These easy, delicious and healthy beef burritos are as light as a burrito can ever be. I use good quality aromatic beef, a refreshing, full of vitamins pico de gallo and just a little rice and black beans.
The Unfortunate Mexican Food Prejudice
I feel that in Europe Mexican food is just now starting to become a trend. Because Mexican food is often confused with Tex-Mex (its American fast food style half-brother), I think many Europeans have developed prejudices against it.
The American (not-so-much-a-) dream
The words ‘light’ and ‘healthy’ have never words that I ever associated with something like burritos. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always known burritos to be… these fat rolls where some sauce is always dripping, full of tasteless iceberg lettuce that keeps falling off with every bite. I’ve always known burritos to be full of poor quality cheddar cheese, and an overload of carbs: the tortilla, a thick layer of rice that makes up for the lack of actual meat, and then, to cap it all, a layer of beans in case everything else would not fill you up from the first bite.
Less is definitely more
That is how America has promoted burritos since the dawn of Tex-Mex. Fortunately, real Mexicans will prove you wrong: it’s not about making the burrito large and adding a whole load of toppings! A great Mexican burrito will use few, great ingredients to make an easy and utterly delicious dish!
My burrito initiation
Because I never had the chance to travel to Mexico, I gave in and had my first take-away burrito not so long ago from Taquito, a place that a friend of mine had recommended a good couple of times. Not so American (as described above) but still fast-foody. The burrito from Taquito was very good, but still rather full of unnecessary ingredients that kind of eclipsed the delicious meat that they add to their dishes.
Homemade is always better
Don’t get me wrong, the food from Taquito is very good, but it’s take-away good: great when you’re on your way home from a party (and probably a tad inebriated), great when you’ve been outside the whole day, are starving and know you’ve got absolutely nothing in your fridge. But when it came to me making homemade burritos, I had to lose about half of the ingredients. Firstly I got rid of the cheese. Then the whole portion of beans on top of a whole portion of rice had to go. I mean, guys, that’s as much rice as I would have with a curry or so!
I took my marinade inspiration from carne asada recipes, made my own fresh pico de gallo, and only sprinkled some black beans into the rice to make it more exciting. Ok, ok, enough. Here is the recipe!
The recipe
These easy, delicious and healthy beef burritos are made with quality aromatic beef, a refreshing pico de gallo and just a little rice and black beans.
First of all prepare the meat marinade by mixing all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl. Once ready, marinate for at least 20 minutes in the fridge. (For the best aromas, marinate the meat overnight.)
Once marinated, cook the meat in a non-stick pan for about 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Stir it from time to time, making sure that it gets done on all sides. As a tip, once cooked, it should still be fairly juicy.
For the pico de gallo, mix all the ingredients together.
Mix the rice and beans.
Finally, assemble the burritos. Place the rice with beans in the centre of the tortillas, add meat, pico de gallo and fold. In recipe’s notes you can find a link to learn how to wrap the burrito like a pro.
Here is a guide that will show you how to wrap the burrito like a pro.
Enjoy!
Love, happyholism and nom-nom,
Ioana
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