Vegetables are a large part of traditional Mexican foods and most authentic Mexican food recipes contain at least one fresh vegetable. You can make a really delicious Mexican food recipe, which is suitable for carnivores as a side dish or vegetarians as an entree, just by cooking some vegetables and adding some herbs or spices and cheese.
This might sound like a simple dish but sometimes the easy Mexican recipes turn out to be the tastiest ones and combining vegetables with a tasty cheese from Mexico is sure to result in a mouthwatering meal.
Delicious Cheeses from Mexico
Queso asadero is one of the nicest Mexican cheeses and this chewy, mild white cheese behaves like American processed cheese, which means that if you cannot find it you can use a processed Jack cheese instead. Pretty much anything can be used in the following recipe, so you might want to try cheddar, mozzarella, feta, or a mixture, depending what you have already in your refrigerator. Muenster, teleme or Fontina would also work.
Queso asadero is used to make chile con queso and chiles rellenos, which are stuffed chili peppers. In the Mexican state of Qaxaca, wild berries are added to the queso asadero when it is made, giving it a different flavor to the American and Northern Mexican varieties.
You can also alter the other ingredients in this vegetable recipe if you like. Perhaps you cannot find chayote, in which case you could use squash. Add some corn kernels and fresh cilantro if you fancy. This recipe also contains jicama, although this is something you can omit if you cannot get it where you are. So what is jicama exactly? It is a sweet, edible root, which looks like a turnip.
Jicama features in many recipes and its unique flavor suits salsas, vegetable dishes, and salad recipes. You can eat jicama raw and it is also nice in Chinese stir fries, as a substitute for water chestnuts. Since this ingredient is fat free and high in vitamin C, it also makes a great snack.
Mexican Vegetables with Queso Asadero
You can roast the vegetables for twenty minutes in a hot oven, rather than cooking them on the stove, if you prefer. If you want to do this, chop them into small pieces and coat them in olive oil. Cook them until tender.
What you will need:
- 1/2 cup chopped red onion
- 1 cup peeled, chopped jicama
- 2 thinly sliced zucchini
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 thinly sliced yellow squash
- 1 thinly sliced chayote
- 2 minced cloves garlic
- 1/8 teaspoon cayenne pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 chopped tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 cup shredded queso asadero
- Salt and black pepper, as needed
How to make it:
Saute the garlic and onion in the oil in a skillet over a moderate heat for five minutes. Add the jicama, squash, chayote and zucchini and cover, stirring occasionally, cooking the mixture for about eight minutes or until the vegetables are soft.
Stir in the cumin, cayenne, chili powder, tomatoes, salt and pepper and cook the mixture for two minutes. Stir in the shredded cheese and serve immediately.