Tag: corn tortillas

Individual Nachos

I love nachos, but they don’t love me. If they did, then the platter wouldn’t be so overstuffed with deliciousness! It’s really hard to practice portion control when you’re facing all those chips.

To make my life easier, I love to make individual nachos. These handheld bites have everything that makes a nacho great: crispy corn tortilla chip, meat or beans or both, tangy salsa, cheese, sour cream, olives if you wish. They’re perfect for leftover meats like pulled pork. And, of course, they’re gluten free!

These nachos are also great for parties where you don’t want to serve a big messy platter of food. Figure three chips (or one corn tortilla) per guest, and load them up with your favorite toppings!

Easy Turkey Enchiladas

I started making turkey enchiladas many years ago as a way to use up turkey leftovers after Thanksgiving. They are amazingly fast to pull together, meaning you’ll impress family and friends with something that seems complicated but is super-easy (don’t tell!). And these enchiladas are naturally gluten-free.

If you don’t have turkey, substitute leftover chicken. Or make them vegetarian with grilled or roasted vegetables. While I like to do the traditional rolled-up version of enchiladas, sometimes, I substitute what I call an enchilada pie: I layer tortillas, sauce, meat or veggies, and a bit of cheese (sort of like a lasagna). When made like this, the end result reminds me of chilaquiles.

Be prepared to work assembly-line style by having all your ingredients lined up and ready to go before you get started.

A note about store-bought enchilada sauces: to my surprise, many of the sauces I see on market shelves are not gluten-free. In this recipe, I use tomatillo salsa with some green chiles in place of green enchilada sauce — I love how it adds tanginess to the dish. For enchiladas made with a red sauce, I start with my own Red Chile Sauce, adding flavors to suit my mood.

Huevos Rancheros

Let’s get this out of the way first: there is no right way to build Huevos Rancheros. There are, of course, a few basic ingredients — corn tortillas, eggs, ranchero sauce and/or salsa, and beans. After that, it’s all about using your imagination. This, I believe, is what makes Huevos Rancheros perfect for a casual breakfast, a slightly more formal brunch, or a weeknight meal.

(I should note I frequently break the tortilla-as-key-ingredient rule, sometimes substituting Black Bean and Quinoa cakes for tortillas. Don’t judge!)

This recipe comes together fast, so I like to have everything set up and ready to go as soon as the eggs are ready.

Chicken Enchiladas

Easy, easy, easy weeknight dish. And versatile. There is no right way to make enchiladas…don’t want to roll your filling in your tortilla? Go ahead, make layers like lasagna. Change up the ingredients to suit yourself. It’s all good.

Since I make my own chicken stock, I often have leftover (bland) boiled chicken. This is a great dish for using up extra chicken, and the heat can be adjusted to suit your tastes. You can make this red or green — though, in all honesty, I prefer a green salsa. The tanginess of the tomatillo makes my tastebuds happy.

Also, I prefer salsa to pre-made enchilada sauce. For reasons that escape me, the sauces sold by my local store all contain wheat. Weird. Your mileage may vary.

Quesadillas: Gluten-Free

I admit it: when I went gluten-free, I crossed quesadillas off my list of “love to eats”. I had never, ever seen a quesadilla that didn’t have a wheat flour tortilla involved. Somehow, the whole package — tortillas, cheese, seasonings — seemed like a match made in heaven.

Then I caught myself staring at a package of corn tortillas I had left over from another meal. And I wondered about using corn tortillas in quesadillas. I wondered some more. I plotted my course, and did a little research. Which confirmed what I suspected: corn quesadillas are easy and so tasty.

(Think about it: corn tortillas are generally more flavorful than wheat tortillas, so, of course, they’d make a more delicious quesadilla).

The only trick you need to remember for making these quesadillas is to lightly brush or spray oil onto the quesadilla to help it cook up crisp.