe makes for an incredibly delicious and reasonably healthy dish! Its fairly simple to make, but the preparation of the ingredients makes it a bit time consuming. Just remember you are making multiple meals and save a lot of time on the other end of things. When I cook or bake I throw on some music or football and forget about time for a while. It truly is a fun experience when you actually commit to cooking, make an event of it and take what time you need. In the long run, you will have saved money, time and have a healthy, nutritious grab-and-go meal with elite flavor!

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