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VEGAN STREET TACOS

Vegan street tacos are filled with walnut taco meat, avocado, Pico de Gallo and wrapped in corn tortillas or leafy greens for a healthy, quick and easy lunch or dinner! 

top down view of vegan street tacos on white plates with items surrounding.

Vegan Street Tacos with Spanish Quinoa and Black Bean and Corn Salad makes for an easy vegan meal that’s hearty, well-balanced and delicious! We have a full meal here that’s easy to make and all so good together!

The street taco filling is a simple and pretty fantastic mix of walnuts, mushroom and warming spices. If walnut taco meat is new to you, I think you are going to enjoy it as much as we do and will make it again and again!

The thing I really love about all of these recipes together is that you can mix and match everything to your liking making tacos out of it all. I’ve also included the option of using lettuce leaves instead of corn tortilla’s. Both ways are fantastic!

top down view of hand holding lettuce vegan street tacos with walnut meat.

How To Make Vegan Street Tacos

Make your walnut taco meat, and gather the other fillings to layer with and choose what taco shell you’d like to use.

Maybe you’ll prefer your street tacos on the fresh side using leafy greens as your taco shell as shown above. They’re healthy, refreshing, and delicious!

Or, as shown below, you may prefer the traditional corn tortillas warmed on the griddle or warm skillet to envelope all the goodies you put into your tacos.

However you choose, I know you will love these vegan street tacos!

What To Serve with Street Tacos?

Turn them into a complete and well-rounded meal with a few of these optional sides.

Now, let’s get cooking and eat!

up close view of vegan street tacos with walnut meat on corn tortillas.

More Easy Taco Recipes

If you try this vegan street taco recipe or have a question, please let me know! I’d love to hear any tips or changes you made to the recipe in the comments below!

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VEGAN STREET TACOS

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5 from 5 reviews

Vegan street tacos filled with a walnut meat, pico de gallo and avocado are the best! No soy or processed meat here, just clean and simple ingredients. Everything works together making this a great taco night meal! You can also make these tacos raw by using leafy lettuce for the shell.

  • Author: Julie | The Simple Veganista
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 15 minutes
  • Total Time: 30 minutes
  • Yield: Serves 4
  • Category: Entree
  • Cuisine: Tex-Mex, Mexican
  • Diet: Vegan

Ingredients

Scale

Taco Nut Meat

  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1 cup mushrooms (I used baby bellas)
  • 1 tablespoon tamari, soy sauce or coconut amino’s
  • 1 tablespoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon chili powder

Spanish Quinoa

  • 1 tablespoon olive oil or 1/4 cup water
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 1 green bell pepper, diced (any color is ok), optional
  • 12 cloves garlic, minced or 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 cup quinoa, rinsed
  • 1 tablespoon tomato paste or 1 cup diced tomatoes
  • 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth or water
  • salt + pepper, to taste

To Serve

  • 6 corn tortillas or 6 leaves butter, romaine or other large leafy greens for raw taco wrap
  • Black Bean Corn Salad (use half recipe)
  • cilantro, to serve
  • lime wedges, to serve
  • pico de gallo (use pre-packaged for convenience), to serve
  • avocado slices, to serve
  • hot sauce – tapatio, sriracha or your favorite hot sauce, to serve (optional)

Instructions

Spanish quinoa (serves 6):

  • In medium size pan or skillet, heat oil over medium high heat, add onion, optional bell pepper and cook for 3 minutes, add quinoa and garlic, cook another 5 minutes or so stirring frequently until quinoa starts to get toasty and turn slightly golden.
  • Add water, tomato paste, oregano, salt + pepper, bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes.
  • When done, remove cover, fluff with the a fork, and let set for 15 minutes to absorb the rest of the liquids. Taste for seasonings before serving.

Nut meat (makes 6 tacos):

  • Place all ingredients in food processor/blender and pulse until you have chunky crumbles. Don’t over process or you will have a nut mushroom pate, which wouldn’t be so bad but we want a crumbly effect here. For visual steps, see this Walnut Meat recipe.
  • Optionally, heat the nut meat on low just until warm in a small saucepan. You don’t want to overheat or the mushrooms will cook too much, just slightly warm it. I find both ways, warm and room temp, to be just as appealing. Makes enough for 6 tacos.

Warm your tortillas on the griddle or skillet for 30 seconds per side.

Serve: Put your plates and tacos together as you wish! You may find that you end up combining the black bean salsa with the Spanish fried quinoa. You may also find yourself making tacos out of both of those side dishes as well. However you craft your plate, enjoy!

Notes

For more info and step by step instructions, see the full Quinoa Spanish Rice post.

Nutrition information is calculated using corn tortillas.

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28 Comments

  1. JenRedBangs says:

    Hi Julie – This recipe looks fantastic! Thinking about using it for a dinner party I'm throwing tomorrow night. Would you recommend multiplying the ingredients x1.5 to feed four?

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      I would only suggest doubling the nut meat and possibly the pico de gallo…just to be sure you have enough. If you're making the spanish fried quinoa, there will be plenty to serve four. The black bean salad should be plenty as well. Hope you enjoy!

  2. Made these tacos and Spanish quinoa for dinner last night (along with your Banana Cherry Garcia Soft Serve for dessert!) – delicious!! For those of you concerned about mushroomy taste – don't be – we couldn't taste the mushrooms at all. Thanks for sharing your recipes!

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      Delicious! Thank you for the input on the mushrooms. Cheers :)

  3. THIS WAS AWESOME!!! I do not like mushrooms at all but made an exception for this dish. My whole family loved it!

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      Excellent! Cheers all around. :)

  4. Anonymous says:

    Made these tacos last night! So good! My favorite part was the Spanish fried quinoa….really awesome flavors.

    Ashley

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      Awesome! I love happy eaters. Thank you for sharing. :)

  5. Anonymous says:

    Hi Julie –

    I made this last night and it was a complete success! My meat-eating friend gave his stamp of approval for this raw replacement :).

    Thanks for posting this. Looking forward to trying more of your recipes.

    Ashley

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      Yah! I'm so glad it went well…I love these tacos! Thanks for so much taking the time to share your thoughts. Makes my day! :)

  6. Anonymous says:

    Hi Julie,
    came across your site and your recipes look really yummy. Would you by any chance have a suggestion to replace the mushrooms?
    Last time I eat mushrooms I had a slight allergic reaction :-(
    Greetz Ilse

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      I would suggest just using extra walnuts in place of the mushrooms. Will be just as good without any allergic reaction. :) Would love to know how you liked them. Cheers

  7. Anonymous says:

    Wow, I'm glad I bumped into your site. New fan! Those look so yummy – Must try!

    1. julie@thesimpleveganista says:

      Thank you and welcome! Enjoy :)

  8. Anonymous says:

    I just made the tacos and they were the awesome! My husband even loved them, they were so fresh. Thank you so much :)
    Renee

    1. So glad you tried them and loved them, and the hubby too! Cheers to eating outside of the box. :)

  9. Freda Love Smith says:

    I'm super excited to try this – I especially love the look of the nutmeat, what a great idea. I read an article in Cooks Illustrated recently about making veggie chili, and about how walnuts and mushrooms both lend umami to vegetarian chili, especially when combined. Seems so much nicer than soy-based fake meat.

    1. I'm so excited for you too! These tacos and nutmeat are great. I just finished up the leftovers tonite making butter lettuce tacos and combining some warmed spanish quinioa & black beans together on top of the cool nutmeat along with some tapatio and white onions….it was delicious! I also added in some Old Bay seasoning in the nutmeat which was really nice too, if you have it on hand try a dash or two.

      I agree this is a great alternative to other processed soy based meats. Hands down this has so many great reasons to use it…easy, tastes great and healthy. Changing up the spices is a great way to make this an all around keeper. Would be great in chili too, raw or cooked chili.

      Would love to hear how it went for you and any changes you may have made. Thanks for taking a moment to share your thoughts. Enjoy!!

  10. This looks divine! And what beautiful pictures you took! I don't like mushrooms but I'm trying to get over my dislike of them because my husband loves them so much and I know they are quite nutritious. I think I'll make an exception to make this because I don't know if it's possible for this to taste bad. Just beautiful! Thanks for sharing, Julie!

    1. Thank you Aubrey! I think you might be surprised at how much you'd never know there was mushrooms in this. The spices and walnuts mask them pretty well. This may actually be the one that works.

      If you get a chance to try this I would love to know how it went! Cheers :)

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