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What's For Dinner? v19.35 Smothered Baked Burritos [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-03-01

I make no claim that this is authentic or traditional. I learned it from my daughter, who lived in Texas and New Mexico and has worked at multiple restaurants. She was married at a ranch in the Texas Hill Country, and her husband told us that a lot of the food we think of as Mexican is really Tex-Mex. I’m not sure about the distinction between those terms and I welcome an explanation by someone who understands it better than I do.

We live in an area with a great many Mexican restaurants, and enjoy the variety, whatever it’s called. When the first item on the dinner page is called “The Gringo,” and there’s a “help-yourself-to-peppers-and-sauces” bar in the dining area, you probably wanna read the labels on said peppers very carefully. The good places let you order your meal at different spice levels — mild, medium, or hot.

Anyway, the kids make this version of burritos, we like it and I wrote it down for the first time the day I took these pictures. We’ve been making it for years. My family, with Eastern European roots, first met the concept of Mexican food in the 1960s when my sister’s husband was deployed to Viet Nam from a base in southern California and she came home and made us California tostadas. (Large flour tortilla on a plate, layered with browned hamburger and refried beans, shredded lettuce, diced tomatoes & onions, shredded cheese and guacamole, in that order. Those were mild and delicious, with no peppers or salsa to be found.)

Three or four fire-roasted chilis are about the right amount for any given recipe that uses them. So that is what I put in each freezer pack. Slice them while you can still see ice crystals.

Smothered Baked Burritos

16 snack size flour tortillas (less if you use full size tortillas)

1 lb. ground beef (I use the 93/7 ratio because draining grease is gross)

1 medium — large sliced onion

1 pkg. frozen fire-roasted green chilis from the farmer’s market last summer. My freezer packages contain three or four large chilis, Anaheim size. If you don’t let them thaw all the way, they are easier to slice. If you don’t have farmer’s market chilis, use one can of fire-roasted green chilis from the grocery store. They are available in several heat levels.

1 can cooked pinto beans

½ tsp red pepper flakes (optional, more or less, to taste) It’s a good idea to taste the filling at each stage of the process before you add more seasonings.

1 can Stokes green chili sauce*

Shredded or sliced cheddar or colby cheese

1. Slice and dice the onion and green chilis. Grease a 9x13 AND an 8x8 baking pan.

Filling: beef, onion, fire roasted green chilis and red pepper flakes. There will be beans.

2. Melt ½ tsp butter or bacon grease in a large skillet or wok to coat the bottom. Add ground beef, cook and stir until browned. Push beef to the sides and add onion and chilis. Cook and stir until onions are soft but not brown, add pinto beans and stir until evenly mixed. Turn off stove burner. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

3. At this stage, grab a spoon and taste the filling. How hot were the chilis you used? Does it need more red pepper flakes? (remember the flavor intensifies as the dish cooks and ages.) Would cumin or garlic powder make it better? Does it need mitigation of excess Scoville units? Too-hot peppers can be toned down by adding another can of beans. Plain pinto beans, pork and beans with a sweetened thick sauce, or plain refried beans will help. Whatever you have on hand, use it. You’ll need more tortillas to fill and have a bigger batch of burritos if you do that, but more is not a bad thing.

Putting the burritos together.

3. Assemble the burritos. Put a dinner plate next to the skillet, and the prepared baking dish next to the plate. Put a tortilla on the plate, spread filling across the middle and roll up. Place seam side down in the baking dish. The 9x13 should hold 12 rolled burritos in two rows of six. Put the remaining four in the 8x8 dish. If there is extra filling left, it can be used on top of the sauce, so don’t worry about restuffing the ones you’ve already got rolled. Trying to do that makes a huge mess.

4. Spoon and spread the Stokes green chili sauce evenly over the burritos in both dishes. If there is meat filling leftover from rolling the burritos, sprinkle it over the top of the sauce. Bake for 45 minutes, add shredded or sliced cheese over the top and put back into oven until cheese is melted.

Serve with sour cream, guacamole and salsa of your choice. Shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes if you want to get fancy!

Those nice plastic meal prep boxes each hold four burritos. So a batch of 16 means several boxes of four go in the freezer for future meals. Of course, you’ve already eaten the first batch out of the oven!

*Yes, I know that authentic green chili is made with diced pork and tomatoes and cooked for a long time and is far better than the stuff in a can. If you have the homemade version, by all means, use it! I have that recipe, too, but this one is for when you don’t have homemade green chili to use, or two days to make it. Likewise using canned beans instead of soaking dry beans overnight or using a pressure cooker.

Important! Don’t add salt without tasting it first. The canned chili sauce, canned beans and cheese already have quite a bit of salt and I’ve not needed to add more. Other than the red pepper flakes for a little pizazz if you want it, the ingredients here provide enough flavor that it doesn’t need much additional seasoning. Also, take into account the heat level of the chilis you bought at the farmer’s market or the grocery store.

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