Baked Spicy Beef Chimichangas

In this Mexican chimichangas recipe, beef, cheese, onion, beans, and other ingredients are enveloped in flour tortillas and baked. How to serve chimichangas is up to you but they are best served with a variety of sauces, such as sour cream and guacamole. The chimichangas in this recipe are baked but they can also be deep-fried.

The delicious combination of beef and cheese features in a lot of Mexican recipes because the meat goes so well with the velvety cheese. You can use a Mexican cheese blend, cheddar, or Monterey Jack in the following recipe for chimichangas.

The history of the word "chimichanga" is interesting. According to legend, the owner of the El Charro restaurant dropped a pastry accidentally into the deep fat fryer in 1922. She started to utter a Spanish curse word but changed it to "chimichanga" at the last minute, which means "thingummyjig." When she realized how good the deep-fried pastry tasted, she must have put it on the menu, and chimichangas have remained popular to this day!

Cheese, Bean and Ground Beef Chimichangas Recipes

Ingredients -

8 oz Mexican cheese, grated
1 lb ground beef
4 ½ oz can chopped green chilies, drained
12 flour tortillas, 8 inches wide
½ cup picante sauce
1 can refried beans
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 onion, chopped
Nonstick cooking spray

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

Sauté the beef, onions and garlic together until the beef is brown all over.

Drain off the fat and stir in ⅔ of the cheese, the chilies, picante sauce, and refried beans.

Put ¼ of this mixture just below the center of each tortilla and fold the tortilla sides over so you have rectangle shaped packages.

Secure them using toothpicks.

Put the chimichangas on a baking sheet and spray some nonstick cooking spray on them.

Bake for 8 minutes on one side, then flip them and bake them for another 5 minutes.

Take the toothpicks out and sprinkle the rest of the cheese over them.

Serve with guacamole, salsa, and sour cream.

(Makes 12)

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