Been on a kick for enchiladas lately and trying out different mixtures of sauce, spices, veggies, and bean combos in them. Not sure but I’m thinking baby girl likes Mexican food. 🙂 I was looking at a recipe that used a cheese sauce and some veggie filled enchiladas, and thought I could make this with less dairy and healthier.

We went to Costco today (drove through some pretty terrible roads to get there) to stock up on produce for the week, and I found a 2.5 POUND bag of spinach. You read that right, 2.5 POUNDS. Trying to keep this baby chalk full of calcium and folate has gotten easier when recipes use sauteed spinach being you can pack so much more into a dish. Talk about calcium, iron, folate, and all the goods!

Now my husband thought I was nuts for wanting to purchase this 2.5 pound bag of spinach, when right next to it was a 1 pound container of baby spinach, but I told him with my plans for meal prep this week, along with his morning breakfast smoothies, I saw no issue using this spinach up. This recipe alone used almost 1/3 of the bag.

I’m just glad we were able to get out of the house. For being “spring break” for the university in town, you’d expect spring is here or at least almost, but we got nailed with 10 inches of snow yesterday! What the heck… I swear living in North Dakota sometimes is really two seasons, winter, and spring. Summer and fall pass so fast, it’s almost like they don’t exist. On a positive note, we should break our 50+ day streak of being below FREEZING temps sometime this week. That will be followed by another 4-8 inches of snow, but we have to look at the bright side. Let’s just hope it doesn’t heat up too fast and cause major flooding.

So this recipe I modified from Budget Bytes spinach enchiladas. First off, I used fresh spinach and sautéed it myself and mixed the ingredients in warm. Secondly I did not use a homemade sauce, but green canned sauce (at 37 weeks pregnant, I’m not up for making my own green sauce), and we are trying to cut out extra cholesterol since we were huge milk drinkers up until recently. With the baby on the way we are focusing more on our health to make sure we can be active and provide fully for our girl.

I used high fiber tortillas to help pack in a bit extra (any of you who’ve been pregnant should appreciate this). I used great northern beans for these ones, switching it up from my usual black beans or pinto. Using fresh, I was able to add as much as I wanted, which was also great.

Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 35 minutes (oven); 10 minutes (stove)
Total Time: 55 minutes
Yield: 4-5 servings

Ingredients

1 tbsp olive oil
16-20 oz fresh spinach (or more if you desire)
1 (15 oz) can great northern beans (or cannellini beans work too)
8 oz shredded mexican blend cheese
2 (10 oz) cans green enchilada sauce
1 tsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp coriander cumin powder (use cumin if you don’t have a blend)
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
8-10 flour tortillas (I used these high fiber ones – https://www.target.com/p/ole-xtreme-wellness-high-fiber-low-carb-tortilla-wraps-8-ct-12-7-oz/-/A-50325179

Directions

Preparation of Filling:

1. Heat skillet over medium heat with olive oil
2. Preheat oven to 350°F
3. Add spinach in large handfuls until it wilts. Continue adding until all spinach has wilted
4. Remove from heat
5. Rinse beans and add to skillet with spinach
6. Mix in garlic, coriander cumin, salt, and pepper
7. Add half the cheese (4 oz) and mix together

Assembly:

1. Add 1/2 of one can of enchilada sauce to the bottom of a 9″x13″ baking dish and swirl it around to coat bottom and some of the sides
2. Add about 1/4 cup of the filling to tortilla shells and roll up
3. Place seam side down in the baking dish
4. Once all tortillas are in the dish, pour the remaining sauce from the first can over the top of the enchiladas
5. Add the remaining cheese to the top of the enchiladas
6. Finally pour the second can of sauce over the top mixing it in with the cheese. Try to make sure no dry spots on tortillas are there to prevent hardening or burning during baking
7. Bake for 35 minutes – checking to ensure no burning. If cheese has not melted by 35 minutes, add an additional 5 minutes to baking time
8. Serve with garnish of cilantro, or as is. YUM!

I hope you enjoy these as much as we did. I’ve seriously been a total sucker for enchiladas the last few weeks, only thing I can think is the little babe likes them! Let me know if you make any changes or have any questions!

-Cassie 🙂