Layered Grilled Burritos - A Recipe

Does that title whet your appetite? Feeling hungry now? Sounding pretty tasty?

Oh. These burritos are tasty. Better yet... they freeze and microwave well. Can you say "make a bunch up front... save what you have left over for easy meals later"?

Definitely had one such burrito for lunch today.


So... basically... what I do is get my ingredients together.

Core ingredients:
Large tortilla shells.
Can of refried beans.
Can of thick chili (big fan of Nalley's Thick).
Shredded cheese.
Cooked white rice.
Seasonings and sauces.


First things first... get yourself a bunch of white rice cooked up. Don't care if you use the instant stuff or cook it in a steamer and put it in the fridge overnight (supposedly the better way to go). Making the rice good for this project is the most time consuming part, so it's best to do it first.

Once you have fully-cooked white rice... it's time to turn it into zesty rice well suited for burritos. This is one of those times when I have no particular system or measurements in place. I just dig through the kitchen to find what sounds good. Last time I made it, if I recall, I used a little diced up bell pepper, a couple of pepper sauces (jalapeno with some chipotle and maybe some hints of habanero), some miscellaneous spices, and... perhaps the most useful thing... this magic prepackaged taco seasoning usually used with ground beef.

Once you pick a desirable blend of spices and sauces, get out a large pan, heat it up... add a little vegetable oil. Once it's heated, throw your rice and sauces in. Also, add in your spices. If you go with a lot of spices (or the taco seasoning) route... add a little water in to the pan to get the spices absorbed (you'll be cooking the water out in the long run, so don't worry about that). So. Basically. Cook until the flavors have had a chance to get into the rice. Mess with it until it tastes good.

Finally... we can move on. The rest is straight forward. Use a microwave to heat up your refried beans and chili. You don't need 'em hot... just warm since you're gonna be cooking them again in the completed package... they're just easier to deal with while warm. Likewise, heat up your tortilla shells enough to make them malleable.

Once your ingredients are all ready for being put together... do the obvious... put the burritos together. Layer of rice, layer of beans, layer of chili, layer of cheese. The trick here is to not overstuff. You want to be able to wrap these entirely closed since you will be grilling them. It's better in this case to make a lot of smaller burritos than a few big ones.

Just in case you need help with the wrapping of the burrito... looking down on the shell... fold the north side over the contents, and squeeze the content back tightly... fold the west and east sides over the top... then roll the burrito into the south side. The goal is to have the contents completely contained.

Get your large pan back out. Add some fresh vegetable oil. Drop however many burritos you can fit into your pan at once into it. Let them cook on that side until golden brown... then flip 'em over until browned on the other side.

Just keep doing this until you run out of contents or shells. I recommend adding vegetable oil between every batch of burritos to keep the browning nicely.

What can I say? When I cook, I figure it's worth the extra little bit of time to make it look good in addition to tasting good.


And there you have it. Layered grilled burritos. Nothing too terribly complex, but still very tasty. Enjoy!