Fajitas

I cannot believe that I’ve never shared this recipe before! It’s a huge staple for us because it comes together so quickly and my kids love it.

This recipe can be cooked in any way you imagine. Once you have your marinade on your veg and protein of choice, how you cook it is up to you. I’ve cooked it in a slow cooker on low for 8 hours, in a frying pan, on the barbecue, or more-often-than-not, in the oven for a lovely sheet pan meal. I’ll be giving the instructions for how to cook it in the oven because we all need simple in our lives right now.

Normally we eat this recipe with tortillas, but as the pictures show, we also eat make fajita bowls with brown rice and avocado lime crema (recipe below the fajita recipe!).

Fajitas Serves 4-6

1/4 cup olive oil
3 tbsps lime juice
3 tbsps Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp cumin
1 tbsp chili powder (or less depending on the spice preference of your audience)
3 cloves garlic, finely minced
1/4-1/2 tsp smoked paprika (optional)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper

3 bell peppers, thinly sliced*
1 onion, thinly sliced **
2 carrots, thinly sliced
2 zucchini, thinly sliced

3-4 cups of protein of choice cut into thin strips (chicken, beef, tofu all work well)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375. Prepare two baking sheets with parchment paper (you’ll thank me later).
2. Mix all the sauce ingredients in a large bowl. If using an animal protein, put 1/3 of the sauce into a smaller bowl for marinating the meat separately.
3. Add the veggies to your large bowl and coat them all in sauce. Tofu can go into the veggie bowl. Animal proteins go in their own bowl and mix to coat. You can do this step many hours in advance if you have time—it just increases the flavour. However, not much is lost if you make it and cook it right away.
4. Spread out your veggies and protein on to the baking sheets, trying to get everything to lay as flat as possible. More edges touching the pan means more caramelization means more flavour.
5. Bake for 20-30 minutes, mixing and rotating the pans at least once. Cook until starting to caramelize on the edges and the protein is cooked through.
6. Enjoy on tortillas, hard taco shells, or in a bowl with brown rice and avocado crema (recipe right below). Ask the people at your table: If you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be?

*Any variation of veggies will do so long as you end up with 6ish cups worth. We frequently use the veggies listed but have also used mushrooms, eggplant, green beans, and red cabbage successfully.
**If you plan on making fajita bowls, I recommend dicing everything instead so it’s easier to eat with a spoon.

Avocado Lime Crema Makes about 1 cup

1 ripe avocado
2-3 tbsps fresh lime juice (I prefer on the lime-ier side with 3, but my oldest prefers just 2 tbsps)
1/2 cup fresh cilantro
1/4 tsp salt

You can smush everything with a fork (finely chop the cilantro beforehand) and have it be a chunkier texture, or you can throw it all in a small blender or food processor and blend it until smooth.

I hope you enjoy this as much as we do!