Vegetable & Ground Meat Enchiladas
One pan builds the entire filling from scratch. Onion and garlic hit the olive oil first, then ground beef crisps with paprika and cumin, mixed vegetables fold in, and a double hit of tomato finishes the job: paste for depth, diced for texture, simmered with kidney beans and corn until the sauce thickens around everything.
Roll it into a whole wheat tortilla, pour the leftover sauce on top, and let 28 grams of cheese melt in a 350°F oven for eight minutes.
590 calories, 36 grams of protein, and 12 grams of fiber from four different sources in a single wrap: kidney beans, corn, whole wheat, and mixed vegetables.
One pan builds the entire filling from scratch. Onion and garlic hit the olive oil first, then ground beef crisps with paprika and cumin, mixed vegetables fold in, and a double hit of tomato finishes the job: paste for depth, diced for texture, simmered with kidney beans and corn until the sauce thickens around everything.
Roll it into a whole wheat tortilla, pour the leftover sauce on top, and let 28 grams of cheese melt in a 350°F oven for eight minutes.
590 calories, 36 grams of protein, and 12 grams of fiber from four different sources in a single wrap: kidney beans, corn, whole wheat, and mixed vegetables.
Ingredients
- onion 0.25
- garlic 1 clove
- chili pepper 0.5
- corn 1 ounce
- kidney beans 1 ounce
- olive oil 1 tablespoon
- 96% lean ground beef 3 ounces
- paprika (ground spice) 1 teaspoon
- ground cumin 0.5 teaspoon
- mixed vegetables, Asian style 1 cup
- tomato paste 1 tablespoon
- diced tomatoes 4 ounces
- tortilla wrap, whole wheat 1
- grated cheese 1 ounce
Method
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Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
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Chop the onion, finely slice the garlic and chili pepper. Rinse the corn and kidney beans in a colander with cold water and drain.
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Heat the oil in a pan. Sauté the onion, garlic and chili pepper for 2 minutes. Add the ground meat along with the paprika and ground cumin and cook the meat for about 4 minutes. Add the stir-fry vegetables to the pan and cook for 4 more minutes. Add the tomato paste and cook for another minute. Stir in the diced tomatoes, corn and kidney beans and simmer everything together on high for 4 minutes while stirring regularly. Season with salt and pepper.
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Fill the tortilla with the vegetable-meat mixture. Roll up the tortilla and place it in a baking dish. Pour the remaining sauce over and around the enchilada and sprinkle the cheese on top.
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Place the dish in the oven for about 8 minutes, until the cheese is melted and the enchilada is crispy.
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Serve on a plate or directly in the baking dish.
Sauté the garlic and onion in oil for the full two minutes before adding the ground meat. Research found that crushed allium vegetables convert lycopene from tomatoes into a form the body absorbs up to 8.5 times more of. Those sulfur compounds need contact time in the hot oil before the tomato paste arrives.
Why This Works
Behind this recipe
Does cooking the tomatoes in this recipe change their nutrition?
It changes one thing significantly. Lycopene, the compound that gives tomatoes their color, is trapped inside cell walls in raw tomatoes. Cooking in oil breaks those walls and gives the lycopene a fat-soluble carrier into your bloodstream. This recipe does both: the tomato paste and diced tomatoes simmer in olive oil for several minutes. Tomato paste is especially concentrated, delivering roughly 2.5 times more bioavailable lycopene per gram than a fresh tomato.
Can I use regular flour tortillas instead of whole wheat?
Yes. The filling, sauce, and cheese work the same way. You will lose roughly 3 to 4 grams of fiber per serving, which drops the total from 12g to around 8g. The protein and calorie count stays close to the same.
Why does this recipe use both tomato paste and diced tomatoes?
They do different jobs. Paste adds concentrated depth and body to the sauce. Diced tomatoes add brightness and texture. Together they build a sauce that clings to the filling without being watery. From a nutrition standpoint, the paste also concentrates lycopene: gram for gram, processed tomato delivers about 2.5 times more bioavailable lycopene than fresh.
