Pork Chilli and bacon cheesy burritos from Hello Fresh

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Cooking at home is wearing a bit thin isn’t it? A whole year of coronavirus, repeated lockdowns, and quite frankly if I never have to shop and cook for myself again it will be too soon. I just don’t want to have to think about meal planning, I don’t want to come up with new recipe ideas, my brain has run out.

Fortunately there are companies like Mindful Chef, Gousto and HelloFresh ready to do the brainwork for me, who can take the time to create and put together new, interesting and healthy recipes and save me from another dinner of blue cheese and Frazzle sandwiches. (An actual lunch I ate.)

This week in our HelloFresh box we had sweet and sour chicken, really tasty halloumi tacos and pork chilli and bacon cheesy burritos with a zesty avocado black bean salad.

That’s the recipe I’m going to show you today.

HelloFresh recipes come with exactly what you need – all of your ingredients in the right quantities, easy to follow recipe cards and no waste. For me that’s one of the things that normally puts me off trying new recipes – knowing that in a couple of months time I’m just going to be throwing away 7/8 of a jar of harissa paste. With HelloFresh you save money and avoid this as they only send you exactly the right amounts.

For HelloFresh pork chilli burritos for two people you will need:

• A lime
• 2 spring onions
• 60g cheddar cheese
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 125g cherry tomatoes
• 1 bag of fresh coriander
• 1 small pot of HelloFresh cajun spice
• 300ml water for the rice
• 1 sachet of chicken stock powder
• 1 HelloFresh pack of basmati rice
• 8 rashers streaky bacon
• 120g pork mince
• 1 sachet chipotle paste
• 75ml water for the chilli
• 1 sachet BBQ sauce
• 1 avocado
• 4 wholewheat tortillas

It looks like a long list, and let’s face it, it is. This is another benefit of a recipe box scheme like HelloFresh though. Normally I’m put off by long lists of ingredients and it probably means I miss out on flavours sometimes because I keep things simpler. With HelloFresh you don’t have to let that put you off because they do all the faffing about on your behalf.

The recipe does have a few different elements, but when you break it down it’s not too complicated – spicy rice, pork chilli, bacon, cheese, salad. Boom.

Start with the rice. Heat a little oil in a saucepan and fry half the spring onion and half the garlic, finely chopped, and the Cajun spice for one minute. Then add the water for the rice, bring to the boil, add the chicken stock and the rice and simmer, lid on, for 10 minutes. Once cooked, this can be left until you’re ready for it while you get on with the rest.

Preheat the oven to 200, line a tray with foil and lay out the bacon. Bake it for 10-12 minutes until crispy. While this is cooking, heat a splash of oil in a frying pan, add the pork mince and cook until browned. Add the rest of the garlic and the chipotle paste and cook for a minute, then add the water for the chilli, half the black beans, BBQ sauce and salt and pepper. Simmer for about five minutes until the sauce thickens.

Time to come back to the rice – fluff it up nicely with a fork and mix in the zest of the lime and half the coriander. Pop the tortillas in the oven for a couple of minutes. Make the salad by chopping the avocado and mixing it with the rest of the black beans, the tomatoes, quartered, the rest of the chopped spring onion and coriander and a squeeze of lime juice. Add a drizzle of oil and salt and pepper and bish bash bosh, salad done.

To put your tortillas together, lay each tortilla on a piece of foil, heap some rice in the centre, top with chilli, a couple of slices of bacon and grated cheese. Wrap them up nice and tight.

Keep your tortillas in the fridge ready for your lunch or a picnic, or serve them immediately with a side of salad. The HelloFresh box contained two small tortillas per person but you could use large ones and lots of filling and have one each.

Belle and I both absolutely loved them. Honestly it was just such a nice change to eat something DIFFERENT, something that isn’t on our shared phone note of ‘meals we like’. (We actually have this.) It made the cooking more interesting and it was lovely to have a few new flavours injected into the weekly menu. I especially like the wide range of meal options from HelloFresh – it’s fun going through the different meals available for the week and I especially love the street food category, which is where these burritos are from.

I’ve used HelloFresh on and off for years now for when I need a bit of a metaphorical pep talk in the kitchen and I will carry on for years to come I’m sure.

Take a look at the range of meals at HelloFresh and give your meal planning a boost.