We love Mexican food around here, and I don’t mean we eat a lot of Taco Bell. I mean Dawn and I crave salsa like some people crave sugar or nicotine (we’ve been known to drink it or eat it with a spoon), and when there’s a good, cheap Mexican restaurant around I have no problem with eating there multiple times a week. We’ve stumbled upon some pretty great restaurants in our new town: an all night diner with really cheap gravy and biscuits, a bar/restaurant with the most amazing homemade salad dressings and a veggie burger that will knock your socks off, and some pretty decent sushi and pizza places. All the Mexican places we’ve eaten, however, have tasted a little too much like chain restaurants to me. So, we’ve resorted to trying our hand at cooking Mexican at home. Up until now, the results had been decent enough, but nothing close to Mexican restaurant quality and certainly nothing worth blogging about. Nachos are easy enough, and anyone can make a quesadilla, but burrito sauce and salsa have been the two most difficult things to recreate at home.
homemade burritos with Mexican rice
Now we can cross burritos off that list! Kirby made this bean mix the other night that we’ve been rolling up in tortillas and eating with salsa for the last few days. Those were good, but we were ready for something new. We adapted this burrito sauce recipe from Cooks.com, and we’re so pleased with results! It’s probably not the healthiest thing we could eat, but it makes enough for at least six burritos and the filling is healthy enough that I don’t feel too bad about it. This is definitely something we’ll be making again sooner than later.
To make this sauce, you’ll need:
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1 not-chicken bouillon cube
- 1 lg. diced onion
- 1 jalapeño peppers
- 2 T flour
- 1 qt. jar tomatoes or lg. can crushed tomatoes
- 2 bay leaves
- 1/2 t cumin
- 1/4 t crushed red pepper
- 1 t unbleached sugar
- a couple of grinds of black pepper
Melt the butter in a large skillet (we almost exclusively use cast iron) and dissolve boullion cube and be prepared for one of the most delicious smells of your life. Saute the onions, jalapeno, and garlic in the butter mixture until they’re translucent and starting to get crispy. Add the flour and stir to thicken. Add the tomatoes and tomato juice, crushing any whole tomatoes with your spatula. Add the bay leaves, cumin, red pepper, sugar, and pepper and allow the mixture to simmer for at least fifteen minutes (or until the flavors have melded). While the mixture is simmering, fill and roll your burritos and line them up in a baking dish. Once the burrito sauce has finished cooking, ladle the mixture over the burritos and bake for about 20 minutes at 350º. Serve with Mexican rice or chips and salsa.
You can fill your burritos with whatever you like, but we used a mixture of jalapeños, black beans, pinto beans, kidney beans, carrots, jicama, red bell pepper, onions, garlic, canned tomatoes, grilled corn, and coriander, cumin, and chili powder. We are planning on making these again soon and filling them with plain old refried beans.