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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.
Made the Taco salad last week but used meat, didn’t have the tortilla chips or the avocado. It was good, but pepper & beans didn’t go well in my digestive system. My grandson liked it.
The Taco Salad is a great blend of ingredients. Very tasty and fairly easy to make.
Very good!! I was worried about the walnut meat because I wasn’t able to soak long but it was so good in the salad. I used sour cream but would like to try the cashew cream. Also added street corn and drizzled the liquid from the street corn jar in the salad for more dressing. which was amazing.
I was disappointed as this is one of my favorite taste combinations. I made it before and I loved it. I think that recipe for Vegan Taco Meat was for more portions than was called for in the salad, and I did not realize that. The amount of seasonings in the recipe was not sufficient for the amount of other ingredients I used. I will definitely make this again and pay more attention.
Super fun and yummy salad!
Had this one for dinner last night – really good!! Definitely a staple salad!
I love the flexibility in this salad. I skip the sour cream and make the taco meat with brown lentils instead of walnuts. So good
Jen has a way with flavors! This taco salad is way better than the “regular” ones I’ve had in the past. The walnut meat is terrific. I highly recommend you make her cashew cream recipe — I’m using it on all sorts of things now!
Walnut “meat” was much better than I anticipated. Will definitely make this again!
I will be making this salad lots in the future. Loved the vegan taco meat!!!
Thank you.
Good! The kids liked this one. I did change up quite a bit for my family—we don’t like all the toppings cold, so I mixed a lot of them in the meat and seasonings. Great starting point for a family salad!
I’m so glad I made extra walnut “meat” so I can make this salad on repeat this week. It is all so tasty! I made up a quick guacamole (really just mashed avocado and added lime, salt and cilantro) instead of diced avocado because I thought it would be nice to have some creaminess to mix up with everything . I also left out the black olives since I’m not a fan, replaced the green onions with red onions because I really like the bite of a red onion, and added sliced jalapeños and hot sauce because I like a kick! It was delicious and very filling.
Weirdly odd, yet so tasty! Totally a skeptic on walnuts EVER representing hamburger! However, I learned something new and discovered that there is this phenomenon that when you soak walnuts overnight and pulse them a in a blender, throw a few ingredients on them, they seriously taste like ground hamburger….mind blown! No longer a skeptic! Throw on some taco fixin’s to this ‘vegan meat’ and you have yourself a beautiful taco salad and no one is the wiser on if I’m eating hamburger or not! This is such a great and healthy meal and alternative to meat! Highly recommend it!
I really liked this taco salad. I did add nutritional yeast to the cashew cream for a cheesy taste. I would make more of the walnut taco meat next time. It kind of got lost in the salad.
Most flavorful salad of the week so far! I need more at-bats with the cashew cream and taco “meat”
Wow!! traditional taco salad, step aside! There is a new winner in town! I loved the combination of flavors and the fresh crunch. I did make the cashew cream, and look forward to using it other ways, as well.