Recipe: Grilled Chicken Salsa Verde Burritos

From Asian to Mexican, grilling can bring many exotic flavors right to your own backyard. Today's recipe features spicy salsa verde and creamy avocado for a tasty and easy meal great for a quick lunch or dinner in a shady spot on a hot summer day!

Grilled Chicken Salsa Verde Burritos (Serves 4.)

Flour Tex-Mex tortillas (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Ingredients:

4 chicken breasts, skin and bones removed
olive oil for grilling
salt and pepper
1 cup salsa verde
8 small tortillas (corn or flour)
1 avocado, sliced thin
2 cups shredded Pepper Jack cheese

Directions:

• Set your grill up for medium-high heat.
• Rub the chicken with a little olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place chicken on grill, close cover, and cook for 5 minutes, flip and cook for 5 more minutes.
• Remove from grill and let rest on a cutting board for 3 minutes; then slice chicken into thin strips and place in large bowl.
• Add salsa verde to bowl with chicken and stir gently to combine; set aside
• Place tortillas on the grill just until grill marks appear, flip and do the same to the other side. Remove to working surface.
• Lay out tortillas and divide the chicken slices, avocado, and cheese evenly between all the tortillas and roll up into a burrito.
• Makes 8 small burritos.

Recipe - Easy Summer Black Bean Burritos

I've been pretty much living on these for the past couple of weeks!  They're just so easy, delicious, fast, and really don't require any cooking - they are perfect for a quick summer lunch or even dinner. The only thing is - they're so simple I almost hesitate to use the word "recipe"!  :-)

But here it is - a quick, healthy, tasty, and minimal-effort weeknight dinner perfect for those summer evenings when you just don't feel like cooking. This can also be a fun one for the kids -  let them pick their own fillings, and help assemble them - it will give them a sense of ownership of their food, and encourage them to eat some veggies!

Easy Summer Black Bean Burritos: (Makes 4; May be adjusted as needed.) 

Ingredients (feel free to mix it up and add your own!):
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed (or 1 1/2 cups cooked black beans - easy to cook ahead and refrigerate until needed - and feel free to substitute other types of beans!)
Several leaves fresh lettuce, rinsed and torn
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup salsa
4 large (burrito size) flour tortillas
1 cup diced tomatoes (optional)
1/3 cup chopped cilantro (optional)
3 TB slivered sweet or red onion (optional)
1/3 cup shredded cheese (optional; cheddar, monterey jack, or colby are all good choices, or even crumbled feta)
Salt, to taste

Instructions:
1. Heat tortillas in toaster oven or dry skillet on low-medium heat until warm and flexible.
2. Heat beans in microwave about 30 seconds (or just leave them cold - they are good this way too).
3. Place tortillas on plates, divide beans evenly among them, spreading along the center. Add lettuce, other toppings as desired, and spoon salsa and sour cream over the top. Add a sprinkle of salt if desired.
4. Wrap tortillas around fillings and eat!

These have slivered sweet onions, & lettuce & cilantro from my garden.

Feel free to be creative with these!  I listed a few optional suggestions above. I have had them both with and without any of these optional ingredients - they are always good. Feel free to try different herbs, cheeses, and other condiments. Corn could also be a good addition, and maybe olives? If you want to get really crazy, sprinkle with a dash of cumin, chili powder, or another seasoning. Your options are really limited only by your imagination, and what you have on hand.

Make up your own version, and of course come back and let us know how it turns out!