A super flavorful any-night-of-the-week meal, comforting carby Tex-Mex Tortellini is dressed in spicy flavors for a crave-worthy Mexican dinner everyone will love!
Fans of Tex-Mex cuisine, this meal is for you. And also, plant-based cooks with picky omnivores eaters — or omnivore cooks with picky plant-based eaters — this one is definitely for you!
This is my go-to recipe when it’s Wednesday night, and I can barely drag my bod to the stove, much less power-up my clever-meal-inventing brain. You have those nights, too, right?
It’s deliciously fool-proof, too: no tricky techniques, no hard-to-find ingredients. It’s the poster child for easy weeknight cooking.
Vegetarian Tex-Mex Tortellini is not only stuffed with healthy veggies and black beans, but it features refrigerator cheese tortellini, which (1) I think just about everyone loves, and (2) cooks up lickety split. The spices I picked for this recipe are smoky with just the right amount of heat (a kick but not a burn >> my favorite kind).
This is already a 30-minute dinner, but if you’re extra organized and can chop up the veggies the night before, we’re looking at about 15 minutes behind the stove and OUT: Tex-Mex Tortellini on da table!
That’s 15 minutes for a homemade meal, with lots of fresh vegetables and tummy-filling pasta that you can feel good about serving to your family.
Why Tex-Mex Tortellini is just the best:
- Familiar Tex-Mex flavors means no scrunched up noses and skeptical side-eyes when you present this vegetarian dinner.
- It’s a beautiful, rainbow-colored dish that looks bright and inviting. There are tons of veggies in the dish, but they don’t stick out like a sore thumb (you can be the clever Mom who’s hiding/not hiding the healthy vegetables in dinner).
- Pasta! If your fam needs something gluten-free, just substitute a GF pasta.
- The recipe is super flexible. Someone doesn’t like corn? Leave it out! You have an orange bell pepper on hand but not red? No problem!
- One easy swap makes this recipe vegan/dairy-free by the replacing the cheese-filled tortellini (refrigerated tortellini often is) with plain.
One thing that I really appreciate about this Mexican tortellini dish is that it’s really year-round fare: yes, it’s carby comfort food that’s a big hug in the winter, but with its focus on veggies, it’s also crisp and summery. And its fast cooking time means you don’t heat up the kitchen!
So, when the fam shouts “Mexican!” when you bring up dinner, you can just shoo everyone away from the car and head to the fridge to create a craveworthy meal everyone will love!
Karen xo
Tex Mex Tortellini
Ingredients
- 9 ounces refrigerated tortellini or 6 ounces dried tortellini
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1/2 red onion chopped
- 1 small red bell pepper diced
- 1 small green bell pepper diced
- 1 small poblano pepper diced
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 cup fresh corn kernels or thawed from frozen
- 19-20 ounces red enchilada sauce
- 15 ounce can black beans rinsed and drained
- 1 green onion sliced
- 1 tablespoon cilantro minced
Instructions
- Prepare the tortellini according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
- Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large skillet or low-walled pan over medium, until the oil shimmers. Add the onions, peppers and corn, and saute until softened, about 8 minutes.
- Scootch the vegetables to one side of the pan, and add the remaining olive oil to the cleared side of the pan. Sprinkle the paprika, cumin, chili powder, and salt over the oil, and stir to make a paste. Mix into the vegetables.
- Pour in the enchilada sauce (scraping the can clean). Add the black beans and continue heating just until bubbles begin forming in the enchilada sauce. Reduce heat to low, and fold in the tortellini, coating with the enchilada sauce.
- Serve in bowls, and top with green onions and cilantro.
Nutrition
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Rocky Mountain Woman
Friday 19th of April 2019
Every night is Wednesday night around here anymore. I've been too tired to even think. This looks simple enough that I might be able to make it even in my impaired condition.