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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
Didn’t like this one either but because I struggled with and didn’t make the walnut taco meat or cashew cream correctly. I found the salad bland tasting and couldn’t taste the cashew cream
The taco salad was flavorful. I added some salsa to mine to give it a bit more spice. I like the different textures. The taco meat was easy to make too.
The Taco salad was very good. The tomatoes I had did not look too healthy so I used a can of diced tomatoes.
This was SO YUMMY! I love all the ingredients…the black beans, corn, avocado, olives, chips…made it so delish and filling. I used lots more lettuce than the recipe called for, and added a very little bit of Newman’s Own lemon-basil dressing, to make it a bit less dry. But I didn’t want to cover up the yummy walnut meat flavor…it was perfect. I’ll make this again, for sure!
I love trying out new foods and learning how to cook foods in different ways. I do have to say I wasn’t so sure about this one when I read it, but it turned out to be amazing. I will be recommending this recipe to all of my friends and family.
Very satisfying as a dinner salad! So filling! We really enjoyed the walnut “taco meat” and the cashew cream tied all of the components together. Just need to come up with ideas to use the leftover ingredients. Overall, another winner!!
Absolutely my favorite salad this far on the Salad challenge!!
Love the walnut taco meat. Have seen it in a few if your recipes and decided to try it today! Awesome! I will be making it to accompany a few salads! The taco salad is amazing! One of my favorites!
Boy am I full! The walnut taco “meat” was great. Even my meat and potatoes hubby liked it. We don’t like olives so I doubled the amount of corn to replace them. I used frozen corn and microwaved it till just cooked so it retained its crunch. I also cooked the walnut meat and I think that helped to bloom the spices and returned a nice crunch to the soaked walnuts.
This is amazing! I really liked the walnut ‘meat’; I added some chipotle powder to it and
it really didn’t taste like walnuts to me. I did learn that I need to make my cashew cream more thin – and will most likely add some chipotle powder to it the next time I know I’m using it for a more hispanic dish so it isn’t as sweet. Of course, thinning it out with more water may take care of that! All in all this is a keeper and I’m looking forward to 8 more new salads during this challenge! Thank you!
So yummy and filling! Cashew cream was excellent and walnut “meat” was a fun substitute.
We both loved it. Used the walnut meat. Ate as a meal.
Yummy! I like it a lot, it’ssavory, crunchy and creamy!
Yummy! I like it a lot, it’s savoury!
This was a delicious fresh veg salad, although I wasn’t fooled by the walnut “meat”. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great salad topper! But still tasted like walnuts lol If you expect it to be similar to meat you’ll be a bit disappointed. Expect it to be like crumbled walnuts and you’ll love it!
Fun making all the ingredients! Never had cashew cream before! The walnut “meat” does better when cooked a couple minutes. I will make this again!
I usually heat my walnut “meat” up too! 🙂
Great way to spice up a salad. We didn’t use the cashew cream dressing which gave me a little concern that our salad would be too dry. However, with all the toppings and the addition of ground Turkey, the salad wasn’t dry and tasted amazing.
Easy recipe and an interesting take on a faux meat option. I would even add a few slices of fresh jalepeno for those who like it hot.
I forgot to leave my 5 stars. I truly enjoyed this salad and the walnut meat was spot on for me.