ingredients:
- beyond beef with onions & taco seasoning,
- nacho cheez (homemade, the base is cashews, potato, and carrot),
- pickled onion,
- pickled jalapeno,
- lettuce,
- tomato,
- flour burrito tortilla,
- fried 6" corn tortilla for tostada, and
- homemade cashew sour cream.
recipes to get you going the right direction (not all are vegan):
- https://minimalistbaker.com/5-minute-vegan-cashew-queso/
- https://www.food.com/recipe/copycat-taco-bell-seasoned-beef-537562
- Joshua Weissman
For the sour cream, I put 1 cup cashews with 1 TB vinegar (preferably something like sherry vinegar, ACV works too), maybe 1/4 tsp of salt (to taste), and enough water to get to the desired consistency (“as needed”). Blend in a high-powered blender like a Vitamix until smooth.
Can also inoculate with a yogurt culture and skip the vinegar and then ferment it if you have the time (use a yogurt maker and instructions, then ferment longer for a more sour flavor).
This looks friggin’ amazing. Great work on unlocking a new need for me!
it tastes as good as it looks, too - takes some finessing to get a suitable nacho cheese flavor and to get the beef tasting like taco bell meat, but usually when I make this it tastes better than I expect it to. There have been a couple times where it didn’t live up to expectations. Still trying to figure out exactly what contributes to the disappointment in those moments (but I suspect it’s not adding enough seasoning to the beyond beef or cooking the beef too wet and not getting enough browning).
Another thing I like to do is melt some shredded violife (3 cheese blend or the american / cheddar cheese) onto the tostada before adding the sour cream and other toppings. I deep fry the tortilla, then put it on a tray and add the cheese and pop it into my convection oven with the broil setting for a minute or so.
I’m still a little freaked out by how meat-like the Beyond stuff is (at least as far as I can remember as it’s been 25ish years since I had the real stuff). Normally I use Yves or TVP. I may have to go out and get some Beyond Beef just for this though. Thanks so much for posting it!
yes, it does a better job of emulating meat in some ways, but it’s still mostly just TVP (and really overpriced TVP at that!).
The main advantage beyond beef has is through the use of methylcellulose, which is used to make the fat chunks. You could totally make this with your typical TVP taco meat, if you wanted more like beyond beef I would add more fats somehow, whether whole foods approach like avocado and cashews, or by making your own methylcellulose fat pucks in the freezer and shredding them into your TVP mix.
This is a recipe on how to make your own beyond beef: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUWR9VRckAk
might take a little tweaking in my experience it’s hard to perfectly replicate the beyond beef
Wow! You really know your fake meats!
aww, thanks!
If you end up making anything let me know - would love to see pics! 😁
I’m pretty gobsmacked that you got this to look so good, despite working around vegan limitations - that nacho ‘cheese’ looks dead on for color and consistency 👍 How much does the pickled onion add to the overall taste profile?
Whenever I make these I can never manage to not steam/wilt the lettuce inside while crisping the outside enough :(
aw, thank you - that’s nice to hear 😊
The color comes from the carrot and nutritional yeast, I don’t really intend to mimic the look of real nacho cheese but it does sorta work out doesn’t it? I find having a high-powered blender to get the cashews blended fully is the key to the consistency, which is important to me.
The pickled onion isn’t that important and is actually getting away from copycating a taco bell crunchwrap supreme. I just like vegetables a lot and I’m always lacto-fermenting something, so this is a way to use it up. It does add a nice color and flavor, though! (Or at least I enjoy it.)
Regarding the lettuce, here is how I build it:
- base: tostada + melted cheese
- layer of “sour cream”
- lettuce
- tomato
Then when I crisp the outside, I preheat my pan so it doesn’t spend much time on the griddle. The lettuce I keep crisp in my fridge by keeping the cut stem / root area in water and covering the lettuce in a plastic bag. Then I only take the leaves I need and I rinse them well before using them (for bacteria, pesticides, bugs, dirt, etc.). This makes the lettuce turgid and full of cold water, which also would make it harder to wilt. The tomatoes are also wet and keep the lettuce wet during the cooking. I probably don’t spend more than a minute searing each side of the tortilla, just enough that it starts to brown. I find this doesn’t really heat up the cold ingredients much at all, so there is no wilting.
Hope this helps. ❤️
If you decide to make them I’d love to see photos!!
It does, thank you! ❤️ Based on your method, I think it’s the way I’d been prepping the lettuce - I’m a mise en garde chef because otherwise I’d invariably forget a component, but doing that leaves my veg drying out and going limp before it even gets assembled… I’ll have to try your way with a firmer lettuce like Romaine instead of Iceberg, and keeping it hydrated 👍
even if you prep the lettuce a little in advance (which I do too), storing the lettuce in a way that keeps the cells hydrated and turgid goes a long way to help. I fill a wide-mouth 1 cup mason jar with water to put the base of the lettuce in, then use a ziplock bag to pull over the lettuce; that way the lettuce has a source of water to pull and the respiration of the leaves won’t cause water loss, as the air remains humid in the bag.
I cut up my lettuce an hour or two before I made the crunchwraps, put them in a bowl, put a lid on the bowl, and put it back in the fridge until I needed them, but prepping closer to time will also help prevent limp lettuce. I used Romaine, so that might also help but I would imagine iceberg could also be kept hydrated.
Good luck - pass along any tips you learn!!
It makes me happy to see homemade cheeses since a lot of the store stuff is crap nutritionally. I also love seeing pickled veggies on nachos, tacos, or anything similar, adds so much flavor.
What do you use to flavor the cheese sauce? I usually use nooch and pickle brine (for sharpness), though for nacho cheese I would probably use the brine and maybe pieces as well of the pickled jalapenos. Spices depend on the dish, I like dill and paprika in mac and cheese for example.
Yes, vegan cheese makes me pretty sad. Thanks for your encouragement and positivity! 🥰
Here is my recipe for the nacho cheez:
- 1 lb (around 3 - 4) potatoes, boiled
- 1 medium to large carrot, boiled
- 1/2 - 1 cup retained starchy water from cooking potatoes and carrots
- 1 cup cashews, soaked and drained
- 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp MSG
- 1/2 tsp salt
- a few pickled jalapenos (optional if it’s too spicy for you)
- 2 tsp white miso
- ~ 1 TB Miyokos farmhouse cheddar (can sub with lactic acid)
- 1/4 - 1 tsp mustard
I find the blender overheats with how thick the potatoes make it, so I like to let the carrots, potato, and the water all cool fully after boiling. I also like to blend the cashews and other ingredients together first, before adding the potato which will bring my blender nearly to overheating.
This recipe (like all recipes in my mind) is more a rough guideline. I rarely measure everything and I often change the ingredients up a little, but it gives you a sense of the dish. I often use fewer potatoes now, more like 1/2 lb, maybe 1 - 2 small to medium potatoes, usually gold potatoes. I also don’t like to remove the skin for the added fiber, which is extra filling (and more nutritious).
I will have to try dill and paprika for mac & cheese, I have never tried that before, thank for the ideas!
