This is my attempt at making a healthy version of the "beef and bean" or "bean and cheese" burritos one would otherwise buy frozen in a big bag at the store. I like to make a lot at once, so clean out some freezer space before you attempt this. This is also very much a throw in whatever you have kind of recipe, so have some fun with it and don't worry at all about exact measurements.
Beans
1 pound dry pinto beans
1/2 white onion
Filling
3 pounds ground beef or turkey
6 white potatoes, finely diced
1-2 red or green bell peppers
1/2 white onion
10-12 cloves garlic, diced
28 oz petite diced or crushed tomatoes
8-12 oz canned diced green chilies
12 oz tomato paste
4 recipes taco seasoning
For Rolling
50 soft taco size tortillas
Shredded cheddar cheese, to taste
First, make the beans. Rinse and pick the dried beans, then put your clean beans and onion (just peel the onion, cut it in half, and throw the full half in the pot) in a sauce pan and cover with at least 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to the barest simmer and cook until beans are done. You may need to add more water. This should take about 2 - 2.5 hours.
My goal in making these is for the filling to wind up kind of a big mushy mess, sort of like the frozen burritos you'd buy at the store. To that end, I dice everything small. Do that while the beans are cooking. Also, shred your cheese.
In a large dutch oven, brown meat. Remove meat with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving the grease behind in the dutch oven. If you use turkey, leave all the juices in the pot. If you use beef, remove some of the fat. You want just enough fat left for sautéing, so how much you remove will depend on how lean your meat was to start with. Add the chopped onion, green / red peppers, potatoes, and garlic and cook over medium heat, stirring often, for about 25 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
When the beans are done, remove them from the pot with a slotted spoon. Throw away the remnants of the onion half that was with the beans. Save about 1 cup of the bean juice, toss the rest.
To the potato mix, add tomatoes, tomato paste, green chilies, taco seasoning, beans, and meat. Mix it all up nice and thoroughly so you wind up with a gloopy mess. Enjoy the arm workout. You will probably need to add some liquid, that's what the reserved bean juice is for.
Now you have burrito filling and are ready to roll. I microwave 4-6 tortillas for about 15 seconds on a plate, that makes them easier to work with. Then lay them out on a big cutting board and fill with about 1/2 - 2/3 cup of filling, this will depend on the size of your tortillas. Toss in some shredded cheese and roll them up.
As I roll these, I put them on cooling racks. When they are cooled, freeze them in gallon size bags. If you don't wait for them to cool, they'll steam in the bag and the tortillas won't reheat as well.
To reheat, we eat two at a time. Wrap them in paper towels (this keeps the tortillas from getting gummy) and microwave. For a plate of 2 burritos, I microwave for 90 seconds, flip, another 90 seconds.
A few notes
Seriously, this is a throw whatever you have in it recipe. I put so much taco seasoning in these that I could probably hide just about anything in them. I haven't tried diced carrots or blended spinach, but I bet either would work. And more tomatoes, or more peppers, or a couple more potatoes...would totally be fine.
For heart health, I cut the salt in half in the taco seasoning recipe.
If I'm feeling fancy, I use fire roasted canned tomatoes.
They are heavily seasoned, so if you like seasonings a little more subtle, cut down on the taco seasoning to 3 recipes instead of 4.
For tortillas, I get the Guerrero brand bags of 40 sold at Costco (it takes a little more than one package); these work better than Mission brand as they are thinner and more pliable.
For cheese, I usually use about half a brick of sharp cheddar.
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