At least once a week (if you don’t count leftovers!) Larissa and I enjoy an awesome plate of vegetarian enchiladas! If you’ve listened to the show for a while, it’s no secret that Vickie’s favorite type of food is Mexican food. With her Mexican and Central American grandparents, she grew up eating some wonderful Latin food.
Luckily, Latin food is VERY adaptable to vegetarian (and vegan!) cuisine! Enchiladas are especially versatile because so many vegetables make delicious fillings and there are multiple options for sauces.
In this episode of the Vegetarian Zen podcast, we focus on preparing some awesome vegetarian enchiladas, all of which can be easily adapted to vegan if that’s your preference. No time to listen to the podcast? No worries! We’ve summed up what we discuss in the show notes below!
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Great Vegetarian Enchiladas All Starts with a Great Tortilla!
Before we get into filling your enchiladas, let’s talk about tortillas. Good quality tortillas are essential for great enchiladas…it doesn’t matter how good the fillings and sauces are if your tortillas are bad.
Larissa and I like to use Food For Life Sprouted Corn Tortillas, which are:
- Yeast Free
- High in Fiber
- Contain Sprouted Grains (sprouting generally increases the availability of nutrients in grains and are makes them easier to digest)
- Vegan
- Non-GMO
There are obviously a lot more brands out there so, as with most foods, just be sure to take a look at the ingredients. Food for Life Sprouted Corn tortillas contain:
- Organic Sprouted Corn
- Filtered Water
- Sea Salt
- Lime
Softening Your Tortillas
When it comes to softening the tortillas, we usually use heated oil to dip the tortilla in briefly on each side and then use a paper towel to pat down any excess oil.
If you don’t want to use oil, you can also steam the tortillas by wrapping them in a dampened paper towel and placing them in the microwave for a few seconds until they’re soft.
Another no-oil alternative is to heat them in a pan or comal for a few seconds on each side. This method might not work well, though, depending on the texture of the tortillas you are using.
Let’s Get Saucy!
Much like the tortillas, enchilada sauce is a critical component of good enchiladas. A bad sauce-and-filling combo is almost as bad as a poor wine pairing. When deciding on a sauce for your enchiladas, think about what will complement the filling you’re using.
Red or Green Sauce?
Yes, there IS a difference, and not just in color! Just like the wine analogy I used earlier, each sauce has a different flavor, so it’s great to understand how each can be used to elevate the flavor of your enchilada dish!
Red enchilada sauce is red because it’s made from red chilies, onions, garlic, and other seasonings (depending on the recipe). It tends to taste more “tomatoey” and “heavier” than green sauce. It’s typically used for beef and cheese enchiladas in traditional Mexican cuisine.
The green sauce (salsa verde) is green because it’s made with, you guessed it, green chiles! Some can also contain tomatillos, a very common ingredient in Mexican recipes. It tends to taste a bit “lighter” than red sauce (not as bold) and is used frequently for chicken dishes.
The spice factor of each depends on the spiciness of the chiles used. The label of off-the-shelf sauces will typically let you know if it’s considered spicy, or “hot”.
Off-The-Shelf Sauce Options
There are some pretty good store-bought shelf sauces out there. We buy Hatch Tex Mex Enchilada Sauce (a red sauce) which goes well with one of our favorite enchilada combinations — mushroom and spinach.
Mushrooms often replace beef in vegetarian and vegan dishes, so the red sauce is a great compliment to the mushrooms.
While many off-the-shelf enchilada sauces are vegan, some do contain meat or animal byproducts (like beef broth) so be sure to check that label!
Here is a great article on the Thrive Cuisine website with eight vegan enchilada sauces for you to check out.
Cheese Please!
As lacto-ovo vegetarians, Larissa and I still do consume some dairy and we do use dairy cheese on our enchiladas. However, if you are vegan or just trying to reduce your dairy intake, there are some great vegan cheese on the market these days.
Some favorites from our community are:
If you’re looking for a great vegan sour cream, I HIGHLY recommend Forager’s sour cream. I’ve tried several of their products and have never been disappointed!
5 Vegetarian Enchilada Recipes We LOVE!
Now it’s time to talk about those yummy fillings for your vegetarian enchiladas! The possibilities are TRULY endless, so we’ll give you a few to get you started.
A Vegetarian Zen favorite! This comes from our website. Since Larissa is really picky about veggies, this is a simple way to get in some added nutrients without a lot of extra “stuff.”
This recipe comes from the plant-based meal kit service The Purple Carrot. Since this recipe is vegan, it calls for Daiya cheese; if you aren’t into vegan cheese, you can add whatever cheese you like or leave it out altogether.
I found this BBQ Chick’n tacos recipe on the Tofurkey website. Messy but delicious!
We like this recipe from Cookie and Kate. It’s vegetarian but has some notes added on how to prepare it vegan and/or gluten-free. Kate uses a salsa verde (green sauce) in this recipe, and it’s a perfect example of filling and sauce working well together!
This vegetable enchilada recipe comes from our site! We eat these vegetable enchiladas on a regular basis and they taste good as leftovers also!
We hope this has given you some great ideas and inspiration for creating your own awesome vegetarian enchiladas!
We hope this has inspired you to create some amazing vegan and vegetarian enchiladas. We’d love to know what you come up with! Please consider joining our community on Facebook, The Peas and Carrots Society, to let us know your favorite enchilada recipes!
Looking to up your cooking game even more? Check out the Forks Over Knives Online Cooking Course. I graduated and LOVED it! You can read more here.
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