Breakfast burrito: a whole breakfast wrapped in a tortilla
The American solution to eating eggs, beans and cheese with one hand on the way to the car. Two things keep a burrito in one piece instead of falling apart halfway: the filling must be dry — no wet salsa inside — and the tortilla must be warmed before rolling, because a cold one splits along the fold. The eggs come out of the pan deliberately wet, because they go on cooking inside the hot wrap.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Filling 12 min
- Eggs 6 min
- Rolling 7 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneFry the beans and pepper
Fry the chopped onion and pepper in the oil 6 minutes, until soft. Add the garlic, cumin and smoked paprika for a minute, then the beans and salt. Cook another 4 minutes, crushing some of the beans with the spoon: mashed beans bind the filling, whereas whole ones stay loose and spill out.
Ingredients: 400 g tinned black beans · 1 pcs red bell pepper · 1 pcs onion · 2 cloves garlic · 1 tsp smoked paprika · 1 tsp ground cumin · 2 tbsp oil · ½ tsp salt
TipAlways rinse tinned beans. The liquid is starchy and salty; without rinsing the filling turns gluey and over-seasoned.
Some beans crushed, so the filling bindsMake soft scrambled eggs
Beat the eggs with salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a second pan over low heat and pour them in. Stir slowly with a spatula, drawing the edges to the middle, for about 4 minutes. Take them off while still clearly wet and glossy.
Ingredients: 6 pcs eggs · 20 g butter · ¼ tsp salt · ¼ tsp pepper
TipFully cooked eggs turn dry and rubbery inside a hot wrap. Taken off half a minute early they finish inside the burrito and stay creamy.
Off the heat while wet; they finish in the wrapWarm the tortillas
Warm each tortilla in a dry pan, 20 seconds a side, until soft and lightly blistered. A warm tortilla rolls tight; a cold one cracks along the fold and the filling comes out of the side. Four tortillas take about 3 minutes in all.
Ingredients: 4 pcs flour tortillas · 120 g cheddar · 1 pcs avocado · ½ tsp chilli flakes
Twenty seconds a side, until pliableLay the filling in a line
On the warm tortilla arrange everything in a narrow line across the lower third, leaving 4 cm clear at each side: cheese first (it melts under the hot eggs and glues everything down), then eggs, beans, sliced avocado and chilli. Don't overfill — divide the filling evenly between the four tortillas and add no more than you can roll.
TipCheese underneath, not on top. Melted between tortilla and filling it works as glue and seals the base.
A line on the lower third, cheese underneathRoll it tight
Fold both sides inwards, hold them with your thumbs, bring the bottom edge up over the filling and press down, pulling it slightly back towards you to compact the contents. Only then roll it up, keeping the sides tucked all the way.
Sides in, bottom over, press, then rollSear the seam
Put the burrito seam side down on a dry hot pan for 2 minutes, then turn it for a minute on the other side. A large pan takes two at a time. The heat seals the seam and crisps the tortilla. Cut on the diagonal and serve, or wrap in paper to go.
Seam down, two minutes, and it seals itself
Before you start
A batch for the freezer
Wrap the rolled, unseared burritos in foil and freeze. Reheat from frozen: 35–40 minutes in the foil at 180 °C, or — foil removed and wrapped in kitchen paper — 3–4 minutes in the microwave until hot in the middle, then a minute in a pan for crispness.
Salsa on the side
Wet salsa or sour cream inside softens the tortilla within minutes. Serve them in a bowl alongside for dipping — which is how many burrito bars serve them anyway.
With meat
150 g of fried bacon, chorizo or chilli-spiced beef mince in place of some of the beans. Pour off the excess fat or the base of the tortilla goes soggy.
Without eggs
Crumbled tofu fried with turmeric looks and behaves in the pan much like scrambled egg. Add an extra spoon of cheese or avocado for richness.
