Today’s post is a guest post from Leigh. Vegan tacos! Enjoy 
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I love to eat vegan as much as possible. I feel better when I follow a vegan diet and, honestly, I think I look better too! When I first started trying to incorporate more vegan foods into my diet, I felt very overwhelmed. It seemed like a lot to have to think through what to use in place of things like cheese and butter (and I had an addiction to blue cheese dressing!). But over time I learned it doesn’t have to be that complicated.
Today, I want to share with you a fantastic recipe I found for a vegan taco salad . The salad takes almost no time to make and requires very little prep. It uses things you likely have around your house already or could get at any standard grocer. Let’s start by taking a closer look at the recipe.
First: It might seem strange to use chickpeas in a taco salad . Why not use black beans? Well, I think you could use black beans, and I might use them in future versions. However, the chickpeas work! Trust me on this one. I made the taco seasoning mix the author links to in her recipe and used it to season the chickpeas as directed. It was fabulous and tasted very much like you would expect a taco salad to taste like. The seasoning mix stores just fine in my pantry.
Second: I bought canned chopped tomatoes. The recipe calls for a fresh tomato, but I hate chopping up tomatoes. I think a canned, pre-chopped tomato works just fine. Do what makes you happy here.
Third: Having chopped tomatoes and salsa is not too much tomato for this salad. I bought freshly made salsa from the grocery store. It works well alongside the guacamole.
The glorious salad
Finally: There is no dressing for this salad, and you do not need it. The tomato, salsa, and guacamole solve the need for dressing. I considered buying vegan sour cream. If you like vegan sour cream, it would probably work well. I think it’s just ok so I decided to pass. I didn’t miss it. You’ll also notice from the picture that I served my salad in a flour tortilla which is different from the recipe. When I made the salad again the next day, I chose not to use the shell. The salad itself was plenty. But making a fun baked shell to serve the salad in is kinda fun. I dipped it in my leftover salsa.
I learned that you can use the ingredients in this salad to make a delicious wrap. When you first make the salad, I suggest making an entire can of the chickpeas. Store the leftovers. The next day, you can throw them onto a warmed tortilla and add salsa, tomatoes, etc…and that works very well for lunch. The chickpea sandwich that was born from this may be my new go to lunch recipe for a while.
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Leigh A. Hall blogs about her Bikram Yoga practice at http://www.mybikramyogalife.com/. Follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MyBikramYogaLife and on Twitter at https://twitter.com/LeighAHall
