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).
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:
https://imgur.com/a/l8IYGod
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!!