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PAQUITOS! Potato and Bean Taquitos – Baked not Fried! (Vegan, low-fat, gluten-free)

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I’m not proud of this,  but when I was in junior high, I ate taquitos from the cafeteria nearly every day.  I don’t even want to think about what they were filled with, but I just loved them; mostly for the crunchy corn tortilla and the green dipping sauce with which they were served.  We won’t even talk about the Hostess mini crumb donuts I ate too.  Geez.  Gotta love the offerings in school cafeterias.  Sad to say it’s no better 30 years later.  Did I just say that?  30 YEARS?  “sigh”.

Anyway, I digress…sorry.   As we all know, traditional taquitos are deep fried.  We also know deep fried foods = bad news.  I set out to create a plant-based taquito that I could bake, but would still be crunchy.  I don’t cook with oil as a rule, but for form and function, a small amount was required for this to work.  I tried it without.  Fail.  However, I was amazed how such a small amount could make a difference.  1 tablespoon of olive oil or less for the entire batch of 12 taquitos.  Not bad.  Since these taquitos are filled with potatoes, I’m calling them paquitos.  🙂

Potatoes in a Taco = Super Delicious!

Reply

When I was on Maui last week, we ate at a cool restaurant called Monkey Pod.  They had an interesting menu filled with varieties of different foods, all using sustainable, local ingredients.  I was super excited when I saw Potato Tacos on the menu.  I wasn’t super excited to see, when the server brought them to the table, that they were made with french fries.  Yikes!  As you can imagine, they were very greasy (don’t worry, I didn’t finish them, and I picked out many of the potato pieces).  The wheels immediately began turning in my head as I thought about how best to recreate a healthy version of the dish.  Here’s the recipe!  It was delicious, even made without french fries.  See what you think!