Enfrijoladas de Espinaca - Tortillas with Spinach in Black Bean Sauce - Recipe

Enfrijoladas de Espinaca - Tortillas with Spinach in Black Bean Sauce - Recipe

September 29, 2010
Gluten-Free or modifiable Kid Friendly Main Courses Recipes Vegan or Modifiable

Enfrijoladas de Espinaca - Tortillas with Spinach in Black Bean Sauce

This is my entry for the second Everyday Chef Challenge. Pacific Natural Foods invited me and four other bloggers to participate, and this time we were to use one of their creamy soups, and spinach.

After you check out this post, please jump over to their site and vote! It takes just a few seconds; you don't have to register or anything, and you can vote every 24 hours if you like. I'm in the middle of the top row. I would dearly love to win the two-day bootcamp at the Culinary Institute of America, so your vote means a lot to me!

Enfrijoladas are a simple, homey Mexican dish that you rarely see in the Unites States. Corn tortillas are dipped in a smooth bean sauce spiked with a few chiles. In the simplest form, they are simply served up with more of the sauce and some cheese or crema.

For a slightly more elaborate version, enfrijoladas can be filled. A quick mixture of seasoned spinach and onions works great. Think of them like spinach enchiladas with beans instead of tomatos or tomatillos as the backbone of the sauce.

Pacific Natural's Spicy Black Bean Soup is already the perfect consistency and flavor to use for enfrijoladas. This makes the whole thing so simple you can throw it together in fifteen minutes.

I hope you like the dish, and please go vote at the Everyday Chef Challenge!

Full disclosure: Pacific Natural Foods is an advertiser on my site, and provided products for me and the other bloggers participating in this contest.

Enfrijoladas de Espinaca - Tortillas with Spinach in Black Bean Sauce
Vegetarian and gluten-free; vegan if you omit the cheese
Serves 4
15 minutes

  • 1 pound frozen spinach
  • 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
  • 1 small white onion, finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon oregano (Mexican oregano if possible)
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt
  • 1 quart Pacific Natural Foods Spicy Black Bean Soup
  • 12 corn tortillas (double check ingredients for gluten-free)
  • 1/2 cup crumbled cotija cheese (or grated Monterey Jack) (omit or replace for vegan)
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • a few cilantro leaves
  1. Defrost the frozen spinach and squeeze some of the water out of it. Heat the oil in a skillet over a medium high flame. Saute the onion and garlic for 2 minutes. Add the spinach, cumin, oregano, and salt. Cook, stirring occasionally for 3 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.
  2. Heat the soup in a small saucepan.
  3. Carefully dip a tortilla in the soup (using tongs so you don't burn yourself!). Hold it there for about 5-10 seconds, until it has softened but isn't falling apart. Remove to a bowl, fill with about 3 tablespoons of the spinach, and loosely roll up. Repeat for all of the tortillas, putting 3 in each bowl.
  4. Top each bowl with 1/4 of the remaining sauce, a sprinkling of the cotija cheese, a few slices of avocado, and some roughly torn cilantro and serve immediately.

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20 Comments

Roxan
This looks hearty and delicious! Other than the soup and cilantro, I have all the ingredients at home to make this. I will definitely have to try it, thanks.
Xiaolu @ 6 Bittersweets
Mm this looks so delicious. I love black beans (though sadly my boyfriend doesn't). But that just means more for myself. Going over to vote, and good luck on winning the trip!
Kris B
This will make a great meal from my garden: spinach, onion, garlic, cilantro...
CarenRoma
Sounds wonderful, Michael. I will have to give the recipe a try on one of those crazy "no-time to create a good meal soccer practice nights."
Apeksha
That looks yummy....never heard of this dish before but now I want to try it! Mexican is one of my fav cuisines cos I think it's so great for vegetarians!
Amee
Going to vote!!! Thanks - looks delish.
sarah
voted!
WitStop
This looks like a home run! Ole'!
Heidi
This bean sauce sounds amazing - and a good way to sneak in beans for kids, too. Thanks!
Mira Jone
This recipe is crying out for me to make it. At first glance it seemed intimidating to me, but I know if I hunker down and take my time, I will be successful. Thanks for the great recipe.
Wendy (The Local Cook)
I wonder if I could sub Swiss chard for the spinach? This sounds like a good recipe, thanks and good luck with the contest!
Michael Natkin
Absolutely; Swiss chard will be great in there, just cook it down thoroughly.
John
Made this last night, to generally strong reviews. I was serving it on plates rather than in bowls, and thus just spread about 1.5T of soup across the tops of the enfrijoladas. That meant that I had a bunch of soup (perhaps half?) left over. The filling was delicious, but I'd have liked a bit more -- I might multiply by 1.5 next time. I also had a little trouble with "remove most of the liquid" -- it was clear that I removed rather too much, because the spinach was hard to break up and mix with the aromatics. So I added a little water, and it was fine. The entire recipe was dead simple, and delicious, and got great reviews from the family. I used a bit more cilantro than you show (because I had it!), and a bit less cheese, because some of us don't like cheese all that much (sigh), but it's clear that this is a recipe where exact quantities aren't the critical element. The only thing where "exactness" seems to matter is "how long you dip the tortillas in the soup" -- I found that anything over about 12 secs made them start to fall apart when I lifted them out. I ended up going with about 5-7 secs of soaking in near-boiling soup, and it worked great.
Michael Natkin
Thanks, Spike! I'll adjust the recipe to say "squeeze some of the water out".
Liz H
Voted. Looks delicious. I'm going to give it a try tonight to see if I can sneak spinach past the kid, disguised as it is in his favorite medium: cheese and beans.
Karen Paulson
Hey there. I made this recipe the other night for my family. Everyone loved it. I did sub Wolfgang Puck's black bean soup for the other because my grocery store carried the other brand, but not that particular soup! I simmered the soup with a halved spicy banana pepper to jazz it up. The spinach was AWESOME and I'll do that combo of spices again even if I don't make the tortillas. I think I may also sometime make the tortillas the old-fashioned way, frying them in oil, then wrap up the enchiladas and put them all in a 9x13 pan with the soup and cheese on top.
Michael Natkin
Thanks Karen, I'm glad it was a hit and that you made it your own! And yes, just as you intuited, enfrijoladas are sometimes made by running the tortillas through oil before the bean sauce, much like enchiladas.
Aaron
Quite tasty, and very easy. Only thing I would change was to warm the tortillas a bit before dipping into the soup (we used Trader Joe's Latin Black Bean Soup, btw - vegan and kosher/pareve) - I took the tortillas straight out of the fridge before dipping, so they were still a little hard even after dipping into the soup.
Michael Natkin
Good tip!
ChicagoCook
Made this last night to rave reviews! I added mushrooms to the spinach mixture, along with hot pepper flakes. I also really packed in the filling, so it didn't quite make it to 12 tortillas, but was delicious none the less! I think next time I might try to thicken the soup a bit or make my own, and add some spices to really condense the flavor--I had a lot of soup leftover. Thanks for the delicious recipe!

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