Fresh, healthy burrito’s (on the go)

Sometimes, there is just no way that you are going to have enough time to eat before going somewhere in the evening or the event you’re going to is between 5 to 9. In those times, eating healthy can be difficult, especially if there is no healthy take-away near. Of course, you can go for a store-bought salad, but often, they are just not as delicious as you would expect. In that case, this burrito is going to save you! Since these burritos are very easy to prepare in advance, you can make them on another day and have them ready when you need to. I eat 2 burrito’s for dinner, but the filling I made serves much more. You could therefore choose to cut the ingredients for the filling in half, but I just hate having half a can of beans in the fridge etc. so I chose to meal prep the whole thing and freeze it for later. The filling can also be used on it’s own like a burrito bowl for lunch for instance. This would be easier to eat at work and such, but you do need cutlery in that case, which is less easy when traveling.

What do you need?

• 2 wraps! I personally use store-bought carrot wraps from the brand ‘No Fairytales’, but a wholegrain wrap would be good to. Keep in mind that the calories mentioned are based on the carrot wraps, since they contain more fiber and less calories.
• 4 tablespoons of guacamole. This is the part where I have to admit I mostly use store-bought guacamole, so that is a little less healthy, but it saves me prepping time. I would recommend making your own if you can!
• Grated cheese. I LOVE cheese, but to make this somewhat healthier, I chose a low-fat cheese.

For the filling:

• 2 hands of spinach
• 1 chicken breast, thighs would be good as well
• 160 grams of kidney beans or black beans
• 150 grams of corn
• a cup of brown rice
• Half of a jalapeño
• 1 red onion or a sjalot
• 1 clove of garlic
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of cajun herbmix
• 1 tablespoon of dried basil
• 1 tablespoon of dried oregano
• 2 tablespoons of paprika powder
• 1 tablespoon of black pepper
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil

This recipe is very easy to make vegetarian/vegan-friendly by adding more beans or vegetarian chicken instead of the chicken and to remove the cheese (and maybe changing it to yeast flakes?).

First, we start with the filling.

You start by boiling water and adding the rice. You can let this cook for about 10 minutes and then leave it to sit while you prepare the rest. I cooked mine all the way, but you don’t have to, since you can add it a little sooner to the rest of the filling as I did and it will cook as well.

Then you chop the chicken into small dices and massaging the paprika powder onto it. You continue by chopping the jalapeño, onion/sjalot and the garlic. Then you put a large skillet on medium heat and you add the olive oil. You could possibly use somewhat less olive oil, but I love it and it contains a lot of healthy fats, so I don’t mind using a bit more since it is easier to cook with. You caramelise the onions for about a minute and then add the garlic and the jalapeño. You could add the jalapeño at the same time as I added the spinach for more heat as well. Then you add the chicken and bake until they are almost done. Then you add all of the herbs (pepper, cajun, basil and oregano) and 1/3 of a glass of water to the pan to make a thick sauce/thin paste. Then you add the beans and let the dish simmer on low to medium heat for about 1.5 minute, you should keep stirring though! Then you slowly start adding the spinach and the corn. It helps when stirring here as well, since the hot water and the hot ingredients will help the spinach shrink faster. Lastly you add the lemon juice and stir everything together until the water evaporated and you have a nice, combined mix of everything.

Time to combine

Then I popped the burrito into the microwave for about 10 seconds, but you could also warm them up in a pan. That would be a little nicer, but I decided to make less dishes for myself, so I used the microwave instead. Then you spread the guacamole onto the wrap, about 2 tbs per wrap. I only did a thick layer through the middle, you could also spread it out over the entire wrap, but that is harder to eat if it falls apart when eating. Then you add your delicious filling, do keep in mind that it also needs to close, so don’t use to much. Then I added a little bit of cheese and you could add a little lemon juice for more freshness as well. Now, you can close the wrap and wrap it in foil to go or eat it right now! I used aluminium foil (very bad for the environment, so sorry. Anyone knows any good substitutes?) to keep the warmth inside of the wrap, so when I ate the wrap 2 hours later, the cheese was melted and it was absolutely perfect.

This burrito recipe also fits in perfectly with my style of eating, which you can read more about in my article ‘The Happy Brain Diet’. Want to know more about this? Then please, click here!

I hope you enjoyed this burrito dish and please let me know if you made it and what your experience was! And if you liked this, please subscribe to my blog or follow me on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter, so you’ll never have to miss a new post!

Lots of love,

Lisa

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