Ah, Mexican food. Tacos, burritos, enchiladas – flavorful fillings, soft tortilla breads, endless variations. What’s not to like? (Maybe those overly greasy concoctions, I guess). Whenever we make enchiladas at home, we ask ourselves why we don’t do it more often. It’s the perfect meal all those days when your training load is heavy and you need to seriously reload – it packs both lots of protein and carbohydrates and will send you to bed feeling comfortably filled up and ready for the next day’s session(s). With both butternut squash, black beans, kale and walnuts in the filling, each enchilada also holds plenty of vitamins and minerals, and you can choose whichever type of tortilla bread suits your fancy.
In America, you can get small cans of “chipotle peppers in adobo sauce”, a great product that we relied on whenever making this recipe over there, or when cooking up for example a chili. For these enchiladas, we would usually scoop up one single pepper or simply a spoonful or two of the adobo sauce when stirring together the tomato sauce. It adds so much flavor! Naturally, we were unsure of how to replicate this when we moved to Sweden. However, we soon discovered “chipotle paste” (chipotlepasta) from the brand Santa Maria, available just about anywhere, which works just as well! So wherever you are in the world, shoot for something similar to either product and you’ll be fine. The smokiness it lends is really great, so it’s definitely worth getting.
We trust that you know us by now and won’t be too startled when seeing the size of the recipe – yes, this will yield many servings! But enchiladas make excellent leftovers – whether brought for lunch the next day or popped in the freezer and enjoyed weeks later – so when you’re at it… go big. They last up to a week in the fridge, too. Happy Monday!
För recept på svenska, klicka här: Enchiladas med svarta bönor, butternutpumpa och svartkål
Serves 6-8 (makes 16 enchiladas)
1 medium butternut squash (~1.2 kg), peeled, de-seeded and cubed into 2 cm pieces
1 medium yellow onion (~150 g), chopped
250 g dino kale, de-stemmed and roughly chopped
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
525 g cooked black beans (~7 dl), rinsed
2 dl toasted walnuts, chopped
1200 g crushed tomatoes
2 tbsp chipotle sauce
280 g grated cheese of your choice
16 tortilla breads of your choice
Olive oil, salt, black pepper, optional pinch of sugar
- Roast butternut squash cubes with a drizzle of olive oil and 1 tsp salt at 200ºC for 30 min, tossing halfway through. Turn off the oven and set aside the squash.
- In the meantime, sauté onions and 1/2 tsp salt over medium-low heat for 15 min, stirring frequently. Set aside.
- Place the kale in a large bowl and massage the leaves for 1-2 min or until they start to wilt down a little. Mix in butternut squash cubes, onions, half the garlic, black beans and walnuts. Season to taste with both salt (at least 1/2 tsp is usually needed) and black pepper. Set aside.
- In a medium sized saucepan, sauté the remaining garlic in a splash of olive oil over medium-low heat. Stir constantly to prevent burning. After 1-2 min, add in the crushed tomatoes and chipotle sauce. Allow to simmer for 10 min, before seasoning to taste. We usually add 1/2-1 tsp salt, a good grind of black pepper and 1/2 tsp sugar to balance the acidity.
- Again, set the oven to 200ºC. In a 20×30 cm baking dish (you’ll need 3 of these, or go for a bigger one), spread 3 tbsp of the tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish. Assemble the enchiladas by placing a tortilla bread on a cutting board or plate, then spoon 1 tbsp of tomato sauce across followed by 1 1/2-2 dl of the filling and a sprinkle of cheese. Roll up the bread and place seam side down in the dish. Repeat with the rest of the breads. Pour the remaining sauce over the enchiladas and sprinkle with the leftover cheese. Bake in the middle of the oven for 25 min. Allow to cool for a few min before serving.