The Mija Chronicles

Mexican food and culture, on both sides of the border

Peanut butter tacos, and other secret tortilla behaviors

by

The New York Times had an article on spaghetti tacos awhile back. Did you see it? It was about how popular spaghetti tacos have become among kids. The tacos are exactly what they sound like, by the way: spaghetti noodles and tomato sauce, stuffed inside a tortilla.

It got me thinking about all the stuff I used to put in tortillas as a kid. We didn’t always have bread in the house, but we always, always had a package of flour tortillas in the lunch meat drawer. One of my favorite after-school snacks was a hot dog wrapped in a tortilla. Or a slice of bologna in a tortilla. Loved a tortilla with a smear of crunchy peanut butter, or layered with Kraft singles and microwaved until the cheese bubbled out the sides.

These days, my tortilla preference has switched to corn, but I still eat corn tortillas with peanut butter all the time. Sometimes I even add a little jelly. (PB&J in a tortilla! Yes, I’m fully admitting that’s weird.)

I’m curious: What is your favorite odd filling to put in a tortilla? What about when you were a kid?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. This is not very unusual but is really delicious, one of my favorite ways to eat a tortilla is simply slathered with butter and rolled up, no other filling necessary. Its best if its homemade… I seem to remember having this as a pre-dinner snack, probably to keep me quiet while my folks finished cooking!

  3. Chickpea masala tacos!! Good in corn or flour tortillas.

    I’ve gotten down with hummus and mashed carrots too (flour).

    Also was recently thinking of ways to flesh out the kinship between cornbread and corn tortillas/tamales–> SOUL FOOD TACOS. This can go many directions: pulled pork bbq, catfish/trout/croaker, greens, navy beans, blackeyed peas, stewed tomatoes, cheese grits even… fried chicken, fried okra, pickled okra… don’t forget pork rinds!

    omg i am getting excited; tell me if you ever want to do this.

    • Dude, totally! Maybe not this weekend, but the weekend after that? Or if you’re free some afternoon. Love the fried chicken tacos idea. As long as we can put pickled jalapeños inside. (And pork rinds.)

      And we could do pulled pork with pineapple!

  4. Lesley, I totally grew up eating microwave flour tortilla quesadillas with whatever cheese I could find to put in them. In middle school, it was my after-school snack practically everyday. I have been known to make a quick PB&J taco, too!

    As an adult, though I still love the timeless traditional crema y sal and have come to appreciate it much more than I did when it was first introduced to me.

  6. PB & J… with raisins….. YUMM!!! I am on a new kick of loving everything with cream cheese, too…. so soon I will know what tortilla with cream cheese tastes like =)

  7. When I need something quick and sweet I spread cajeta and cinnamon on a corn tortilla and heat it up on the griddle. I don’t think pb&j tacos are unusual at all. When I was in college whenever we’d leave campus for any class trips, volunteer opps, etc., food services would send boxes of food with the group, and what was always left at the end were flour totillas, peanut butter and honey. I ate so many tortillas with peanut butter and honey that I still balk at the idea now. That and sun chips. Ugh.

  9. Ah, yes. I remember bologna in my tortillas, ham, and even spam. And yes, we sliced up some government cheese, put it on corn or flour tortillas and heat it up. I preferred heating it on the grates of the stove to char them a bit. We also did left-over cold fried chicken in corn tortilla. We loved it. I remember loving salt, just salt on my corn tortillas when mom made them fresh.

    As an adult, I also do crema y sal on the corn tortillas, but I tend to add smoked salmon in there from time to time or roasted garlic. I also make breakfast tacos with cream cheese and scrambled eggs in corn tortillas and then ladle my spicy hollandaise sauce in them. Love tortillas!

    • Isabel: Smoked salmon and crema on a tortilla sounds divine! And so do your breakfast tacos. Do you have a recipe? Can you send me one? Wanna do a guest post? 🙂

  10. My absolute favorite is cheese, the traditional quesadilla.

    I have also snacked on hot dogs with tortillas instead of buns. But never ever ever with peanut butter. Although I`ve tried and love with cajeta. I am guessing they’re not that far appart.

  11. Yum! I grew up on peanut butter tacos! It was my favorite after-school treat. My grandma used to make these huge flour tortillas, al estilo Sonora, every other week. She always gave me the first tortilla, which she’d brush with melted butter. And my grandpa loved his flour tortillas with an “embarrada” of bacon fat and salt. Mmmmm! Delicious! 😛

  12. Mmm, good homemade tortillas with salt and butter.

    Or the storebought ones with sausage 🙂

    And I love cream cheese with jalapenos (pickled or otherwise)

  13. no need to be ashamed of any of those sweet things in a corn tortilla! i enjoyed a peanut butter/nutella/pecan tortilla after every run i took while i lived in mexico….. mmmm. 🙂

  14. When we are in Sinaloa, breakfast is natas and sal on tortillas. At home or in el DF, for breakfast it’s honey and butter on tortillas fresh off the comal. Nighttime snack for mis sobrinas is often banana and dulce de leche rolled in a tortilla.
    And always corn! We were trained out of liking flour tortillas at a young age by our mama, who swears they are the cause of obesity, acne, the Spanish Conquest, and nearly ever other malady known to man.

    • Graciela: I like your mom. 🙂 Love the idea of banana with dulce de leche… although I’ve trained myself out of buying dulce de leche, because when I buy it, I eat the whole jar in like two days.

  16. ¡Que milagro! Por casualidad, ahorita estoy haciendo tortillas de harina. Voy a poner cordero asado estilo Marrueco con frijoles.

    Te diré como salga la combinacíon.

    Saludos,
    Don Cuevas

    • Here’s my report: I had a few ounces of Moroccan roast lamb left from last Sunday’s parillada.

      So, a little while ago, after I’d made 8 homely but beautiful, brown patched flour tortillas, kept warm in a kitchen towel; I sliced half a sweet pepper lengthwise, one medium onion lengthwise, and sauteed that in a big cast iron skillet with little corn oil. Dash of salt, then the remains of the lamb, sliced into strips. (It had been cooked medium rare.)

      Stirred that around a bit, tossed in a small leftover of chorizo, onion and diced potato, then a couple of glugs of Salsa Chiptle Cosecha Purépecha. That’s it. Rolled it up to make a couple of earthy burritos. I heated the already cooked bown frijoles in the micro, spooned on some rice, and ate that on the side. Do I need to say they were riquísimos?

      Saludos,
      Don Cuevas

  17. Peanut butter and jelly on a tortilla was a staple for us down here in El Paso TX. My Tia Cata (rip) used to make weenie flautas (the toothpicks go in so easy). and you can put any condiment you like. I like mustard with pico de gallo with these flautas. But the sky is the limit. I am on a diet and reading this is lots of temptation.

    • Oh man. That sounds really, really good. Did the butter make the tortilla all golden-brown and crispy on the outside? Did the dulce de leche kind of ooze out the sides? Mmmm….

  19. Oooh- a fresh tortillas with peanut butter and then honey drizzled over the top. A family favorite. My Grandma Salazar and my mom make the most delicious tortillas, everything a tortilla was meant to be and that was a staple snack growing up. I make my own tortillas too, but have yet to always have them on hand… whenever I make a batch, they get eaten up too fast!

  20. my daughter Erin Pilar and I always made pb on corn tortillas (el milagro brand in Chicago and Austin) rolled up flauta style. Fun!

  23. Macaroni and Cheese tacos (Macos)!

    But you have to overcook the mac a bit so it’s really claggy and sticks in there well. A little salsa Valentina goes a long way too…..

    • Oooh… totally doing this one. Think I’m going to make the mac all crunchy and brown on top, then stick it in a tortilla w/ a drizzle of Valentina. Phil, you’re a genius.

      • Glad you’re hooked, let me know how your macos turn out…

        Although I have to warn you, they’re one of those inexplicably heavy dishes, and macos as an appetiser has been known to ruin the odd appetite at an asada.

      • CORN tortillas & Mayo!!! I totally agree, tried it, loved it. It does sound kinda hardcore but the corn tortilla and creamy mayo works wonders. Use your favorite kind of mayo of course (I am a HUGE McCormick
        fan) but try to stay away from light mayo or course. Quality of the tortilla is key so also try not to use store-bought pre-packaged tortillas.

        And here’s another vote for the (CORN) TORTILLA, CREAM AND SALT!! After the usual quesadilla and more traditional fillings, I think it’s still very popular in Mexico and probably one of my favs too, and it’s specially good if the tortilla is hand-made with either nixtamalized dough or even if it’s a homemade corn dough made of MASECA corn flour w/ just a bit of wheat flour, water + salt) and using some FRESH cream from the tianguis/mercado. Try it.

  25. Totally agree on Mayo! It’s kind of a family tradition, too. How about Tacos de Fideo??: Fried corn tortillas wrapped around Fideo Seco (short spaghetti-type pasta cooked in tomato sauce).

  26. I third the mayonesa! I remember going to the tortilleria and grabbing the top tortilla and shmearing it with mayo and salt YUM! when abuela would make tortillas de harina, we would eat them with cheese and honey. my mouth is watering!

  27. We always used to eat a corn tortillas with a piece of bologna and a Kraft single sprinkled with seasoning salt heatd on the comal.

    But really my fav is a corn tortilla filled with fried potatoes, bacon, fresh sliced tomatoes and chile comado (spelling???). Best breakfast! MMM

    • My husband grew up in the DF and taught me the goodness of tuna salad (made with tuna, mayo, onion, tomatoe) on a corn tortilla. Topped with a pickled jalapeno…yum:)

  29. Tuna fish on a flour tortilla! It’s so delicious. At first when my mom told me about it I thought it sounded disgusting (I was 7), but once I tried it I loved it. Also my grampa would mix together peanut butter and maple syrup and spread it on one of my grama’s fresh homemade flour tortillas.

    • Hi Bianca: Never would’ve thought of tuna fish before. But I guess I can sort of see that. The PB/maple syrup combo sounds fabulous. Have to try that. Thanks for sharing!

  31. As a kid it was definitely the peanut butter and/or peanut butter and jelly. Most people think peanut butter and a cheese single together just slightly melted is kind of strange, though.. I do that quite often, sometimes with just a little bit of cinnamon in it or (very strange – curry powder – but it depends on the type, what we have is a sweet fennel-and-cumin spiced type and it works nicely). Once in a great while real mayonnaise and sliced green olives. I have also become a fan of mashed carrots and sweet relish together. I wish I had found that one as a kid!

  32. I love to smear some peanut butter on a corn tortilla tostada shell and it eat with homemade salsa. Yum!