Meat Free Monday: Open-Faced Fajita

Mexican food has long been a favorite of mine. It can be healthy (or not), is always tasty, easy to prepare, and I have yet to find a person who doesn’t like it.

The following recipe is certainly one of the simplest I’ve made, but explodes with great flavor from the first bite to the last. The best part about it? It is meat-free, gluten-free and chock-full of veggies.

I had a hard time trying to decide whether or not these are considered quesadillas or fajitas, so, as I always do when I’m in doubt, I went to Google and looked up the difference between the two. It’s actually kind of interesting:

A fajita is a tortilla (warmed) that you fill with grilled meat and/or vegetables, top with salsa, sour cream, guacamole or whatever, and roll or fold and eat. At a mexican restaurant, they’ll bring you a cast-iron pab with the meat and veggies, and separate tortillas.

A quesadilla is one (folded over) or two (top and bottom) tortillas that are filled and grilled (key ingredient–CHEESE (that’s where the “quesa”comes from). The cheese is important–you can add other stuff both inside and outside, but it’s essentially cheese, and maybe shreds or meat and sometimes lettuce, assembled, cooked and served flat, with goodies maybe or not piled on top.

The quesadilla is assembled prior to hitting the pan, the fajita is assembled on the plate.

(source)

Because of how these are assembled, I think they’d be considered fajitas. Really, it doesn’t matter to me what you call them – I just hope that you make them! πŸ™‚

IMG_1788

Open-Faced Fajitas (egg, nut, and gluten-free)

Ingredients:
– 2 medium bell peppers, any color, sliced
– 1 medium vidalia onion, sliced
– Juice of 4 limes
– 1 tsp. chili powder
– 1/2 tsp. cumin
– 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
– 1/4 tsp. garlic powder
– Cooking spray
– 7 oz. (half a block) tofu, pressed and cooked (I bake mine)
– 3 handfuls of baby spinach (just under 3 cups)
– 2 small corn tortillas
– 2 tbsp. shredded Mexican cheese

Directions:

  1. Put sliced peppers and onions into a shallow dish, and pour lime juice over top. Sprinkle the chili powder, cumin, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder over the top. Stir, making sure everything is coated with the spices. Allow mixture to sit for at least half an hour.
  2. Coat a medium skillet with cooking spray. Add pepper and onion mixture (with juice), and saute over medium heat for about 5 minutes, or until vegetables are tender. Lower heat and tofu and spinach. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until spinach is wilted – about 3 minutes. Remove from heat.
  3. Sprinkle the cheese over the corn tortillas, and pop them in a toaster oven or under a broiler for a few minutes, or until cheese is melty. Top with cooked peppers and onions, and enjoy!

13 comments

  1. Fajitas are my very favorite Mexican dish. Your recipe looks delicious! I was just commenting to Hannah over at cleaneatingveggiegirl.com, that I’ve never tried tofu. It’s one of those foods that has always been intimidating to me. This looks like a recipe that I could really enjoy it!

    1. Thanks! I think that tofu is a total hit or miss for most people. The prep is easy, I think, and in this recipe you really don’t taste it. The only thing that I note is the texture, but I find that baking it helps a lot. I hope you give it a go! πŸ™‚

  2. Fajitas are always amazing I’ve decided.

    1. Yep, I agree.

  3. I love Mexican food, too! Tonight, in fact, we’re having rice and beans with fresh cilantro and lime juice πŸ™‚ Your fajitas sound and look delicious! Bell peppers are a great addition, need to remember those next time.

    1. I love beans and rice – and I love your idea of the addition of lime juice! Yum! And thanks!

  4. You can’t go wrong with Mexican food! How long and at what temperature do you bake your tofu? I’ve only used it a few times before.

    1. I take a tub of tofu (mine comes in 14 oz), slice it into 4 thin slices, then press it for at least 30 minutes. After that, I bake it at 375* for about 30 minutes, or until it’s golden brown. πŸ™‚ I hope you give it a try!

  5. Just read how you make your tofu, thanks for sharing. I haven’t ever baked mine before so I was also wondering πŸ™‚

  6. Oh wow. I don’t care what you call them either so long as you invite me for dinner. These look mighty damn tasty.

  7. Those fajitas are making my mouth water! I am on such a mexican kick lately. I had veggie tacos for dinner last night and mahi tacos tonight. I seriously can’t get enough of it!

  8. […] posted two Meat Free Monday recipes: Open-Faced Fajitas, and Simple Summer Potato […]

  9. These look so delicious! I love making Mexican food… especially fajitas as they’re so quick to cook & assemble. I love that you used baked tofu in this recipe πŸ˜€

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

%d bloggers like this: