Chikn Burritos & Chimichangas

I love burritos. Simply great comfort food that can be designed depending on the mood or what the fridge is like. So how could you top it all? Right, you deep-fry it. :D Chimichangas are fried burritos and have moved up a whole notch on my fast food scale.

Duration: About 2 hours (+1 day if you make the seitan yourself)

Difficulty: easy

Makes: 8 burritos / chimichangas

Ingredients:

Salsa

3 cans of peeled tomatoes

1 small green pepper

1-2 onions

2-3 cloves of garlic

Fresh parsley & coriander to taste

1 lime (or the juice)

1.5 tablespoons of sugar

100g tomato paste

Chilli, salt, cumin and pepper to taste

Lime rice:

1 cup of rice

2 cups of water

1 lime (with untreated peel)

Pinch of turmeric, chilli & salt

Refried beans

1-2 onions

2 cloves of garlic

1 chilli

2 TBSP Oil

2 cans of kidney beans

200g light vegetable stock

1/2 lime

some cumin & paprika powder

Seitan

2kg flour

900g water

Vegetable broth / vegan chicken broth

250g tomato juice

40g rapeseed oil

20g soy sauce

35g burrito seasoning

8 wheat flatbreads (tortilla or durum)

500g soy sauce

1 lime

3 avocados

vegan grated cheese

Topping of your choice

some cornstarch mixed with water

Oil / fat to fry

Preparation:

This time I made the seitan for the burritos / chimichangas myself from flour. You can find more detailed instructions here. I wanted the seitan in the "chicken" style, so this time I hardly used any spices for the seitan in contrast to the kebab seitan. In the broth for cooking I only had some vegan chicken broth this time (you can also just use a vegetable broth) and no soy sauce or the like, so that the seitan keeps the lightest possible color. Chicken doesn't have a lot of taste of its own and the broth actually adds enough flavor to the seitan, which will later be seasoned with a marinade anyway. Theoretically, you can collect the broth, freeze it and use it again for the next time. In any case, it is important for the consistency that you weave in as many knots as possible and really let the seitan rest for a few hours, at least overnight, so that the gluten develops really well.

You will be rewarded for it the next day with great, fibrous, tender shreds like this one.

But after all, a burrito is not just made of "meat", but also of many other delicious components. I start by draining 500g of unsweetened yogurt in a sieve lined with a cloth so that it becomes even creamier. He can now just hang out there for a few hours until all the other ingredients are ready.

It continues with a simple salsa.

To do this, the peeled tomatoes are drained from the can. Catch the tomato juice, you will need some of it later for the marinade.

The tomatoes are now chopped relatively finely. Do the same with the bell pepper, onion and garlic. Or if you are just as lazy as I am, just put all the roughly chopped ingredients in the food processor and use the pulse function to chop everything up to the desired consistency. How many herbs you use is up to you at this point. I can't imagine salsa without coriander, but of course you can leave it out if you don't like one.

The vegetables are then put in a saucepan and boiled with 1.5 tablespoons of sugar, the juice of a lime, the tomato paste and a little chili, cumin, salt & pepper. It is better to add a little more spices later, when you taste it again, than too much at this point.

When you've seasoned your salsa a bit, it's ready and can cool down until it ends up in the burritos later.

When the salsa is ready, you can put the rice on it. Classic 1 part rice, two parts liquid. There is also a sliced ​​lime, a little salt and a pinch of chilli & turmeric. The turmeric is actually only used for color, so you can leave it out if you want. Then you just cook the rice as usual until it is done.

Next comes the bean purée, the refried beans, while the rice is still simmering. To do this, cut an onion into fine pieces, chop some chilli if you want a little spiciness and mash a little peeled garlic.

These are then fried with a little oil in a saucepan until the onions are translucent. Then rub them off with a little vegetable stock and then add the kidney beans. Everything is then boiled again.

When the beans have simmered for a few minutes, you can either make them small with a potato masher or a hand blender, depending on how fine you like your refried beans. Then the whole thing is only seasoned with the juice of half a lime and a few spices as you see fit.

Now that all the side dishes (except for salad and fresh ingredients such as avocado) have been prepared, you can make your seitan. You can now fry your shreds in a little oil in a large pan. Since the amount of seitan from 2kg flour is quite large, I divided it into two portions and seared it one after the other.

While the seitan is frying and is still getting a little color, you can stir the marinade with which you immediately extinguish the seitan. Mix 250g of the tomato juice with a little soy sauce, oil and burrito spice. You can certainly make the spice yourself, but I just used something that was bought.

When your seitan has got enough color and is crispy, add half of the marinade (or you should sear the whole marinade the entire amount of seitan at once). Now everything is fried again until the marinade is really well absorbed and the seitan begins to be crispy again. Then he's already done.

Now quickly mix the drained yogurt with the juice of a lime and possibly add a pinch of salt and you have a sour cream substitute for the burritos / chimichangas.

For burritos I would now spread some bean puree on warmed wheat tortillas (they are easier to roll when they are warm), this then serves as a kind of barrier against the moisture of the salsa and the sour cream. Then add some rice, some freshly cut lettuce, maybe some avocado, salsa, seitan, sour cream, maybe a few herbs to the bohenmus and I like to top it all with a little feta from the Mexican cotija cheese. Then the whole thing just has to be rolled up, done!

For chimichangas I would leave the fresh ingredients out of the burrito and use some vegan cheese instead of the cotija substitute. This then replaces Oaxaca cheese in the Chimichangas. I would also reduce the amount of sour cream a bit, but we still need a little moisture in the burrito so that the vegan cheese alternative melts well.

Now roll up the burrito as normal, but coat the last piece of tortilla with a little starch that you have mixed with water and press the side well so that the burrito does not open in the deep fryer. Then the burritos are transformed into chimichangas in the hot deep fryer for about 2 minutes until they are golden brown on the outside. I tried the hot air fryer as an alternative today and was a bit disappointed because they didn't look as nice and evenly fried. But the taste was still great, especially with the melted cheese.

The hot Chimichangas are then topped with a little sour cream, avocado / guacamole and salsa and served hot.

Guten Appetit!

If you've read this far, you might have noticed that I'm not running any adds, to improve your reading experience and because I deeply believe, that vegan recipes should be accesible to anyone.

But if you want to invite me on a virtual cup of fairtrade coffee via my PayPal.Me Link, I wouldn't say no. It would mean the world to me and helps me to keep buying ingredients for even more recipes. Thank you for cooking something vegan. 💜

If you're not using Paypal, you could also support me over here: