Baked green enchilada bean and cheese quesadillas are about to revolutionize your dinner game! They are all cooked together in the oven, saving a lot of time and energy when making a big batch.
Remy’s in a phase of life right now where she *ONLY* wants to eat quesadillas.
Cheese, maybe some beans if I can hide them well enough. Sometimes when I get really lazy, I just pulverize a string cheese, stuff it into a tortilla shell and call it dinner.
God forbid I try to sneak a vegetable in there. You don’t want to be around if/when that happens. Trust me.
I’m fine throwing together a quick quesadilla for her on a random weeknight, but I hate putting them on our weekly menu as an official meal and here’s why:
I don’t have a pan big enough to make all the quesadillas necessary to feed our family at once, so I’m standing by the stove for like twenty minutes just to make a simple quesadilla dinner. At that rate, I might as well have made a stir fry or popped open a jar of pasta sauce. Also, by the time I finish the last quesadilla, the first few are freezing cold and completely unappetizing.
Moms everywhere – you’ve been there, right?
But a few weekends ago, I had an epiphany – in my apartment I have this magical device that can get really hot and is big enough to heat an entire sheet pan full of things at one time.
It’s called AN OVEN. Maybe you have one too?
YES, I’m talking about baking your quesadillas and let me tell you, your life will be forever changed for the better after this.
You can prep about eight quesadillas at once, pop them in the oven, and they get perfectly crispy with gorgeous melted cheese pulls. BONUS that they all finish cooking at the same time so everyone gets to have warm melty cheese!!!
As someone who has eaten many cold clumpy cheese quesadillas, this is a welcome change in my life.
These quesadillas are stuffed with cheese and a simple mildly spicy refried bean filling. They’re classic and kid-approved by the toddler taste buds in my house.
Mid-way through baking, they get brushed with green enchilada sauce, which bakes onto the top and gives them extra delicious flavor. It just adds a certain pizzazz to the whole deal.
I don’t know about you, but I’m never making quesadillas any other way again.
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 3 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tsp ancho chili powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- 2 tbsp water
- 15 oz refried pinto beans
- 8 oz cheddar cheese, shredded
- 8 flour tortillas
- ¼ cup green enchilada sauce, plus more for dipping
- Heat the canola oil in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add the onion to the pan and saute for 4 minutes, or until translucent. Stir in the garlic and saute until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the ancho chili powder, cumin, and salt. Saute for 1 minute, then add in the water and pinto beans. Stir just until heated through, then remove from the heat.
- Heat oven to 400F.
- Spread the flour tortillas out on a clean work surface. Divide the pinto bean mixture between the tortillas, spreading it to cover half of each tortilla. Top with the cheese and then fold the unadorned half of the tortilla over the mixture. Place the stuffed tortillas on a baking sheet. Bake for 8 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and brush the tortillas with the green enchilada sauce. Return to the oven and bake for another 6 minutes.
- Serve with extra enchilada sauce on the side for dipping.
Sheet pans are the best, aren’t they? I am loving these bean and cheese quesadillas and have a feeling my kids would dig them too.
Sounds like a great way to give you a break – and I am sure you need one! So does remy eat the quesadillas with the green enchilada sauce – that would be too much like vegetables (or flavour) in my house 🙂
Haha I made her one without it the first day I made them, but when she had leftovers they had the sauce on them and she didn’t seem to notice. Sometimes I think it’s mind over matter and because she knew she had liked them before, she was less critical.