These were supposed to be flautas but I ripped the tortillas. So now they’re fried tacos!

Do you ever think to yourself, “I wish this taco were fried”? Well perfect, because this recipe is just that, and probably far from healthy! But I mean, I did chicken and waffles a few weeks ago for christ sakes.

FRIED POTATO TACOS

prep time: 20 minutes
cook time: 20 minutes

There’s spinach and black beans in there too! And those are healthy!

What you’ll need:

two large potatoes (or a bunch of little ones)
black beans
onion
spinach
salt, pepper, garlic powder, paprika
tortillas
dipping sauces (optional)
olive oil

Go ahead and peel yourself those potatoes and bring a pot of water to a boil. Toss them in and salt the water once your water is boiling. While those cook, drain a can of black beans and dice up some onion.

In a separate pan, add olive oil and cook the onions and then toss the black beans in there too. After your onions look caramelized, toss in a good fistful or two of spinach and continue to stir everything in your pan.

If you did it right, your pan looks like this. Please tell me you did it right.

Assuming the potatoes aren’t ready yet, turn off the flame on the pan so you don’t burn any of your beans/spinach/onion. Once the potatoes are ready, transfer into a bowl and mash them with olive oil to soften them up. Or you can use vegan butter, whichever you feel. Once you have a smooth consistency and you haven’t yet skipped past the part where I tell you how to mash potatoes, add in your black beans/onion/spinach. Mix them up nicely. I said nicely! Add salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika right into the mix. The paprika will give it a subtle smokiness.

Here is a horrible, blurry picture of your brand new mixture.

Get your tortillas out and place your new mixture onto one half of each tortilla. It helps to warm them up a little bit so they don’t tear when you roll them. Your potato mixture will act as an adhesive to glue the tortilla shut.

If the tortilla does rip, just add a second tortilla because you probably aren’t concerned with your carbs if you’re making this too.

I heard you like carbs, so we put carbs inside your carbs!

Now in that same pan from earlier, give it a wipe clean and add fresh olive oil. A nice amount. Once your oil is hot, gently lay your taco shaped tortilla thing into the oil and let it cook until golden brown. Be careful flipping it because it may unravel. I used a spatula to pin it down while it cooked out on each side.

Continue this process until you are out of ingredients. Place your finished products on a plate with a paper towel to dry them of excess oil.

As you can see, I doubled down on tortillas because I messed up.

But if you followed directions, they should look like this

Have a couple paper towels ready! The salsas were easy too. The green one is avocado, lime and vegan sour cream. The red one is vegan sour cream and some red taco sauce I bought at Trader Joe’s. If you’re able to roll your tortillas, these can also be flautas! But like, I said - I messed that up.