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Truthfully, I’ve never had a taco I didn’t like.
Yet when it comes to taco salad– well, I am traumatized.
As a kid, I was forced to eat taco salad covered in thousand island dressing (don’t ask me why). I just remember gagging it down and vowing to stay away from taco salads. Then I started making my own recipes and it all changed.
This healthy taco salad recipe is not a childhood recipe. It used walnuts and cashew cream for protein and salsa for the dressing. It’s good, promise!
As I grew up, I learned that taco salad takes many forms— and some are quite tasty (while others are gag-worthy)! There’s just something so satisfying about a crisp corn shell (or chips) piled high with shredded lettuce and all of the other veggie-lovin’ fixings.
What’s unique about my Healthy Taco Salad is there’s no meat. Instead, I’ve substituted my heart-healthy vegan taco meat. It’s so good you’d almost never know it wasn’t meat.
Ingredients in Healthy Taco Salad
While there are a dozen reasons I love tacos and taco salads, here are my top three:
- Easy to make
- Versatile for everyone
- Favor changes every time
For real though; I’ve got a family of 4 and we all have different taste preferences. This healthy taco salad recipe is an easy dinner win because everyone can customize it their own way. Here’s what I set out for my version of a healthy salad:
- Vegan taco meat: no joke, everyone is shocked at how amazingly tasty this walnut ‘meat’ is. You’ve gotta try it!
- Tortilla chips: I like to get strips for this; try Siete’s cassava chips for a grain-free version
- Romaine lettuce: It’s all about those crispy leafy greens in this healthy taco salad. Feel free to swap in spinach, kale, or the leafy green of your choice.
- Black beans: I splurge on the organic version, or make my own recipe from Simple Green Meals
- Avocado or guacamole: Healthy fat is needed for our bodies to break down nutrients, and what better way than with a colorful avocado?!
- Colorful veggies: cherry tomatoes, red bell pepper, corn, black olives, green onions
Get creative with the veggie toppings. Red onion provides a pop of color, radishes are super crunchy, jalapeños really pop in flavor + spice… What are you fav veggies to add to a healthy taco salad?
Taco Salad toppings
Serve food that delights your tastebuds and nourishes your body at the same time. Choose a veggie or two from each of these 5 color groups and enjoy a variety of flavors as well as health benefits in your healthy taco salad.
Blue/purple foods provide vitamins A, C, and K. Green foods are rich in cancer fighting phyto-chemicals. Orange/yellow foods bring the beta-carotene and potassium. Red foods are good sources of iron. White/light green foods provide potassium, magnesium and vitamin E.
While this is just a glimpse into the incredible land of whole food, keep these tips in mind when choosing what colors join your plate for dinner.
What Makes Taco Salad Healthy?
Most taco salad recipes use ground beef, not this one. My walnut taco meat recipe is amazing. Now, I don’t often try to ‘mimic’ meat with plants, yet this recipe is pure genius on a plate. All you do is place walnuts in a bowl with water and a little lemon juice. Let sit for 8 hours or overnight to soften.
When ready, drain and rinse the soaked walnuts. Then add to a food processor with tamari (gluten-free soy sauce) and a few spices and grind it all up. You can turn up the spice on this ‘meat’ as much or as little as you want. If you have a fav taco seasoning, use that instead of my spice combo! This recipe made its debut in my our 21-Day Cleanse, and has been a fan fav ever since. Your salad just won’t be the same without it.
How to Incorporate Meat into Taco Salad
Plant-based eating doesn’t mean you have to be vegan. I’m not. If your family eats meat, try using half walnut taco meat and half ground beef. Your brain and body will thank you for providing it the rich benefits of walnuts, while you can also keep your meat-loving family members happy, too.
Healthy Taco Salad
Ingredients
- 1 cup Vegan Taco Meat
- 1 cup tortilla chips
- 2 cups romaine lettuce shredded
- ¾ cup black beans drained and rinsed
- ½ avocado diced
- ½ cup cherry tomatoes halved
- ½ red bell pepper diced
- ¼ cup corn thawed if frozen
- ¼ cup black olives sliced
- 2 tbsp green onions thinly sliced
- 2 tbsp cilantro for serving
- 1 tbsp dairy-free sour cream cashew cream
Instructions
- Prepare Vegan Taco Meat according to recipe (best if walnuts are soaked overnight. Yet in a pinch, you can "flash soak").
- Arrange romaine lettuce on plate and top with ingredients.
- Top with tortilla chips, followed by the taco meat, black beans, avocado, tomatoes, corn, olives, and green onions.
- Garnish with cilantro and sour cream.
Notes
- Vegan avocado crema would be really good on top instead of sour cream. It’s like a saucy version of guacamole.
- For a grain-free version, substitute corn tostadas with large cabbage or lettuce leaves, or simply omit.
- To heat taco meat, place a nonstick skillet over medium-high heat and lightly coat the bottom with olive oil, about 1-2 teaspoons. Add taco meat mixture and lightly saute until warmed through and nuts are lightly toasted. Be careful not to let it burn. Use immediately.
Nutrition
Taco Salad Frequently asked questions
No! They can be super healthy yet still delicious by using fresh ingredients, protein powered vegan meat or real meat and dressing that is made with whole ingredients.
Easy! Use walnut taco meat, chickpeas, black beans, jackfruit, or tofu for a delicious non-meat taco salad. Swap out cheese + sour cream for guacamole and cashew cream. You won’t even miss the dairy or meat.
Taco salads are kind of a whole-meal-in-one dish. You’ve got your protein, starch, veggies, and fats altogether in one filling dish. Know that not all calories are the same, and if your healthy taco salad is full of fresh, whole foods, then you’ve got nothing to worry about except that next bite of flavor-filled goodness.
I wasn’t sure how I was going to like the walnut meat mixture; again you have proven that vegan does not have to be boring! I did add a 1/4 tsp more chili powder and heated up the walnut mixture a tad. I think it helped release the favor of the aromatics. We do not eat corn so I added orange and yellow cherry type tomatoes for some additional color. It was quite appetizing on the plate. Did not make/use the Cashew Crema – just means I have to make it again!
I really enjoyed the day two salad but it was so labor intensive! I was so glad to be done making this salad, I forgot to put the tortilla strips on the salad. I really am not an avocado fan, so instead of making the cashew cream, I made a dressing using the walnuts and the avocado. I will probably make this salad again, but probably will do more prepping ahead of when I eat it!
Ooooh. That sounds really interesting!
I was nervous about “walnut meat”. I normally make tacos every week using lentils or veggie crumbles/TVP. I was surprised-I liked the slightly crunchy/toothsome texture. The seasoning on this salad was lacking-over all very bland. I seasoned with my own taco seasoning blend and that helped. Corn, beans, and avocado are never not good so I feel like this salad definitely has potential to be delicious. I don’t think I will buy walnuts just to make “meat”-lentils are easier/don’t require overnight soaking.
I didn’t love this as much as I thought I would. The spices on the walnut meat were not as strong as I prefer. Could that be because I made it a couple days in advance? I ended up adding some avocado lime ranch dressing and that gave it some extra flavor. I like the other suggestions to add salsa too.
It should be okay if it was made a couple days in advance. Maybe add a little bit more of the seasoning to taste! You could always combine the seasoning blend into a separate bowl and just add more a little at a time, maybe a dash of cayenne or chipotle powder if you like your food a little on the spicy side! Lots of ideas to enhance the flavors!
Delish! I would add a smidgen more seasoning to the walnuts. This was a great use of the bags of Fritos that are usually left from the chips variety pack. I’ll be making it again, for sure. Will probably add some salsa and a squeeze of lime the next time. 🙂
This was not my favorite. I think it was missing something. Couldn’t really taste the walnut “meat”…maybe it needed additional spices. I also saw later that it may have helped to heat that part up before adding. The corn and beans were pretty bland. Halfway through, I added some salsa and the little bit of kick helped, but just ok as it is written.
Neither my husband nor I liked this salad. Sorry. We felt the walnut taco meat didn’t have much flavor. One problem may be that the black beans I purchased were unsalted.
Definitely add seasoning to taste if you’re finding there isn’t enough flavor there for you! Make these recipes work for you.
We’ve been having a similar salad at our house for a long time so this was a big hit. We didn’t use the cashew cream dressing. Instead we make homemade salsa and use that as dressing. We also substituted ground chicken for the walnut meat.
Love this salad! I didn’t make the cashew creme but used a mixture of Greek yogurt and salsa. Delicious!
I made a big bowl of this salad and I’m glad I did. It was really good!
Quite tasty and way more filling than I was expecting!!
Awesome salad for taco Tuesday in my house! I added some hot sauce and homemade guac and it was a complete meal. The cashew cream was a great dressing and it was nice to not have to add any additional dressing to it. Will be making again!
You are giving me more of a challenge to have different food fixed in a way I really enjoy and can eat. Very good Thanks
I really enjoy you giving me more because it’s called lifestyle, healthy style foods I really enjoy eats it and super delicious!
Oh did we ever enjoy this recipe! We had family over so the 5 of us plus 1 toddler really really enjoyed it. Because of nut allergies we used real meat . The family enjoys carrots so I added long peeled pieces of carrots in place of the red peppers (again due to allergies) as a family sour cream (dairy free and regular) has always been added along with salsa to our tacos and that just put this supper over the top! We all commented that we never thought of adding avocado, black beans or olives on our tacos before …. a nice addition. The flavour of the meat was so delicious everyone went back for seconds! From here forward this will always be our go-to taco salad!
This was a great salad and filling. I am not quite sure about the walnut taco meat. It’ wasn’t bad but it wasn’t ground turkey :). The “meat” had a lot of flavor, which I appreciated. I love the different textures of the avocado, tomato and tortilla chips. I would recommend this salad.
This one surprised me, in a good way. I didn’t use the tortilla chips or cashew cream, but added some salsa. Some additional spice on the walnuts would be good, I think.