Vegetarian Burritos with All the Fixins {Recipe}

If you're one of the skeptics out there convinced that vegetarian food cannot be hearty nor flavourful, this one's for you.  (Assuming you like Mexican food as well, that is. :)

My hubby has made a variant of this recipe probably 8-10 times now, perfecting it along the way. The flavour combinations in this dish are explosive, the colours are certainly pleasing to the eye and it is such a fun meal to eat with all the different components. Depending on your preference, you can kick up the heat factor or not. Either way, it's exquisito! Health-wise, you're doing pretty well too with all the veggies, brown rice and beans.

It does take some time to put everything together, but it's not hard nor precise work. You can prep the filling the night before if it's more convenient.

Prep Time: 30-40 minutes
Cook Time: 60-70 minutes
Serving Size: 6

Ingredients:

• 1 large onion, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, diced
• 1 green pepper, diced
• 2 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander
• 1/4 tsp cayenne (optional)
• 1/2 large jalapeno, diced (optional)
• 1/2 large jalapeno, sliced (optional)
• 1 19 fl oz / 540 ml can of black beans, rough mashed
• 2 cups old cheddar cheese, grated
• Handful of cilantro, rough chopped
• 1 cup frozen corn, thawed
• 3/4 cup brown rice, cooked
• 6 large whole wheat torillas

To Serve on the Side:

• Salsa
• Sour cream
• Avocado slices
• Refried beans (heated)
• Cilantro

Steps:

1) Preheat oven to 375 degrees

2) Saute onion, garlic, green pepper, diced jalapeno, cumin, coriander and cayenne on medium heat until vegetables are tender.

3) In a big bowl, mix together sauted veggies, black beans, rice, corn, half the cheese, half the cilantro.

4) Spoon a good-sized "long dollop" of burrito mixture onto a torilla, placing it closer to one side than the other and leaving some room at each end. This should give you a pretty good idea of size and placement:

5) Starting at the side closer to the mixture, firmly roll up the burrito.

6) Repeat the above two steps with the remaining 5 burritos. If there is some mixture left over, don't fret - it's delicious on its own. :)

7) Place burritos in a shallow, lightly greased 10" x 14" casserole dish with the edges down. Place a clean damp wash cloth over the burritos to prevent the tortillas from drying out. Cover the dish with foil.

8) Bake for 45 minutes

9) Remove the foil and cloth. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and sliced jalapenos.

10)  Bake for another 10 minutes. Mmm, melty! (As you can see, we only added the jalapenos to half of them this time around so that S could enjoy them too!)

11) Let stand for 10-15 minutes, serve with side items and Enjoy!