Craveable, Healthy Sweet Potato & Black Bean Quesadillas
I love tacos, but I’m on a quesadilla kick lately. A quesadilla offers the same delicious elements as a taco—lots of delicious fillings wrapped in a tortilla. But the addition of salty, gooey cheese and a crispy, toasted exterior creates a totally craveable experience.
These sweet potato and black bean quesadillas balance that sinful, melty cheese with a nutrition-packed vegetarian filling. The vegetables are heavily spiced (flavor for days!) and sautéed together before being stuffed in a flour tortilla with pepper jack cheese and then toasted on a hot griddle. These vegetarian quesadillas are so flavorful that non-vegetarians won’t miss the meat at all (in fact, my husband thought there was chicken in the filling before I tipped him off!)
♥ Related: Oven Baked Fish Tacos
Notes for Preparing Quesadillas
Here are a few preparation notes for making these quick and easy sweet potato and black bean quesadillas:
- To get this meal done in 30 minutes, get your vegetables cooking and grate the cheese while they are cooking to use time efficiently. You could also use packaged, grated cheese, but I usually don’t because block cheese is cheaper and packaged, grated cheese adds non-caking agents to the package that I’d prefer to do without.
- Use whatever cheese you like, especially if pepper jack is too spicy for you; but I like a jack-style cheese because it gets perfectly oozy when it’s melted.
- I like making quesadillas in my electric skillet because I can toast a full batch in one go. If you don’t have an electric skillet, use your biggest skillet and toast in batches over medium high heat.
- Quesadillas are a great meal prep option! Double (or triple) this recipe for meal prep. After toasting, but before cutting into wedges, wrap each quesadilla in foil individually. Refrigerate for a week or freeze for up to 6 months. To re-heat, unwrap and place on a sheet pan in an pre-heated 400 degree oven for 10 minutes (refrigerated) or 20 minutes (frozen), flipping halfway through cooking.
Spiced Sweet Potatoes & Black Beans Filling the quesadillas. Toasted Sweet Potato & Black Bean Quesadillas Quesadilla on a cutting board.
Sweet Potato & Black Bean Quesadillas
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ cup onion diced small; about ¼ of a large onion
- 1 ½ cups sweet potato diced small; about 1 medium sweet potato
- 1/2 can black beans drained and lightly mashed
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ½ tsp ground cumin
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- 1 chipotle pepper minced
- salt to taste
- 2 tbsp water
- 4 oz pepper jack cheese grated
- 4 8-inch flour tortillas
- olive oil for toasting the quesadillas
Instructions
- Heat 1/2 tbsp of olive oil in a medium frying pan over medium heat. Add the onion and a pinch of salt and saute for 10 minutes or until the onions are soft and starting to brown.
- Add another 1/2 tbsp of olive oil. Then add the diced sweet potatoes, chili powder, paprika, cumin, garlic powder, and chipotle pepper. Saute for 3 minutes. Then add water and cover. Cook for 5-7 minutes or until the sweet potato is tender.
- Add the mashed black beans to the pan and another pinch of salt. Stir. Cover for 1-2 minutes to warm the beans through.
- Spread ¼ of the mixture on one half of a flour tortilla. Sprinkle cheese over the filling and fold the tortilla in half. Repeat with all tortillas.
- Heat an electric skillet to 350 degrees (or a large frying pan on the stove over medium-high heat). Drizzle with a bit of olive oil covering the entire cooking surface. Toast each quesadilla on both sides until golden brown and the cheese is melted. If you are using an electric skillet you should be able to toast all quesadillas at once. If you need to cook in batches, re-grease the pan with olive oil after each quesadilla is toasted.
Notes
- Serve with a drizzle of sour cream or lime crema and salsa.
- To make an easy and delicious lime crema, mix 1/2 cup of sour cream with the juice of half of a lime and a pinch of salt.
- Garnish with chopped cilantro and green onions.
Restaurant-Style Salsa
These were great! We really enjoyed them. I’ll be making them again, for sure. Your recipes have been inspiring me to step out of my regular rotation of meals. This one had me borrowing smoked paprika from a neighbor (now it’s on the shopping list) and using some jalepeños (instead of a chipotle pepper — how different are they?) that I’d frozen leftover from making your salsa.
One question, when should the pepper go in? I put it in with the beans but I wasn’t sure. More recipes, please!
These were great! We really enjoyed them. I’ll be making them again, for sure. Your recipes have been inspiring me to step out of my regular rotation of meals. This one had me borrowing smoked paprika from a neighbor (now it’s on the shopping list) and using some jalapeños (instead of a chipotle pepper — how different are they?) that I’d frozen leftover from making your salsa.
One question, when should the pepper go in? I put it in with the beans but I wasn’t sure. More recipes, please!
Oh I’m glad you liked them. Chipotle peppers have a little smokiness to them, so it would be slightly different but the Jalapeno probably worked just fine to give a little heat to the dish! Anyway, recipes are made to be tweaked! 🙂
Thanks for letting me know I had a little error in the instructions and didn’t include where to put in the chipotle pepper. You add it in with the spices and I updated this recipe!