Spicy Black Bean Enchilada Cups

This school lunch idea is what happens when you ask yourself “what in the hell am I making her for lunch today?” Scarlett normally jumps at most any idea for her lunches but not lately. She hasn’t even wanted her usual obsession of my egg salad. I know that sounds wildly boring, especially since I spend my life coming up with interesting ideas for family meals, but she loves it and never turns it down. Until now. Lately, she’s been craving variety and since my biggest strategy of using dinner leftovers has also been getting the thumbs down from her, I needed something easy.

This is that something easy. For a few weeks, I’d been playing with a black bean taquito recipe, but could never get the dang things to not fall apart during the cooking process. At first I tried to bake them but the tortillas would crack, separate and never achieve the tightly-wound, crispy shell I love. I decided to give frying a try, but hated taking on that process on a week night. If you want to use this flavour-packed black bean filling to master a taquito dish, please send me your method. If not, then cram the filling into these easy-to-form, bakeable cups that make for a utensil-free lunch kids can dunk into sides like salsa, guacamole and/or sour cream. Obviously, you can manage making these on a weekend but you could also do this on the night before you’d like to pack them without too much additional effort. They’re not mom’s egg salad but they’re the next best thing.

Spicy Black Bean Enchilada Cups

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 20 minutes mins

Total Time 35 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Cuisine American, Mexican

Servings 4

Ingredients

  

• 1/2 onion, diced
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 /2 tsp salt, divided
• 1 18 oz can black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 chiptole pepper in adobe sauce (canned)
• 1/2 tsp ground cumin
• 6 medium flour tortillas
• 1/2 cup shredded Monterey jack cheese

Instructions

 

• In a frying pan or cast iron skillet, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the onions and 1/2 teaspoon salt and cook until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat.
• Place beans in a large bowl. Using a potato masher or the back of a fork, smash beans until nearly smooth with some larger pieces.
• Add the cooked onion, pepper, cumin and remaiing 1/4 tsp salt and stir well to combine. Set aside.
• Preheat the oven to 375 and coat your muffin tin with non-stick spray.
• Place your tortillas down on a cutting board and trim all four sides of your tortillas so you have squares. Press a tortilla square in each muffin cup.
• Lightly brush the edges of the tortilla cup with oil.
• Bake in the oven for 8 – 10 minutes to lightly crisp the cups.
• Remove from the oven and fill wtih 3 tablespoons of black bean filling and 1 heaping tablespoon of cheese.
• Add cups back into the oven to bake for another 8-10 minutes until filling is heated throughout and tortilla cup edges are golden brown.

Notes

Serve with your favourite sides including salsa, sour cream, jalapeños and guacamole.