High protein breakfast burritos for the freezer
Four freezer burritos at roughly 37 g protein each, made in one pan in half an hour. Wrap them, freeze them, and reheat one on the way out of the door.
Adjust this recipe
Ingredients
- 8 eggs
- 8 egg whites, or 65 g from a carton
- 4 large flour tortillas
- 240 g black beans, drained and rinsed
- 100 g mature cheddar, grated
- 120 g sour cream
- 120 g spinach, roughly chopped
- 120 g salsa
- 4 tsp olive oil
Method
- Warm the oil in a non-stick pan over a medium-low heat. Add the spinach and cook for a minute until it collapses, then tip it onto a plate so it does not water down the eggs.
- Beat the eggs and egg whites together with a pinch of salt. Pour them into the same pan off the heat, then return it to a low flame.
- Stir slowly and constantly. Take the pan off the heat while the eggs still look slightly underdone, because they carry on cooking in the residual warmth. Dry scrambled eggs are the main way this goes wrong.
- Fold the beans, spinach and cheese through the warm eggs so the cheese melts into them.
- Warm each tortilla for a few seconds in a dry pan. A cold tortilla splits when you roll it.
- Spoon the egg mixture down the middle of each tortilla, leaving a clear border. Add the salsa and sour cream on top of the eggs rather than against the wrap, which keeps the tortilla from going soggy.
- Fold the two short sides in first, then roll from the edge nearest you, keeping it tight.
- Eat straight away, or cool completely and wrap each one in foil to freeze. Reheat from frozen in a 180C oven for 25 minutes, or unwrap and microwave for about 3 minutes, turning once.
Breakfast meal prep fails for one of two reasons: it goes soggy by Wednesday, or it is so dull you stop eating it by Tuesday. Burritos survive both, because the wrap keeps everything separate and the filling reheats without turning to rubber.
Four of these take about half an hour and one pan. Each one lands at roughly 37 g of protein, which is most of the way to a sensible morning target without a shake.
The two things that go wrong
Overcooked eggs. They keep cooking in the pan after you take it off the heat, and again when you reheat the burrito. Pull them while they still look slightly wet. Eggs that were perfect in the pan are dry by the time you eat one from the freezer.
A soggy wrap. Wet ingredients against the tortilla will soak through it in the freezer. Keep the salsa and sour cream on top of the eggs, in the middle of the parcel, so the wrap only ever touches the drier filling.
Freezing and reheating
Cool them completely before wrapping. Warm burritos in foil steam themselves and you get the soggy wrap you were trying to avoid.
Wrapped in foil they keep for about three months. From frozen, 25 minutes in a 180C oven gives the best texture because the wrap crisps. The microwave takes about 3 minutes and is fine on a weekday, though the tortilla goes softer. Turn it halfway or the middle stays cold.
Making it higher protein
The two swaps above the ingredients do most of the work. A high-protein wrap in place of the flour tortilla and Greek yogurt in place of the sour cream together add around 12 g of protein and take off about 60 calories per burrito, without changing how it tastes much.
Both are estimates from typical ingredient values rather than measurements, and they move with the brands you buy.