Taco Burritos -- The Recipe I Teach When I Want to Show a Family What a Dollar Can Do

The food bank expanded to five locations. The grant money is at work: two new community centers, one in Sand Springs and one in Sapulpa, each running weekly cooking classes. I trained four new volunteer instructors — women from the community, some of them former students, one of them the woman whose kids never had Thanksgiving dinner (her name is Maria, she's now teaching the Sand Springs class, and the fact that she went from student to teacher in two years is proof that the chain works, the chain always works, the food travels from hand to hand to hand).

Five locations. One hundred families per month. One hundred families learning to cook with what they have, to feed their kids on what they can afford, to turn the canned goods and the dried beans and the donated pasta into dinner. One hundred families. Each one is a kitchen. Each kitchen is a table. Each table is a family eating food that someone taught them to make. And the someone is me. Or Maria. Or the other volunteers. The someone is all of us. The someone is the chain.

I sat at my desk at the food bank — my desk, with my name tag, with my coffee mug, with the recipe binders and the curriculum folders — and I thought about Sonic. About the roller skates and the cherry limeades and the $9 an hour and the exhaustion. Fourteen years old, making dinner from whatever was in the pantry. Sixteen, dropping out. Eighteen, working at a factory. Nineteen, selling empanadas. Twenty-five, community kitchen coordinator for a program that serves a hundred families a month. The path is not a line. The path is a spiral, circling back to the same place — the kitchen, always the kitchen — but higher each time. Further each time. Feeding more people each time. The spiral continues.

When I train new instructors at the food bank, the first recipe I hand them is this one — taco burritos. It’s the recipe that proves the point faster than any speech I could give: that a bag of beans, some rice, a pound of ground meat, and a stack of tortillas can feed a family of four for just a few dollars, and that the meal they carry home in their hands is something they made themselves. Maria learned this recipe in her first class with me. Now she teaches it in Sand Springs. That’s the chain. That’s what it looks like in a kitchen.

Taco Burritos

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 25 min | Total Time: 40 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 1 lb ground beef or ground turkey
• 1 packet (1 oz) taco seasoning, or 2 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp garlic powder, 1/2 tsp onion powder, salt to taste
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 can (15 oz) black beans or pinto beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 cup long-grain white rice, cooked (about 2 cups cooked)
• 6 large (10-inch) flour tortillas
• 1 cup shredded cheddar or Mexican blend cheese
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1 cup shredded lettuce (optional)
• 1 small tomato, diced (optional)

Instructions

1. Brown the meat. In a large skillet over medium-high heat, cook the ground beef or turkey, breaking it apart with a spoon, until no pink remains, about 7–8 minutes. Drain excess fat.
2. Season. Add taco seasoning and water to the skillet. Stir to combine and simmer over medium heat for 3–5 minutes, until the liquid is mostly absorbed and the meat is well coated.
3. Warm the beans. Add the drained beans directly to the skillet with the meat. Stir and heat through for 2–3 minutes. Remove from heat.
4. Warm the tortillas. Wrap the tortillas in a damp paper towel and microwave for 30–45 seconds, or warm them one at a time in a dry skillet over medium heat for about 30 seconds per side, until pliable.
5. Assemble. Lay a tortilla flat. Spoon about 1/3 cup cooked rice down the center, followed by a generous scoop of the meat and bean mixture. Top with cheese, a dollop of sour cream, salsa, and any optional toppings.
6. Roll. Fold in the sides of the tortilla, then roll from the bottom up, tucking tightly as you go. Place seam-side down on a plate.
7. Serve. Serve immediately, or wrap in foil to keep warm. For a toasted burrito, place the assembled burrito seam-side down in a dry skillet over medium heat for 1–2 minutes per side until lightly golden.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 490 | Protein: 28g | Fat: 16g | Carbs: 58g | Fiber: 6g | Sodium: 820mg