Spicy Sweet Potato Burrito

What I love about the Spicy Sweet Potato Burrito is it is delicious and easy to make. I typically make a batch of mini burritos and put them in the freezer. These burritos are delicious pockets of sweet and spicy goodness. One burrito is perfect to pull out frozen and heat up in under two minutes providing a quick and satisfying lunch.

First Bite at a Farmers Market

I first tried a sweet potato burrito about ten years ago at a Farmers Market in St. Augustine, Florida. I love Farmers Markets. Shopping at a Farmers Market is my favorite way to shop. I like to go early in the morning, when the air is cooler and the crowds tend to be a bit thinner. A good Farmers Market has a variety of booths. My favorite booths are food booths that focus on the primary reason for a Farmers Market – fresh produce. It is always inspiring to sample the creative ways these innovative marketers utilize the abundance of their produce. Even though it was a decade ago, I still remember trying my first sweet potato burrito.

Making the Burrito Spicy!

Now a decade later, I see several recipes for a sweet potato burrito. What once sounded so unusual to me, is much more widely known. The interesting thing about my Spicy Sweet Potato Burrito is whenever I share one with a friend (I usually pack two in my lunch bag and share with a coworker) they always say, wow – I never heard of a sweet potato burrito. It may seem like an unusual combination to you, sweet potato meets burrito, but once you try it you will wonder why you have not eaten it before! I promise.

Right when I got home from the Farmers Market I went to work recreating my burrito. I love my version of the sweet potato burrito because it only contains four ingredients readily found in my pantry. What impressed me about the burrito at the Farmers Market was the blend of tastes and the toasty crunch of the wrap itself. The woman in the booth grilled my burrito on a skillet right before handing it to me. Now I always want all of my burritos to have toasty-grilled wraps.

Working on my own burrito, I set out to improve the texture inside the burrito and I needed to add a little kick. To me a burrito should always have a little Mexicali kick. A spicy minced jalapeno adds just the kick I was looking with just the right texture. The spicy of the jalapeno combined with the sweet of the potato is exactly why people love sweet and spicy!

Smoothing out the Sweet Potato

Usually in burritos the sweet potato is roasted and served in large chunks. This was the case at the Farmers Market. The beans were refried and were used to hold the burrito together. It is difficult to eat as the large chunks of potato inside of the soft burrito rap as they are too heavy and fall out of the burrito ripping the shell. Instead of roasting the potato into chunks, I suggest microwaving it creating a smooth filling that holds together. This makes walking around a Farmers Market with your toasty treat easier!

As I reflect on the collections of recipes I have on Olive Sunshine, I realize I use the microwave often. If you missed my most popular recipe Sweet Potato with Roasted Chickpeas. The use of a microwave may compromise my authority as an expert home-chef, but in this case the microwave not only saves time, it is the best tool to use to prepare the Spicy Sweet Potato Burrito. The sweet potatoes, which are the star of this meal, turn velvety-smooth in the microwave. Adding uncooked black beans from a can, which gets heated with the burrito, adds a satisfying firm texture. It is important to me there is always a little of complexity in the chew of my food not achieved with refried beans.

I hope you try my perfect for the freezer, grab and go Spicy Sweet Potato Burritos. It is amazing that something so easy to make can have such a nice balance of tastes and textures. The fact that it is good for you just makes it perfect.