Simple Meal: Quesadillas

Simple meals are pretty easy to come by these days - just stop by your local fast food restaurant. Your kids likely want one of those toys in the kids meals that they serve anyways. Finding something that’s at least pretty healthy and simple on the other hand takes a bit more work. With a little bit of planning, you can make some simple and healthy meals at home that most of the family will enjoy.

One of our go to meals when we don’t have much time are quesadillas. There’s really not much that is required for a quesadilla other than a tortilla. Everything else that goes inside is up to you and what you like. You can put as few or as many items inside of the quesadilla as you want, which means you can cater to both what your kids want and to any nutritional needs that you may have. We’ll look at the basics of making a quesadilla and some ideas for what to put on it, and then we’ll look at how to make them healthier or not so healthy.

In order to get started, turn your stove on medium high with a pan that you will be cooking on. Next, get out tortillas, and then whatever items you’d like to put on the quesadilla. Cheese is really popular, but you can put most anything you want inside: chicken, sandwich meat, vegetables such as carrots, onions, peppers, tomatoes and so forth. You can use sour cream and salsa for dipping sauces on the side as well.

Place the tortilla into the pan, put your condiments on one side of the tortilla and then fold it over. Let it brown for about 3 minutes and then flip it over to the other side. That’s all there is to it, and you can usually cook at least two quesadillas at once. You can let your kids put whatever they want inside while you can do your own thing as well.

When we’re not too worried about calories, one of our favorites is the following: cheese, chicken, peppers, onions, and tomatoes inside the quesadilla. Even if you are counting calories, just limit the amount of cheese that you’re putting on your quesadilla (the more cheese you add the higher in calories it will be). This is a simple and basic quesadilla that tastes awesome. 

Our kids like the pizza quesadilla which is cheese and pepperoni - sometimes they’ll add sausage or another meat if we have it. There is not a ton of nutritional value to this type of quesadilla though, so they also have to have some carrots on the side as well just to make us as parents feel a little bit better. Getting some chicken inside of the quesadilla is preferred, but sometimes they just don’t want it.

In terms of making sure that your quesadillas are a bit healthier for you, there are three primary areas to focus. First off, the tortilla. We’ve discussed tortilla calories in the past, but be mindful of the tortillas that you are choosing. Many of the large tortillas have over 200 calories, while smaller ones are in the 120 to 150 range. If you can find the Ole tortilla wraps, they only run 50 calories per tortilla - they are our go to for all things tortillas.

The second way to improve the healthiness of the meal if you’re counting calories is to be mindful of what cheese you’re adding and how much of it you’re adding. Cheese can be high in calories, so make sure to use a low calorie cheese or limit the amount of cheese you’re adding to your quesadilla. When counting calories, we add about a tablespoon of cheese at most - quesadillas taste great even without a lot of cheese.

The third place to be mindful when making quesadillas is any condiments you’re putting on or dipping them in. In particular, sour cream or ranch type dips can be high in calories. For sour cream, use fat free or even better is to replace it with fat free plain greek yogurt. You’ll get a lot more protein intake by using the greek yogurt, and it tastes very similar to sour cream. We highly recommend replacing your sour cream needs with this yogurt.

Quesadillas are simple to make and don’t have to be hard to make healthy. If you need a quick meal, then throw these on the stove and enjoy.