RECIPE – Trader Joe’s SOY CHORIZO AND POTATO (papas con chorizo)


Many people wonder how to use Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo, so here’s one idea that I use it for quite frequently. I cook up potatoes and onions and add the Soy Chorizo to it for a very tasty (vegetarian) version of the famous Mexican dish “Papa con Chorizo” (potatoes with chorizo).

Here’s my recipe . We substitute Trader Joe’s soy chorizo for real pork chorizo making this dish vegetarian. Some people may not even know that its vegetarian when they taste it. In fact, though I’m not vegetarian I like this quite a bit as its a bit healthier. I make this dish about every other week as an easy dish which is good to have on hand in the fridge as it can make a few things. This is especially good as a filling for quesadillas, tacos or burritos, it works really well with eggs too mixed into it. You can make up a whole package of the Soy Chorizo to have on hand for the week.

INGREDIENTS

Trader Joe’s SOY CHORIZO

Trader Joe’s TACO SEASONING (optional)

Potatoes (waxy potatoes are best, like Red potatoes, Yukon Gold or similar) 1 pound

Onion (medium – diced)

Fresh garlic (optional, chopped)

(optional – fresh cilantro)

I usually make this for about 2 people/portions. Adjust amounts as needed

RECIPE – Soy Chorizo with Potatoes

Boil about a pound of potatoes cut in half in lightly salted water. Cook for about 12 minutes or so or just until done, meaning when a knife goes in pretty easily.

Drain and rinse them with cold water until they are cool enough to touch. Cut the potatoes up into bite size pieces.

In a cast iron or non-stick skillet, sauté an medium size onion (diced) in about a tablespoon of olive oil for a few minutes (add a few cloves of fresh chopped garlic too if you like). Toss in the diced potatoes. Let potatoes and onions sauté together on medium heat until the potatoes take a little bit of color which may take about 10 minutes or so, stirring gently every 3 minutes. Sprinkle on some Taco Seasoning (optional) if you like. If you are not using it, just add a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Next add your Soy Chorizo. Lower the heat. Gently mix in and combine the Soy Chorizo into the onion and potatoes. How much chorizo to use is up to you. I usually add about 1/2 the tube for about about a pound of potatoes but you can add more or less as you see fit.

Saute the mixture on low heat for about 5 minutes or so and it’s ready. If you like cilantro, sprinkle on a big handle of it, chopped up, which brightens the dish really nicely.

Optional: Eggs work great with this mixture. If you want them at the end just mix in 3 beaten eggs and let the eggs cook slowly until done. Serve immediately with warm tortillas or make quesadillas with this as your stuffing.

PAPAS CON CHORIZO is a tasty mixture which is great for tacos or burittos and my favorite, cheese quesadillas. To make those,use flour tortillas, (or corn if you like) and sprinkle some grated cheese on the tortilla in a lightly oiled pan. Top with the potato mix, fold in half and cook for a few minutes on each side until the cheese is melted. For even cheesier ones, also put a little grated cheese under the tacos and let them get golden brown and a little crusty. These are really my favorite. And if you want to use corn tortillas instead, those will also be great with this filling.

Besides tacos or tortillas, mix this potato mixture into scrambled eggs for a great dish.

Enjoy.

RECIPE: Veg. Tacos, Roasted Corn & Soy Chorizo with homemade tortillas


Made this for dinner the other night. I had some very interesting looking corn I had gotten, check out the color: Purple! I’m not sure I ever saw this before (no, it wasnt from Trader Joe’s, I got it at uptown Fairway) This omnivore decided to go vegetarian that night and make dinner featuring the corn with Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo. I even went whole hog and made fresh, homemade Tortillas de harina (flour), something I’ve been working on, trying to get better and better at. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube for tips.

To go with the tacos, I made a quick Salsa in five minutes, and let it blend for a 1/2 hour. When all was ready the Tacos got topped off with the salsa, some shredded cheese (Jalapeño Monterey Jack from Zabar’s) and some Arugula (TJ’s Wild Arugula).

How did it taste? Great. The roasted corn was excellent with the TJ Soy Chorizo, which really adds a lot of mexican flavors and spices, and the potato in the filling makes it taste hearty. Topped off with some salsa and jack cheese this was a damn tasty taco, vegetarian or otherwise.

Isn’t this pretty wild looking? No photoshopping here; this is the color!

I got my little assembly line to roll out the flour tortillas; Did about 6 for two people. Below, cooking on the griddle. If the griddle or pan is hot, they do not take long. About 1-2 mins on the first side and less than 1 min on the second side. Keep them warm in a cloth covered basket while you finish cooking all of them.

Dinner is served.

RECIPE: Vegatarian Tacos made with Roasted Corn, Soy Chorizo, and potato with Homemade Flour Tortillas

Taco Filling
2 ears, fresh corn, taken off the cob
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 “tube” of Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo (ie, about 3 oz?)
1 med. potato, diced
1 med. onion, diced

Monterey Jack cheese, shredded

Carefully take the corn off the cob using a sharp knife. Get it all and be sure to scrape the cob with back of your knife to get the good healthy germ. Heat a skillet with 1 tbs of olive or veg. oil. Toss in the corn, minced garlic, 1/2 the diced onion.
Cook on high heat till corn browns a little bit; five to ten mins. Remove from pan and set aside
Add diced potatoes, another tsp. oil, lower heat, cover the pan and cook 10 mins, turning occasionally; Cook, stirring occasionally another 5-8 mins till evenly golden brown; Add the Soy Chorizo. Add the roasted corn in and stir gently to combine all. Taste for seasonings,turn off heat, keep warm.

Quick Salsa
(Easy but you can also just buy your favorite TJ salsa)
1 ripe tomato, diced
clove garlic, minced
1/2 onion, diced
fresh or pickled green chili, or a can or TJ’ Roasted Hatch Chilis (
Mix all above, add little salt, pepper, cumin, oregano, pinch cayenne

Flour Tortillas

This would be a little complicated to document in full. The easiest way is to learn the way I did, via YouTube. Heres one video that should show you how to ‘roll your own’ . Personally I use oil not shortening and much less than the amount in the many recipes to cut down on the fat, and find it still works pretty well. I did as you see use TJ flour (and baking soda! and Olive Oil!) Not too mention the Soy Chorizo =Trader Joe recipe!

Now of course if you don’t feel like doing all the “work” you could accomplish something close by picking up at TJ’s, tortillas (flour or corn, the Chili Lime ones would be good!) and salsa, and use the soy chorizo on its own (or with thier frozen corn?) and whip a similar dinner together in no time.

Trader Joe’s SOY CHORIZO


(update: Since I originally wrote this years ago, I have come to the conclusion the Soy Chorizo recipe changed. Its different now; certainly I can see way less of that reddish oil that used to ooze out of it, which was quite flavorful and loaed with a big blast of cumin and other spices. Its OK now but not as good as it used to be. Here is my original review. It’s still OK. Just know it used to be better. IMO

This is my very first post and review on this new site! Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo:

Even though I’m not vegetarian I tried this as it looked interesting and sounded intriguing with the two words: “Soy Chorizo”? Actual Mexican Chorizo is a sausage made with pork. So what the hell do they mean by “soy” chorizo.

I found this quite tasty. I was kind of impressed by the taste of this vegetarian “chorizo” made with Soy Protein. It tastes like, well, kind of like real chorizo tastes like… And by chorizo lets state for the record in this case we mean Mexican chorizo (which is crumbly, raw, in a casing) and not the “Spanish chorizo” (which is firm and has been cured first like salami). 

TJ’s SOY CHORIZO is tasty and flavorful. I think this is suitably tasty for non-vegetarians as well as vegetarians. Its loaded with the correct spice flavoring of Mexican Chorizo like cumin and anatto and its nicely spicy. All of which really makes it taste “real” to me. I buy this all the time now. Its so tasty I don’t even notice or care if its real or “fake meat”. So again good for both omnivores, vegetarians and or the occasional vegetarian like me. This is one of Trader Joe’s most popular products. Google ‘Trader Joe’s Soy Chorizo’. You will find tons of fans plus lots of recipes. If you haven’t tried it yet, this is highly recommended thing from TJ to try. I’ve used it in so many ways, and you will no doubt come up with more easily….

soychorpotatoeggYou could use it as Soy Chorizo used in a taco filling mixed with potatoes, onions, and eggs; see the pic for a great filling with these ingredients on a TJ Habanero Lime flour tortilla) mixed with other veggies. Use it crumbled on top of eggs (delicious) or mixed in an omelette. A recipe idea can be found here:

I’ve added Soy Chorizo to pan-fried hash brown potatoes for really nice extra flavor (I add at very end). Added it to lentil stew or a soup; even put it on top of pizza instead of sausage! Its good in so many things, and a little bit can go a long way to flavor other ingredients. You can even make a un-vegetarian taco filling with half soy chorizo sautéed up together, for the chorizo flavor with maybe ground turkey or ground beef or pork if you prefer.

MAJOR TIP – Soy Chorizo is very messy to work with once you open the package. The package has a plastic tube casing crimped at the end. Be sure to VERY carefully slit open the plastic outer casing, then open the inner casing. What I do is open the package, pull out the tube, and kind of squeeze it out of the casing with my fingers, as needed an inch at a time. Even wrapped in plastic be warned, it gets messy sitting in fridge, as the dark red anatto oil  has a tendency to “leak” out so be sure to wrap it carefully, as the anatto oil will stain everything red. I double wrap the opened package in two plastic bags. Or better still, I have found the best way to keep leftover Soy Chorizo once the package is open is to is put it into a glass jar and spoon it out as needed. I label it with the date. I find it keeps a long time in the fridge, easily two weeks, and maybe even like 4 weeks ? As its vegetable based not meat based, it doesn’t spoil like meat and the oil and spices protect it from going bad quickly.

A 12 oz package is $1.99 (update: since I first wrote this the price was increased to $2.29 {2018} I find 12 oz of this goes pretty far as its strongly flavored.

Here is a recipe for Stuffed Mushrooms that sounds good from the Cooking with Trader Joe’s blog. I have to try this, it sounds yummy and easy.

Grilled Avocados and Soy Chorizo Tacos? That sounds good!

https://www.traderjoes.com/recipes/lunch/soy-chorizo-grilled-avocado-tacos

SOY CHORIZO FRITATTA

https://www.traderjoes.com/recipes/breakfast/soy-chorizo-frittata

Let me know what do you think of TJ Soy Chorizo? How and What do you use it for? If you have any ways you like to use it or recipes, please leave them here in the Comments.

RECIPE – QUESADILLAS WITH SOY CHORIZO

Soy Chorizo

Tortillas (Corn or Wheat/Corn)

Monterey Jack Cheese with Peppers

Baby Wild Arugula

Chopped tomatoes – or salsa – or avocado for garnish

Put a little oil in a pan large enough to hold 2 tortillas; add the Soy Chorizo on top of tortillas; top this with grated cheese; Top this with some arugula and a few chopped tomatoes or a bit of salsa. Cook 20-30 seconds until the tortilla becomes pliable so you can fold the tortillas gently into a half moon with a spatula. Press gently. Cook until bottom side is a little crispy and cheese is melted. Flip and cook other side, press gently. When done, remove and top with salsa or hot sauce or Sriracha, maybe some  sour cream, ripe avocado…chopped cilantro….

Enjoy!