Enfrijoladas, Mexican Comfort Food At Its Best

A tortilla is a unique yet versatile bread. When feeling hungry, you can snack on it plain. And if you’re in the mood to cook something delectable, the tortillas lend more than just a helping hand – like they do with enfrijoladas.

Enfrijoladas is a Mexican dish made using tortillas and black beans, similar to enchiladas. However, unlike enchiladas, enfrijoladas is dipped in coarsely puréed, creamy beans and topped with the sauce at the end. Though unlikely to win any beauty contest, the dish is undoubtedly delicious.

When people in Mexico need to cook up something quickly for breakfast, lunch or dinner, one of the few dishes that come to their minds is enfrijoladas.

Most Mexicans in the north do not like beans playing a significant part in their food.

But if you do not mind the beans and strongly believe in not relegating them to the side, keep reading to learn how to make enfrijoladas – a dish that’s literally soaked in beans.

How To Make Enfrijoladas

Enfrijoladas is healthy and spicy, thanks to the range of ingredients used to make the dish.

Ingredients Needed 

Unlike most Mexican dishes, the ingredients list of the enfrijoladas doesn’t begin with tortillas because the dish truly begins with the beans and ends with it too.

• Freshly boiled beans (3 cups)
• Corn tortillas
• Vegetable oil
• Chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
• Oregano (1/2 tsp)
• Crema (sour cream)
• Queso fresco
• Pico de gallo
• Shredded lettuce
• Avocados

If you are not able to source avocados, skip the fruit. The same holds good for most of the other garnishments and/or toppings.

Cooking Directions 

Start the cooking process by making your dipping sauce. Follow these steps:

1. Add the freshly boiled beans to a blender, along with the water or broth.
2. Spoon out the chipotle sauce. Restrict the amount based on your spice preference. If you’re pouring the whole can and want nothing left in the container, take some of the cooked beans broth, pour it in the sauce container, give the can a wiggle and a swirl, and pour the liquid into the blender.
3. Turn on the blender and keep blending until the sauce achieves its smooth consistency. Once the sauce is ready, proceed to refry it.
4. For the refrying, add some vegetable oil (two tablespoons) to a cooking pot. Let the oil heat up before you add the sauce. To ensure the oil is adequately hot, sprinkle a tiny portion of the sauce in the oil. If the oil sizzles, it’s ready.
5. Stir the sauce and pour some water if needed. Instead of pouring out plain water, pour the water into the sauce blender first so that it washes up all of the leftover sauce. After the blender is completely wiped up, pour the mix into the pot. The sauce shouldn’t be too thick. Adding some more water will help if you have a gooey sauce going.  
6. Add half a teaspoon of oregano and let the sauce cook until it starts to simmer.
7. Once the sauce simmers, take it off the heat.

Before adding the sauce to the pot, you may throw in some onion and garlic into the oil. Sauté it a bit, and add the sauce. Or you could add the onion and garlic when boiling the beans. 

Also, if you love pork, you may use lard or pork fat instead of vegetable oil. But since it’s not the healthier option, it’s recommended you stick to the vegetable oil, especially if you foresee making enfrijoladas at frequent intervals. 

If you fancy the lard or think it tastes great but also do not want to compromise on your health, the perfect middle ground will be cooking with the fat once in a while and using the vegetable oil primarily. 

Next, make/prep the tortillas for the dish. If you’d want to learn how to make tortillas from scratch, watch this video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwzPD1hEnR4 

However, if you’re not too keen on making the tortillas at home, you can always buy them premade at a store. 

The tortillas you put in the oil should be cold or not microwaved, as tortillas that are warm to the touch may break when fried. 

Also, the tortillas that come out of the frying pan shouldn’t be too hard or crunchy like the ones used in tostadas, as you’ll need to fold and roll them the bread later on.

Softer, pliable tortillas will also attract and absorb the sauce way better than a harder tortilla would. 

After you have the plain tortillas handy, follow these steps to cook the tortillas for your enfrijoladas further: 

1. Add some oil to a saucepan. Pour enough quantity of oil into the pan so that the tortillas are completely submerged in them. If you fancy a non-oily version, use a comal grill/pan and toast the tortillas instead.
2. As you do not want the tortillas to harden too much, take it out of the frying pan as soon it starts to glisten.

Once the sauce and tortillas are ready, bring them together. 

1. Dip the tortillas into the sauce. Slather the tortillas with the sauce on both sides.
2. Next, place the tortillas on a serving plate and put some queso fresco on them. Do this one tortilla at a time, or cover each dipped tortilla with cheese one after the other. Do not have a bunch of sauce-layered tortillas waiting for the cheese action.
3. Roll the tortillas one by one and assemble them on a separate plate.
4. Once the rolled-up tortillas are ready, put some more sauce onto them, followed by some crema.
5. Next, sprinkle some shredded lettuce, queso fresco, and pico de gallo. Lastly, throw some cut avocados onto your enfrijoladas.

Since you’re working with a relatively soft tortilla that’s further weighed down with a host of ingredients, do not try to grab a tortilla and take a bite as you’d do with your tacos or burritos. 

Grab a fork, cut through the tortillas, and take one morsel at a time. A single enfrijoladas can be cut into three to four squares.

Tips and Tricks for Making Enfrijoladas

Here are a few things you can do to make the enfrijoladas and/or the cooking process easier and enjoyable:

• Enfrijoladas taste even better when topped with roasted vegetables or a fried egg. If you are a vegetarian, you may eliminate the chorizo and use the roasted veggies instead.
• Also, because there’s quite a bit of sauce at play, the dish could be too hot for kids or adults who are not fans of spicy food. If you’re making the dish for elders, kids, or people who do not necessarily have a liking for hot and spicy food, consider not scooping out the entire chipotle pepper sauce into the blender.
• Canned beans can replace the cooked beans, but the taste profile may vary, or the enfrijoladas may not taste as authentic as it would have otherwise. The black beans make this dish or give it its identity.
• Like every Mexican dish, you can choose your garnishments and not religiously stick to the ingredients above. For instance, if you like red onions, you may have thin slices adorning your enfrijoladas.
• The cooked beans for the dish can be kept in the refrigerator for up to five days. In the freezer, the beans can stay ready-to-use for two to three weeks. Therefore, making the beans fresh is not a requirement.

Conclusion

Enfrijoladas is a relatively simple, quick dish to make.

If you have leftover tortillas in the refrigerator, there is a host of delicacies you could put them to use in.

However, by going the enfrijoladas route, you’ll be able to make quick work of those delicious flatbreads.

And if you have leftover chicken and roasted vegetables too, the merrier. 

To explore more of Mexican cuisine, check out our articles, The 10 Best Mexican Soups & Stews and The 15 Best Mexican Street Foods.

Sources

• Mexican Please: Enfrijoladas Recipe – What to Do with All Those Mexican Beans
• NYT Cooking: Enfrijoladas Recipe
• Bon Appétit: Enfrijoladas Recipe

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