Grilled Burritos
How to grill a burrito to end up with a super-crispy tortilla shell. There's a secret ingredient involved!
Grilled Burritos
Jump to RecipeOne of the benefits and curses of working from home is lunch time. It’s a benefit because I can whip up a meal when I’m hungry. I can re-purpose leftovers and, I think, save money.
The curse is that I miss out a bit on some social aspects of lunch in the office which I always enjoyed. It’s fun to try out new lunch spots occasionally and talk shop with coworkers. I don’t really get to do that too much these days.
That’s okay though. I think I win out because I get to grill burritos whenever I freakin’ want.
All my social skills is a small price to pay for these suckers.
Grilled Burritos
Ingredients
- 4 large flour tortillas
- 2 tablespoons butter
- 4 ounces pepper jack cheese grated
- Refried beans
- Spanish rice
- Jalapenos
- Any sort of protein leftover chicken, beef, tofu
- Hot sauce
Instructions
- Stuff burritos with fillings, cheese, jalapenos, and hot sauce.
- Roll burritos up and spread on a thin layer of butter on both sides.
- Grill burritos on high heat for 5 minutes per side. Start seam side down to seal the burrito closed.
- Serve with avocado, salsa, and sour cream.
Nutrition
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Re-Purposing Leftovers
This post isn’t so much of a recipe as it is a method. And also, hopefully, inspiration to try it out.
You could fill these guys with all kinds of stuff. Any leftover protein is a good idea. Any kind of bean? Definitely.
I also had some rice leftover from my Southwestern stuffed peppers that I wanted to use up.
This is a fridge-cleaning meal.
In my opinion, a burrito isn’t a burrito without a good amount of cheese.
I like pepper jack for Tex-Mex stuff, but you could use whatever you want.
Making the Burritos
There’s no real trick to these guys. I like to do a layer of cheese, then some sort of filling, then some jalapenos or hot sauce.
If you have good tortillas, you should be able to stuff them pretty full.
The Secret Ingredient
Ok. So I’ve actually tried to grill tortillas before and they work okay. Sometimes I found that they wouldn’t get as crispy as I wanted though.
So I figured out a way to give the burritos a bit of extra flavor and also make sure they get really nice and crispy on the grill.
Butter.
Right before I threw the burritos on the grill, I just spread on a very light coating of butter on each side of the burrito.
Some of this will melt off and create flare-ups which is actually good. Think flame broiled burrito.
What stays on the tortillas will almost lightly fry them on the grill.
I recommend putting the burritos on the grill seam-side DOWN first which will seal the burritos closed. I cooked my burritos for about 5 minutes on both sides.
They got kind of charred around the edges and super-crispy.
The bits of tortillas around the edges turned into tortilla chips basically.
It doesn’t really matter what you put in these guys, just trust me that you’ll end up with a burrito that’s pretty hard to beat.
I recommend serving it with some sour cream, avocado, and hot sauce or salsa.
So what do you think? Butter on a burrito? Over-kill?
hmm sound great! Butter can never be an overkill. And such an versatile recipe. I hope it works in a pan, because I don´t have a grill :(
Yep! Would work fine in a pan also!
Air fryer!
I was wondering how you managed to keep them together on the grill. And no, you aren't anywhere close to breaking the butter limit, though I was wondering if some clarified butter that was melted and brushed on would be better? (Some of us are trying to keep our girlish figure, ya know! :-P)
Yea. Clarified butter would be best actually. If you have some around definitely use that.
And now I know what I'm making for dinner.
My recent post Signs You Should Go Back to Bed
Swap the grill for a pan and make those suckers a little flatter, and you've got my go-to quesadilla recipe. I like the flaky/crispy texture the butter gives the tortilla. Without the butter the tortilla can quickly get too dry, in my opinion.
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Totally. The butter is key to making sure the tortillas don't crack, but are still crispy.
I am going to try this in my panini press.
I really love that in addition to this post about burritos, you also have AT LEAST 4 others about burritos in which the blog thinks I might be interested… Love it!
Seven actually. :) https://www.macheesmo.com/tag/burritos/
Grilled burritos rock and they are 1,000% butter…errr…better than "grilled stuft burritos" from Taco Hell. We've made them a few times and love them but I hadn't tried the butter trick. Great tip!
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Nick, what tortillas do you use? They always look good and are massive. I’ve never seen tortillas this big at my grocery.
I use the tortillas that are sold at a latin market in town. I’m fairly certain they are homemade as they come in bags without any labels and are just sold at the front desk. Search around for latin markets and you can probably find some that are an improvement on what your supermarket offers. Good luck!
I use organic tortillas. You can get them at Whole Foods (not my favorite grocery, but the only one near me that has them.) The brand they have tastes exactly like the ones I bought in Mexico at the tortilleria. The Mexican tortilla shop.
Unfortunetly my oven has been non useable for at least 3 months. Been wanting to try this..doing that today. Will update u later.