Vegan Taco Bowl – The Stingy Vegan

This vegan taco bowl features smoky vegan taco meat, cilantro lime rice and a rainbow of veggies. Add your favorite sauce for endless variations.

What’s a good substitute for meat in tacos?

There are lots of vegan substitutes for taco meat. 

From prepared vegan meat substitutes to chickpeas and lentils to walnuts and mushrooms, there’s a million different ways to make vegan tacos.

My personal favorite vegan taco meat is made with smoked tofu.

Smoked tofu tastes like it’s been barbecued and is so flavorful that it doesn’t need marinating.

A trick for giving tofu a “meaty” texture is to grate it with the large holes on a box grater before frying it.

Just add your favorite taco seasonings and you’ve got a delicious vegan taco meat ready for tacos, burritos, quesadillas, vegan taco salad or vegan taco bowls!

What vegetables are good in a taco bowl?

Once you’ve got your vegan taco meat ready, it’s time to build your bowl with your favorite veggies.

Think of anything you typically put in a taco, you can put it in a vegan taco bowl:

Tomatoes, lettuce, corn, avocado, black beans, sliced jalapeño, bell pepper (fresh or roasted), (pickled or fresh) red onion or scallion, nopales, grilled poblano peppers, fried mushrooms, and cilantro.

Taco bowls often have a grain at the bottom to replace the tortilla, typically rice but quinoa would work too. 

Here again you have the option of your favorite type of rice: short grain or long grain white rice, brown rice, Mexican rice, cilantro lime rice or any other kind of rice you like!

Ingredients

For this vegan taco bowl are totally adaptable to what you have on hand. Feel free to use up any old veggies languishing in your crisper!

Rice: I’ve made the base of this taco bowl cilantro-lime rice. I prefer to make this with long grain rice, specifically basmati, as it cooks up fluffy and the grains stay nicely separated. 

Tofu: To make the vegan taco meat, I use smoked tofu. You can substitute plain extra-firm tofu but it doesn’t taste as good! You can buy smoked tofu in large supermarkets in the Asian or plant-based alternatives section. 

Black beans: Just a can of black beans. For the sake of time and simplicity, I don’t do anything special to the beans but there are recipes online for Mexican black beans which add spices like cumin and paprika and seasonings like garlic powder to plain black beans. If you have time, it’s an interesting variation. 

Tomato: A nice, ripe fresh tomato chopped into chunks for freshness.

Lettuce: I like just plain iceberg lettuce in my tacos. You can substitute your favorite leafy green.

Corn: A small can of sweetcorn or about a cup of thawed frozen corn.

Onion and garlic: Onion and garlic sautéed in olive oil is needed for the vegan tofu taco meat.

Tomato sauce: Just plain tomato sauce is added to the taco meat for flavor and juiciness.

Seasonings: For the taco meat I use a small packet of prepared taco seasoning. You can also mix up your own taco seasoning from your spice drawer. For the cilantro lime rice you’ll need fresh cilantro (also called coriander), the juice and zest of one lime, vegan butter and salt.

Salsa: Top your bowl with a dollop of your favorite salsa. You can also use creamy avocado guacamole, pico de gallo, vegan sour cream or avocado crema. 

How to make a vegan taco bowl

There are a couple of different steps to making a vegan taco bowl. You’ll prepare the vegan taco meat, the rice and all the toppings separately.

Rice: To prepare the rice, rinse it with cool water to remove excess starch.

I like to do this by placing it in a bowl, filling it with water and swirling my hands through it. I empty and re-fill the water about 3 times.

Combine the rice, water, lime zest and salt in a pot with a tight-fitting lid. 

Bring it to a boil, then place the lid on the pot and reduce the heat to very low. 

Set a timer for 12 minutes, then turn off the heat but don’t remove the lid. Allow to steam for 10 more minutes.

Remove the lid, fluff the rice with a fork and add the lime juice, butter and cilantro. Mix to combine.

Vegan taco meat: While the rice is cooking, prepare the vegan taco meat. 

(You can find more detailed instructions on this recipe in my post for vegan taco meat).

Grate the tofu with the large holes in a box grater.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a large pan on medium heat and fry the onion and garlic until soft and fragrant.

Add the tofu and an additional tablespoon of oil. Raise the heat to medium-high and fry the tofu until golden brown and crispy – about 5 to 7 minutes.

Add the taco seasoning and fry for another 30 seconds to bring out the flavor, then add the tomato sauce and allow it to heat through for about 30 seconds. 

Since my taco seasoning is already salty I don’t add any additional salt to the taco meat. 

Vegetables: Prep your choice of vegetables: chop lettuce, tomatoes and avocado. Drain and rinse the beans and corn.

Assembly: Build your taco bowls with the rice on the bottom and top with piles of veggies, beans and taco meat. 

Finally, dollop over salsa, vegan sour cream, or any other sauce you like. 

Vegan taco bowl variations and substitutions

Sauce: My recipe calls for jarred salsa as a topping but you can use any variety of sauces: guacamole, vegan sour cream, avocado crema, pico de gallo, salsa Valentina, vegan yogurt mixed with hot sauce or chipotle, etc.

Vegetables: As I mentioned, this recipe is totally flexible and adaptable to whatever veggies you have on hand and that you prefer in your tacos. Use pinto beans instead of black beans or romaine lettuce instead of iceberg, etc. Make them however you want!

Garnishes: Serve with tortilla chips or corn chips. Add shredded vegan cheese, diced red onion or scallion, pickled jalapeños, some more chopped cilantro on the side or lime wedges for squeezing over everything.

FAQs

Make ahead and storage tips

All the elements of this recipe keep well in airtight containers in the fridge for 3 to 4 days, except the avocado.

If you want to use this recipe for meal prep, you can chop up everything and place them in containers. I recommend keeping the wet ingredients (tomato and corn) in a container separate from the dry ingredients (lettuce and beans. The rice and taco meat can share a container.

Slice the avocado when you’re ready to serve.

To serve your vegan taco bowl, reheat the rice, taco meat and beans in a bowl in the microwave, then add your fresh ingredients and sauce on top.