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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.
This was so tasty. I need to spend time perfecting my taco “meat” seasoning, but I will make this again.
The walnut meet was a first for me and I was a little skeptical at first. I love walnuts so I was open to trying it. It was filling and the taste was great.
The salad was good but did not like the walnut meat.
The only taco salads I ever had were in a restaurant. Made my first one yesterday and will now be making then quite often. The salad was very colorful and delicious.
Best way to eat tacos ever
A much more complex recipe that definitely takes advanced planning/shopping. My husband won’t eat vegetarian and is picky about vegs & flavorings, so had to eliminate/substitute several ingredients.
Super yummy. However, due to the enormous amount of calories in the walnut filling I opted to use baked cod which I flaked into the salad. It was scrumptious.
I thought I wouldn’t care for the taco “meat,” but I was totally surprised at how good it tasted and I loved the added crunch! Will definitely try this again.
Really enjoyed the salad. It tasted as good as any restaurant taco salad I ever had. Added a lot more seasoning to the walnuts (almost doubled) trying to get them more flavorful.
This was fantastic! I will make this recipe again. Loved the mix of flavors.
Pretty good salad. The taco “meat” is tasty. The cashew cream really brings it all together. I added some salsa verde since I couldn’t cut the lime I brought with a plastic knife…should have cut that ahead of time. I would definitely make this one again.
I was excited for this recipe bc of “taco meat”. It didn’t disappoint. Delicious. I added a protein burger bc of my fueling needs with all my activities. Delicious.
What a wonderful idea!
This taco salad is awesome, I didn’t have the tortilla strips so I topped with nutritional yeast and cayenne pepper.
I didn’t have tortilla chips in cut in strips, so I didn’t use any and still this salad was very filling and delicious. The vegan meat was indeed surprisingly tasty.
Also, the vegan cream (cashew cream) – super easy and yummy.
Will make this again.
This was amazingly good. The Walnut meat is fabulous. Full of so many flavors
fabulous healthy taco salad! great for the whole family and they could adjust if they wanted to.
Forgot to add that I had cumin seeds rather than ground cumin so hope my Vitamix took care of that. Also, I could not find Cashew cream so used cashew creamy yogurt instead and that worked well.