Whether you are looking to adopt a nutrient-dense, plant-based diet or are just trying to find healthier alternatives to some of your favorite dishes, we have great recipes on our site to suit your tastes! Some of our recipes can look a little intimidating, though. That’s why we created a weekly segment called RecipEASY — to make healthy eating easier. We (Kate and Kayla) make a recipe from our site and break it down to give you helpful tips and modifications. Since neither of us are professional chefs, we are always looking for ways to simplify healthy recipes!
This week we made…
Black Bean and Yam Quesadilla
I’ll just get this out of the way now: the main reason we really wanted to try this recipe is because we’ve never had non-dairy cheese before. Granted, Mexican food is amazing and who can pass up the opportunity for a healthy version that not only tastes good, but is good for your body?
Our shopping list included: vegetable stock, a yam, carrots, onions, cumin, chili powder, oregano, paprika, black beans, kale, red bell peppers, plum tomatoes, garlic, jalapeno, cilantro, lime juice, Daiya cheddar, and whole wheat tortillas. Find the full list of measurements here. We may have also got a little side tracked in the kitchen gadget aisle with new measuring cups, graters, colanders, and the like…
The first step was to saute the yams, carrots, onions, and spices for about 5 minutes. We accidentally got baby carrots instead of shredded carrots, so Kate got to spend some quality time with our new grater shredding the yam and carrots. But not having any big chunks of carrots or yams in the vegetable mix allowed the flavors to blend together nicely.
When the chopping and shredding was done, the recipe moved along quickly. We sauted the first batch of ingredients. We had to add a bit more than 2 tablespoons of vegetable stock, because the yams and carrots started burning on the bottom of our pan.
Next, we added the black beans and let the mixture simmer. After 5 minutes, we added the kale and let it cook for 10 minutes.
In the meantime, we made our salsa. We chopped the tomatoes, garlic, jalapeno, cilantro, and the rest of the onion and added them to the blender with the lime juice. We’d recommend evenly distributing the ingredients before blending.
When both the salsa and vegetable mixture were finished, we started making our quesadillas! We spread the vegetable mix on a tortilla, sprinkled some of our dairy-free cheese on top, and then toasted on a pan coated with a tiny bit of olive oil.
The quesadillas were definitely a hit! Although the recipe says it makes 8 servings, we were able to make about 12 quesadillas (we could have used a little extra salsa, though) -- our coworkers were definitely excited about the recipe we picked!
Try these delicious quesadillas for yourself and let us know what you think!
