How to Make Easy, Healthy Spinach Quesadillas

For a Mexican meal in a hurry, quesadillas are a delicious choice.

A quesadilla (kay-suh-dee-ya) is a quick and easy hot Mexican sandwich made by folding a warmed tortilla around a filling of your choice. You can make the filling ahead of time (and keep if frozen) or just pull ingredients from your pantry and fridge. Below are some ideas to get you started.

Spinach Quesadillas

These are a big hit with my family which pleases me because I'm getting healthy food into everybody. If you make the filling ahead of time and freeze it in portions, you can have a meal in minutes.

Ingredients:

Bag of frozen chopped spinach

Mushrooms (I like the small can of Portabella mushrooms, $.88 at Walmart)

Seasoning Blend (this is a bag of onion, green pepper and celery found in the frozen vegetables aisle)

Package of tortillas (Tia Rosa brand whole wheat 98% fat free)

Fixings: chopped lettuce, tomatoes, ripe olives, guacamole, and salsa. In Texas we call additional food items that round out the main dish "fixings".

Pour about a tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil (to know the benefits of olive oil go to www.mediterraneandiet.gr/health.htm) in a skillet and sauté vegetables until soft. While you're doing this, microwave the frozen spinach according to package directions (about 6-8 minutes). Add cooked spinach and mushrooms to sautéed vegetables, stir a few times to heat through, then transfer to a bowl and set aside.

Using the same skillet you sauted the veggies in, begin softening tortillas by placing them, one at a time, in the center of the skillet set on medium heat. Place a blob of the spinach mix in the center of the warming tortilla and spread it around a bit. Fold tortilla in half noting if some browning has occurred on the tortilla. Using a spatula flip your tortilla over; you want to see slight browning on both sides. Practice will teach you how much heat is required, how long to brown, how much filling and so on.

Remove tortilla to non stick cookie sheet (I always use a piece of easy Release non stick aluminum foil on my old cookie sheet so I never have to clean it). Continue until you have the number of quesadillas you want for the meal. Put the finished quesadillas in the oven while you prepare the fixings.

With quesadillas people like all the usual Tex-Mex tastes so add what your family prefers. You can even place items in little bowls so each diner can select their favorites. To me that seems like too much trouble for a fast meal (I would do it for guests but not a fast family dinner) so I quick chop Romaine lettuce, cut cherry tomatoes in half, throw on some sliced olives, grab our favorite salsa and thaw some guacamole (for my glorious guacamole tip see my article called Mexican Recipe with Pinto Beans).

I serve quesadillas quartered with a mound of fixings in the center: lettuce, then guacamole, tomatoes and olives scattered about and a bit of salsa on top. You will easily adapt this meal to your family.

A note about cheese

Cheese is a controversial food. There are cheese lovers and cheese avoiders. So I don't put cheese in my spinach mix. You can add cheese to the mix, use it as a garnish or skip it altogether. That's the fun of quesadillas: fix 'em like you like 'em.

Freezing

I freeze the balance of my spinach mix in portions suitable for later meals. Even for two of us I would double all the ingredients listed above so I make a lot at one time.

Variations:

Tex-Mex food uses lots of beans, cheese and spice. For quesadillas you could simply use refried beans and cheese. A healthier version is to sauté all the vegetables, then add your favorite bean (pinto and black are the most usual choices) cheese, cooked chicken, whatever tastes you like. After all, a quesadilla is just a hot Mexican sandwich.