Simply Perfect Weeknight Dinner: Vegan Tacos!

In many ways, tacos embody the concept of Simply Perfect.  They are cheap, extremely easy to prepare and assemble, a great vehicle for leftovers, and endlessly customizable.

In short, a taco dinner makes a perfect weeknight dinner!

The only *musts* are a filling and some shells.  After that, you can get creative with the rest of the fillings!  Vegan cheese shreds (if that’s your thing), fresh tomato, salsa, lettuce, guacamole or diced avocado…you name it.

Shells
Because I almost always set up a “taco bar” when we have parties, I am a frequent purchaser of those taco kits you can buy in the supermarket.  This means that H and I usually have leftover taco shells (both hard and soft) and seasoning packets in our kitchen.

If you are not a taco kit hoarder like me, though, you can buy individual boxes of taco shells at the store (I used these beautiful non-GMO Garden of Eatin’ shells in the tacos pictured below), or you can just use soft corn tortillas (I like the ones from Trader Joe’s).

Filling
I have two favorite go-to fillings, both of which are extremely easy and delicious.

The first one uses Beyond Meat’s Beyond Beef crumbles (in either the original “Beefy” or the “Feisty” flavor…both work great in this).  To make this filling, I lightly saute some finely chopped red onion and red bell pepper.  Once they are softened, I add the frozen crumbles and cook everything together until warmed through.  Lastly, I stir in about 1/3 of a packet of taco seasoning.

If you do not have pre-made taco seasoning, you can easily make your own by combining some salt, chili powder, cumin, and oregano (and anything else that tastes yummy to you!).  Have fun with it!

The second filling uses ultra-cheap and readily available black beans. I simply rinse a can of beans, then add it to a pan with a couple of spoonfuls of tomato sauce and some taco seasoning, and cook it until warm.

I LOVE these taco beans and the leftovers never last long.

Once your filling is ready, you can stuff tacos and eat them neatly as shown above, or you can break up the shells and serve yourself a big ol’ taco mess like I did here:

It isn’t pretty but man did it taste good.

Either way, they’re super-fun to eat!

Vegan “Hamburger Helper” & a BOGO Beyond Meat Coupon!

Hello there!  Do I have a treat for you today!

It’s no secret that I love me some meat analogues.  In fact, I have always loved these going way back, many years before I had even contemplated going vegan.  At present, I work pretty hard to ensure that my diet is comprised of 80-90% whole foods, but every so often I still like to indulge in some meaty goodness (cruelty-free of course!).

I’ve blogged about Beyond Meat’s chicken-style strips before (check out this Grilled Chicken and Avocado Sandwich or this Spicy Chicken Quesadilla), but it was not until last week that I finally got my hands on some of their beef-free crumbles (using a Buy 1 Get 1 Free coupon that you can snag for yourself at the bottom of this post).

The bottom line: I LOVE IT.  I think this is the best ground beef analogue I’ve had.  And yes, it’s processed food, but it also happens to not be complete garbage.  The ingredients are 100% gluten-free and soy-free, and do not include GMO’s.

The first thing I did with my Beef-free Crumbles was to recreate a comfort food that throws it WAY back: Hamburger Helper.  Or, to take my darling H’s suggestion, we can refer to it as “Herbivore Helper.”

For the cheesy sauce, I used a recipe that one of my favorite bloggers, Jackie at Vegan Yack Attack, posted last week as part of her Vegan Cuts Pizza Party.  I could have made my own cheese sauce, but hers is so damn good that there would be no sense to that!  If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Okay, the recipe!
Vegan Hamburger Helper, aka Herbivore Helper, featuring Beyond Meat Beef-free Crumbles
Serves 2 very hungry people, or 4 normals…I am not normal
Vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, gluten-free option 

Ingredients
4 oz. pappardelle pasta (or other pasta of choice…use GF pasta for gluten-free)
1 cup Beyond Meat beef-free crumbles
1 recipe of Jackie’s Cheese Sauce (or other cheese sauce of choice)–you will only need about half of it for this recipe, but make the whole thing and then go nuts putting the leftovers on everything!
1/4 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
Salt and pepper to taste (optional)
Additional nutritional yeast (optional)

Directions
[Remember to put the cashews for the cheese sauce out to soak for at least 30 minutes before starting the rest of the ingredients!]

Boil water for pasta.  While the water is coming to a boil, warm the beef-free crumbles in a skillet with a little bit of oil (per package directions).

When the water comes to a boil, add the pasta, while it’s cooking, make the cheese sauce in your blender (it’ll yield about 3/4 cup).

When pasta is done cooking, drain it, then add it to a large bowl and toss with 1/2 of the cheese sauce (use more or less to taste), beef-free crumbles, basil, and garlic powder.  Add salt, pepper, and additional nutritional yeast to taste.

Scarf it down!

The second I was done snapping these photos, I completely devoured a heaping bowl of this stuff (like seriously, 3-4 times the size of the pictured serving).  This is good, solid comfort food, folks.  Even H, who normally is very picky and skeptical about any “fake” meats, tried a bite, and then asked for another, and another.  I’d say it’s a winner!

If you would like your own Buy 1 Get 1 Free coupon, redeemable for any Beyond Meat product, you can get one by clicking this link.  The coupon is good through June 1st.  Stock up this week for Memorial Day 🙂

Disclaimer: I am a 2014 Beyond Meat ambassador.  I am not compensated in any way for this, other than by getting awesome coupons that I can then share with you!  All opinions are my own and as always, completely honest.