I’m excited to start an official new tag with you guys today! You’ve probably noticed many of the different tags we use here on ABM. They are located at the top of each post, just after the title. Our tags can alert you to all sorts of things like if a recipe is a main course (meal idea) or side dish (small bites), or even if something is sponsored. If you click on a tag, you’ll get transported to an archive page showing you all our past posts that have that tag. It’s a pretty handy tool if you’re looking for more ideas in a certain category of if you can’t find an old post, but you know a few tags it might belong to.
And today we’re starting a new tag called “freezer meals”. Lately I’ve found myself often cooking twice the amount of food I plan to eat and freezing the second meal so that I have something I can quickly throw in the oven on days I just don’t feel like cooking or if I’ve cooked all day for ABM and I don’t want to do any more dishes. 🙂 So far this is has been a weeknight dinner game changer for us. This isn’t something I do a lot because I don’t have a huge freezer, so I really only need a few easy meals saved at a time. But I thought that I could start sharing some of my favorites here on ABM in case you could benefit from a similar practice.
This one is SO flavorful and is super filling while also remaining pretty darn healthy. We’re gonna make our own enchilada sauce with just a few simple but surprising ingredients. And then we’re gonna smother some corn tortillas filled with loads of good things in that sauce. The story ends with us stuffing our faces AND storing away the same meal to be enjoyed in a few weeks or a few months.
I’m pretty excited. I hope you are too. OK, let’s enchilada!
Chipotle & Pumpkin Veggie Enchiladas, makes TWO two serving dinners (that’s four servings total).
1 bell pepper
1/3 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 tablespoon olive oil
salt and pepper to season
one 15 oz. can prepared black beans, drained
10-12 corn tortillas
For the sauce:
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon flour (I used whole wheat pastry flour, but any flour is fine.)
1 chipotle pepper in adobo sauce
1/4 cup tomato paste
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1 1/2 cups vegetable stock
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1/2 cup shredded cheese (optional)
First dice the peppers and onions and mince the garlic. Sauté those three ingredients in 1 tablespoon olive oil over medium / high heat for 4-6 minutes until the peppers soften and just begin to brown. Season with salt and pepper and remove from heat.
Drain the can of black beans and toss into a large bowl. I like to use a pastry blender to mash some of the beans just to give my filling a different texture, but this is optional. Add the cooked peppers and onions to the bowl and reserve until you are ready to stuff the tortillas.
Now it’s sauce time! In a good blender, combine the tomato paste, pumpkin puree, chipotle pepper, and 1/2 cup of the vegetable stock. Puree until smooth. In a medium sized pot, heat the 3 tablespoons olive oil over medium heat and whisk in the flour. This will make a very thin roux of sorts. Add the pureed pumpkin mix and the remaining 1 cup vegetable stock and whisk well.
To assemble your enchiladas, simply add about 1/3 cup of the sauce to a small baking pan or cast iron pan. For my freezer version, I used a small aluminum baking pan that came with a paper lid—convenient for my purposes. 🙂 Roll the filling up in the tortillas and place them side by side in the pans. Then top with the remaining sauce. Whether you do decide to add cheese to these or not, don’t add any to the freezer version because I find that cheese doesn’t tend to freeze well. So you can always add it later before baking if you want it.
Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes. Then top with a little fresh cilantro before serving.
I love to top this with half a sliced avocado if possible and I suggest you do it. 🙂 Enjoy! xo. Emma
Credits // Author and Photography: Emma Chapman. Photos edited with A Beautiful Mess actions.Â
27 Comments
Homemade enchiladas are AMAZING. My favorite recipe involves chicken, but it sounds like this pumpkin-based one will be just as hardy (and a bit more seasonal!).
Cat
http://oddlylovely.com
You are the best…we are having our second little bundle of love in January and I have been wanting to start stocking up on good homemade freezer meals to get us through a few weeks while we all get settled. This sounds super good,healthy and fresh. I look forward to more of these posts (no pressure 😉
Andrea
Yum!! When you are ready to bake the frozen ones, do you know how long to bake them for and at what temp? Thanks!
Hi Robyn! You’ll want to bake them at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. 🙂 -Jacki
This is such good timing! I’m expecting a baby in January and quitting my job in a couple of weeks…so I will have a few weeks to make some freezer meals for those crazy newborn days! Looking forward to seeing the other recipes too!
Looks so good! http://www.hannamarielei.com
Oh my word this looks good! Pumpkin and chipotle? So unique and delicious!
xo Heather
Omg, I am literally in love with this recipe, because you just mixed two of my favorite things in the entire world together!!!
Vik
http://suckerscloset.com
Super stoked about the freezer meal category! I’ve recently gotten into doing this as well, usually cooking several things on the weekend and then freezing them for the week. I frequently teach evening classes, so the last thing I want to do by the time I get home is cook, and with freezer meals I’m not reduced to eating pasta with cheese or potato chips several times a week. Total game changer!
Hi Emma,
I’m a long time fan of yours. I came across one of your posts in 2011 and fell in love with your writing. I’ve been hooked since. The addition of weekly recipes has completely elevated my obsession with ABM. The recipes are by far my favorite part and keep me coming back on a daily basis. I am holding my breath waiting for your new cookbook (Im so so proud of you by the way)! I cant wait to pre-order it and try all of the recipes!
Ok, now for the juicy questions.
1. I am a vegetarian and I noticed that your recipes usually are too. I was reminded lately, by your Thanksgiving post, that you do also eat meat. I was wondering why you post meat-less meals? (Not complaining, I love it!) Please say your cook book will be mainly meatless (fingers crossed).
2. I love the ABM Instagram account, especially the hashtags. It has allowed me to find so many like minded creatives. I was hoping that you had or could create an ABM cooking hashtag. You ladies recently posted about all the ABM hashtags and I didn’t see it on there.
Ok. Wow. What a long comment. Sorry about that.
Cheers!
Coco
Wow, this looks super delicious, thank you for this recipe! I will definitely try that!
https://www.makeandmess.com/
Ooo loving the new tag! Looking forward to many more. I have grand plans of having a freezer full of meals ready to go when we’ll be expecting an addition to our family (several months from now) and we’ll be busy figuring how out babies work. This dish sounds delicious and will DEF be in my freezer by then!
Congrats!!!!!! My birthday is in January too, good time to be born. 🙂
-Emma
Yep, if it’s already thawed or mostly thawed. I actually used the companion to this post earlier this week and I set it in the refrigerator in the morning so that by dinner time it was mostly thawed and then I baked at 350 F for about 25 minutes (like Jacki said). We did a half cheese side for Trey and half no cheese for me that night. 🙂
-Emma
Another January baby! Gosh you guys are making feel excited for the new year. I’ve got baby fever so just remember me if you ever feel like you’re over sharing the baby photos—you’re not! We need them!
-Emma
OH MY GOSH YOU ARE THE BEST PERSON EVER! Thank you for your super kind comment—seriously means the world to me.
Yes, I consider myself a mostly vegetarian because I go meatless about 90-95% of the time. I prefer a mostly plant based diet (with treats and other fun stuff sometimes, of course) most of the time for a lot of different reasons. Some health and some ethically related. That could be a whole post. Let’s get coffee some day and discuss? 🙂 But because of this I write about mostly meatless meals and yes, our cookbook will be meatless or mostly meatless as well.
I think a cooking hashtag could be really fun! Love that idea. 🙂
-Emma
Yum! Pumpkin is the best enchilada filler! When I make pumpkin and a meat version everyone (including diehard meat fans) always prefers the pumpkin! And I’m definitely excited about the new freezer meal section; it’s hard to fun recipes that are appetizing, nutritious and also freeze well. So kudos! Can’t wait for more 🙂
I made this for my boyfriend last night and it was a hit!
Thanks for making me look good 😀
I am so dooing this!!!! Thanks for sharing girls!
x
This is exactly the kind of content I need – I’ve been thinking so much lately about freezing more meals, simply to avoid the chore of making dinner & doing dishes! Thank you for this!
Hi Emma! I love this new category, it’s a great idea! Keep it coming. Thanks for sharing this delicious recipe, I can’t wait to try it.
Your food photography is so… well… I’m typing on my computer so I can’t type a heart eye emoji! But it is heart eye emojis! And I can’t wait to make these. And the lavender scones! Every time I check in, I see something delicious that goes on my to do lists. Really, REALLY looking forward to your cookbook. Keep rockin’ it, girl.
-Jo Farmer
I got excited and thought that you were launching another food-related hashtag! Though this is still pretty exciting too. 🙂
Emma- yum yum yum as always!! Question: when you stick that baking pan in the freezer, is that paper lid enough to protect everything in there from freezer burn? How long will it keep in there?
I so appreciate all your meat-less posts. I am about 98% plant based vegetarian so I love all your inventive ways to eat veggies while also keeping things interesting. Side note: I was always so intimidated with cooking tofu myself but your recent post on cooking tofu 3 ways has inspired me so much, I’ve been pan frying it like a champ ever since!! 🙂
Jess
We’ve been really into Southwestern food at my house recently. This sounds like a fun twist!
I am so excited for this new tag idea! And the recipe looks delicious and healthy too.
YAY!
You guys always make vegetarian food that looks so good! Thank you for making this type of recipes, I definitely enjoy some healthy snacks 😉
xx
angie
https://paintmeyellowmag.wordpress.com/