Our recipe for mini vegetarian bean and cheese enchiladas is an easy date night dinner for two, featuring our cilantro-lime crema and a garnish of fresh tomatoes, cilantro, and avocado.
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Here’s a cooking hack we’ve learned: once you know how to make a few different dishes with similar ingredients, meal planning and grocery shopping gets so much easier. You also start cooking more efficiently, which can save you time on prep and cleanup. So we’ve tried to be mindful of how we can make the most out of a few simple ingredients each week.
As the new year was approaching, we did bare-bones meal planning and figured we’d find a way to live off of leftovers for the week. Here’s what our weekend looked like:
- Friday (New Year’s Eve) – air fryer mozzarella sticks and flatbread pizzas
- Saturday (New Year’s Day) – avocado cilantro-lime chicken & rice
- Sunday (recovery day) – more pizza, to experiment with recipes from my new favorite cookbook
- Monday (our last day of freedom before returning to work) – burrito bowls, made with leftover crema and chicken from Saturday’s dinner
Then Tuesday night came around, and we had no idea what we were cooking until we looked in the fridge. We had a ton of fresh produce, crema, and cilantro-lime rice leftover from our burrito bowls, so Mexican food was an obvious choice. We didn’t have any meat available, but we always have canned beans in the pantry for an easy protein. And then we spotted the flour & corn tortillas we bought at Whole Foods, which sparked a delicious new idea: mini bean and cheese enchiladas!
We’re big fans of bean and cheese burritos, but our little 6-inch tortillas inspired us to think mini. Corn tortillas also don’t fold as well as flour tortillas, so a flour & corn combo tortilla was the perfect candidate for enchiladas. All we had to do was line them with a few simple ingredients, roll them up, and snuggle them side-by-side into our little Staub casserole dish:
Here’s how to make our mini vegetarian bean and cheese enchiladas:
- Line a few 6-inch tortillas with about 1 tablespoon of canned vegetarian refried beans and 2 tablespoons of cilantro-lime rice each, then sprinkle with shredded cheese
- Roll up the enchiladas tightly and place them side-by-side in a lightly greased casserole dish
- Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes
- Drizzle with cilantro-lime crema and garnish with diced tomatoes, fresh cilantro, and mashed avocado or guacamole
With leftover cilantro-lime rice and crema in the fridge, making this recipe was a breeze! If you’ve made any variation of crema from our avocado cilantro-lime chicken & rice or carne asada tacos recipes and have leftover cilantro-lime rice from taco night, this recipe will be a breeze for you, too. And even if you don’t have those leftovers laying around, they’re not too hard to make! You can easily make both the crema and the rice in under 30 minutes – instructions and tips are in the recipe below.
Sometimes all it takes to create a whole new dish is repurposing some staples from other meals you’ve made before. So don’t be afraid to experiment in the kitchen and see what you can come up with!
Mini Vegetarian Bean & Cheese Enchiladas
Ingredients
- 4 6-inch organic flour & corn tortillas*
- ¼ cup vegetarian refried beans canned
- ½ cup Cilantro-Lime Rice*
- 4 tbsp shredded Mexican-blend cheese for sprinkling
- Cilantro-Lime Crema* for drizzling
- Diced tomatoes, fresh cilantro, and mashed avocado optional garnishes
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease a small casserole dish.
- Working one at a time, assemble the enchiladas. Lay out a tortilla and spoon about 1 tbsp refried beans in a line down the center. Then spoon about 2 tbsp Cilantro-Lime Rice on top of the refried beans and sprinkle with shredded cheese. Roll up the tortilla tightly and then place it seam-side down in the baking dish.
- Assemble the remaining enchiladas, rolling them up tightly and lining them side-by-side in the baking dish. Once all the enchiladas are in the dish, bake in the oven for 20 minutes.
- Prep garnishes while the enchiladas bake: dice tomato, chop fresh cilantro, and mash avocado.*
- Once the enchiladas are ready, remove from the oven and top with a drizzle of Cilantro-Lime Crema. Finish with garnishes and serve!
Notes
Nutrition
If you have any questions regarding the information presented in this post, please refer to our Nutrition Disclaimer here.
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