Vegan Family Dinners: Baked Vegetable Enchiladas

Vegan Family Dinners: Baked Vegetable Enchiladas

I have been perusing my favorite blogs lately looking for ideas for family vegan dinners and came across a post on Veggie Kids for vegan enchiladas.  Veggie Kids' version looks delicious and I look forward to trying it, but it also inspired me to invent my own version.  Soon after I started trying to eat more vegetarian and vegan fare, I had a delicious version of a Mexican quesadilla that used mashed yukon gold potatoes as a filling.  This was my jumping off point for these kid-friendly veggie enchiladas, which are filled with a mixture of spinach and mashed yukon golds (these were luckily available at the Durham Farmers Market this week), then topped with slow-cooked onions and carrots, vegan sour cream, jack cheese and red chile enchilada sauce.

Baked Vegetable Enchiladas
Served 4-6

Ingredients:
12 soft corn tortillas
1 pound yukon gold potatoes, quartered
1 large yellow or sweet onion, vertically sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled, crushed and roughly chopped
1 package frozen, chopped spinach, thawed and drained thoroughly
1 cup frozen carrot sticks or coins, thawed (I used Trader Joe's rustic multi-colored carrots)
1 packet taco seasoning (I used Simply Organic's Southwest Taco seasoning)
1 bottle mild, red enchilada sauce (I used Frontera's Gourmet Classic Red Chile Enchilada Sauce)
8 ounces vegan sour cream
4 ounces vegan jack cheese, shredded (I used Daiya brand)
2 tbsp olive or canola oil
1 tbsp vegan butter substitute
1 cup veggie broth or water

Your mise-en-place (prepped ingredients)

Directions: Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.  Next, bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Once the water reaches a fervent boil, add your quartered potatoes and a generous sprinkling of salt.  Let the potatoes boil until fork tender, maybe 15 minutes.  Meanwhile slice your onion and crush and chop your garlic.  Drain your chopped spinach in a paper towel-lined colander, changing the paper towels every time they soak through with water-maybe 3 or 4 rounds of this will do.  Once your potatoes are tender, drain them in a colander and transfer them to a large mixing bowl.  Mash them by hand with a potato masher or the back of a wooden spoon along with the tablespoon of vegan butter.

Mashed yukon golds: the centerpiece of the enchilada filling

At the same time- your onion, garlic and carrots can be cooking in a medium pan over medium heat.  Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the hot skillet, then add the onion and garlic and 1/3 of the taco spice packet.  Stir to combine and let cook maybe five minutes before you add a 1/4 cup veggie broth (this will help steam the veggies and keep you from using too much oil) and the carrots.  Leave the pan on the eye until the onions are becoming very tender.

Leave the onions and carrots on the eye until they're very soft

Now back to the mashed yukon golds.  Add the chopped spinach to the mixing bowls and combine it with the potatoes along with another third of the taco seasoning packet.  If the mixture is a bit too dry to combine, add a 1/4 cup veggie broth while you're stirring it together.

Chopped spinach and taco seasoning added to the mashed potatoes

Now you're ready to form your enchiladas.  Grease a large, shallow casserole dish.  Take each corn tortilla individually and stuff it with a spoonful or two of the potato mixture and top with a spoonful or two of the sauteed onions and carrots.  (If you have left over spinach and potato mixture after you are finished stuffing your tortillas, like I did, you can freeze it and use it later as a burrito filling or even stuff it into puff pastry for a quick and easy empanada.)

Fill each of your 12 corn tortillas like so

Carefully place each of your stuffed tortillas into the casserole dish so that they all fit and are able to sit in the dish upright.

Place the tortillas in the casserole dish so they all sit upright-they're just waiting for the sauces!

Now you're ready to sauce your stuffed tortillas--the secret to making them enchiladas.  In a medium mixing bowl, combine the vegan sour cream, the shredded jack, a 1/4 cup of the veggie broth and the final third of the taco seasoning packet.  Whisk to combine, then spoon a generous helping into each tortilla.

Whisk together the vegan sour cream, jack and taco seasoning and spoon it into the tortillas

Top each corn tortilla with a spoonful or two of red enchilada sauce and now these bad boys are ready to cook!

Your stuffed corn tortillas are now magically transformed into enchiladas.

Cover the enchiladas with foil and place the casserole dish on the center rack of your preheated oven.  Cook covered for 15 minutes, then remove the foil and turn the oven up to 400 and cook for another 15 to 20 minutes until the tortillas are browning and the sauces are bubbling.

Baked Veggie Enchiladas: hot out of the oven

Plated with a simple tomato salad and ready to eat!

For our small family of two adults and a toddler, we get two night of dinners out of this.  The first night, I served the enchiladas with a salad of local tomatoes, tossed with torn basil, chopped scallions, balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and salt and pepper.  Full disclosure: the salad also had fresh mozzarella we had bought at the farmer's market (the kind of quality dairy I like to eat when I do) tossed into it but it would have been just as tasty and easy without it.  Tonight, we will eat the leftovers with sides of fresh, chopped pineapple.  If you also want to get two nights of dinner out of this, I suggest topping the leftover enchiladas with additional sauce and reheating them covered with foil on 350 for 20-30 minutes.

Vegetarian Option: Use traditional sour cream and jack cheese in place of the their vegan counterparts

Free-for-All Weekend Option: Ditch the sour cream mixture, and use shredded rotisserie chicken and jack cheese (about 8 ounces) in its place