The Absolute Best Beef Swap For The Ultimate Vegan Tacos

While tacos have taken on many forms since becoming a global sensation, the traditional Mexican street food is usually a simple formula of animal protein and a corn tortilla, garnished with cilantro, onions, and lime juice. Vegan recipes turn to ingredients like black beans, fried avocados, and plant-based meat substitutes like in this shredded tofu taco recipe or these jackfruit carnitas tacos. However, we spoke to vegan food star Tabitha Brown, who suggests a unique vegan taco filling that mimics the taste and texture of beef. Brown, who has her own line of seasonings in collaboration with McCormick, says her absolute best beef swap for the ultimate vegan tacos is nuts, done up perfectly with bold taco flavors.

She tells us, "I love using pecans. You boil the pecans in water, liquid smoke and coconut aminos. Drain them and add avocado oil, onions, mushrooms and bell peppers to a food processor. Blend together and it looks like ground beef. Then add to an oiled skillet with Taco Business , a little garlic powder, sea salt and pepper and cook for about 8 minutes and you have the perfect beef substitute for tacos!"

Boiling pecans will take the crunch out of them, instilling moisture and a toothsome chew that, along with mushrooms, creates an especially beefy texture. Coconut aminos are an umami-rich liquid ingredient made with fermented coconut sap, offering the same funky, salty flavor of soy sauce or tamari. You can easily source some online, like this Bragg coconut aminos for under $10. Diced aromatics and your choice of taco seasonings then add the zesty flavors you expect in a ground beef taco.

Pecans may be a novel beef substitute, but they aren't the only element involved in mimicking the flavor of ground beef. They do a lot of the heavy lifting in the texture department and their protein and fat content have a similar heft to beef. If you don't have pecans, walnuts are a great alternative. The liquid smoke, coconut aminos, and mushrooms are indispensable to the flavor of this vegan beef swap as they collectively provide a similar umami and smoky profile that you find in a beef taco. If you don't have coconut aminos, soy sauce, or wheat-free tamari (also available online as liquid aminos), work just as well.

Other vegan ground beef recipes will also benefit from Tabitha Brown's creative beef swap. You can use it in a vegan chili recipe, supplementing the taco seasoning with smoked paprika, cayenne, and brown sugar before piling on crushed tomatoes and broth. Ground pecans and mushrooms would also be a great veggie burger foundation to blend with lentils, mustard, and ketchup. In fact, lentils and boiled nuts are another popular substitute for ground beef that we make use of in our recipe for lentil-walnut vegan tacos. You could also blend the ground mushroom and pecan mixture with cooked brown rice for a delicious vegan cabbage roll stuffing to douse with tomato sauce.