Found this recipe for vegan Taquitos online and it’s amazing! You wouldn’t believe there isn’t any meat in this recipe. My daughter and neice said it tasted great! The recipe is simple to make with lentils, onions and walnuts, making the vegan meat or filling for the Taquitos. It almost looks like chop meat when your done and taste like it too, without all the disease and misery that goes with a lifetime of eating animal food. You just put equal amounts of cooked lentil and roasted walnuts in a blender or food processor leaving some texture to the walnuts do not blend smooth.
Publix lentils do not need to be soaked and are ready to cook. Just boil 15-20 minutes and they are ready. You roast the walnuts to bring out more of the flavor and when I googled how to do this it came with a major warning. Apparently even if you are watching them closely, the walnuts can burn quickly. You preheat the oven to 400 degrees and put them in for 5-10 minutes. So I put them in and set the timer for 5 minutes. Once the timer went off I checked them each minute and pulled them out after about 7 and a half minutes just because I did not want to burn them. For the recipe the amount of lentils to walnuts is the same. I doubled the recipe and used 2 cups of each so I would have extra. Here are some pics of the walnuts.
Ingredients For the lentil walnut meat:
- 1 cup walnuts
- 1 cup brown lentils
- 1 tablespoon olive oil ( I used no oil, I sautéed my onions with vegetable broth)
- 1/2 onion, finely chopped
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- 1/2 cup diced tomatoes
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon paprika powder
- 2 teaspoons oregano
- salt
- black pepper
Instructions
- In a medium pan, roast the walnuts without oil for about 5-10 minutes or until they’re lightly golden. Remember to keep a close eye on them because they can burn very quickly! Put the walnuts and the cooked lentils in a food processor and process until chopped. I used a blender and with doubling the recipe it took a little longer to get it right. Make sure to leave some texture!
- In a medium pan, heat the vegetable broth over medium heat and sautée the onions for about 3 minutes, remember, I did not use olive oil. Then add the lentil walnut mixture and stir in the tomato paste. Cook for 2 minutes. Add the diced tomatoes and the spices (paprika powder, cumin, oregano, salt, and pepper). Cook for another 3-5 minutes
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place a couple of tablespoons of the filling in the middle of a tortilla and top with some salsa, guacamole, or vegan cheese. I used some of the vegan Alfredo sauce I had left over. You could just fill with the meat and put those ingredients on top when the Taquitos come out of the oven. The choice is yours. Roll up the tortilla as tightly as possible. If your tortilla is cracking, warm it for a couple of seconds in the microwave or a hot pan.
- Place the taquito seam side down on a parchment-lined baking pan. I used a non stick baking pan I got from my post on how to go vegan, it was in the Youtube video. You can buy it from amazon. There is a picture of it above and below. Once you’ve rolled all your taquitos, bake them until crispy – about 20 – 30 minutes – turning them over once during baking. Allow to cool for 10 minutes and serve immediately with sauce of your choice. I made a vegan sour cream.
There is the pan I roasted the walnuts in, it’s really cheap on Amazon and works great. Give this recipe a try, you won’t be disappointed I am going to put the vegan sour cream sauce that I made in a separate post on my blog but you can use salsa, guacamole, or just use vegan cheese. Thank you for taking time out of your day to read my blog. Please follow me on social media at TotallyVeganTom.