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Who doesn’t love a good taco bar? You might think this is something you would have to give up when switching to a whole food, plant-based diet – but that is definitely not the case! We love baking up our own oil-free taco shells at home and loading them up with all kinds of toppings.
Check out the video or keeping reading to see how we make the shells and learn more about our favorite toppings!
How To Make Oil-Free Taco Shells
Be sure to start out with plain corn tortillas that have as few ingredients as possible. We like to buy these white corn tortillas from Trader Joe’s. The only ingredients are corn, water and lime. No salt or anything else added! Best of all – they were only 99 cents for a pack of 12 at our local store.
If you don’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby, you should be able to find similar tortillas in most grocery stores – just be sure to double check the nutrition labels!
We also enjoy Food For Life’s Sprouted Corn Tortillas, but they are a lot more expensive (at least $4 for a bag of 12 the last time I found them at Whole Foods). Sometimes we splurge on these, but we usually just stick to the basic ones.
Once you find the proper tortillas, crisping them up at home in your oven is a snap! Follow the recipe below – no need to add any oil or anything!
Oil-Free Taco Shells
Make your own taco shells at home for a crispy oil-free version!
Ingredients
Corn Tortillas (try to find tortillas with just corn, lime and water)Directions
- Preheat your oven to 375°F.
- Pull the top rack out slightly. Using tongs to fold your tortilla over, CAREFULLY place it directly on the oven rack, draping it over one or two bars of the rack. One bar will make for a more closed shell, while two will give you a flat-bottomed shell. Repeat, allowing for a gap between each tortilla.
- Bake for 10-15 minutes until crispy, checking frequently after 10 minutes. Cooking time will vary depending on the thickness of your tortillas.
- Use tongs to carefully remove and enjoy! They will crisp up even more after they cool for just a few minutes.
Keep in mind, these do curl up quite a bit, so if you bake them over just one bar of your oven rack like we do, pulling them off might be a slight struggle. I never have any issues, but some people like to cook them over two bars of the rack for a nice flat-bottomed taco shell!
Vegan Topping Ideas
The best part about tacos is there are SO many different ways you can load them up! We like to make a little taco bar so we can each create our own variations. We usually eat three tacos a piece for a meal, so it can be fun to mix it up and make a few different combinations!
Here are some of our favorite toppings:
Homemade Spicy Refried Pinto Beans – Check out our recipe for these if you haven’t tried them yet. These are my absolute favorite part of taco night! They add a nice spicy, creamy layer to the tacos.
Mexican-Style Filling Mix – We usually have a ton of leftover filling mix from our Stuffed Pepper Recipe, so we like to store it in the freezer and thaw it out to use for taco night! This takes the place of taco “meat.” If you don’t want to make the stuffed peppers, just follow the filling part of the recipe and skip the peppers and tomato sauce!
Julienne Sliced Zucchini – If you’ve seen our salad prep video, you know we like to julienne our zucchini using our mandoline slicer. This adds a nice fresh crunch to the tacos!
Salsa – Our favorite is the Trader Joe’s Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa since it has no salt added, but you can swap in your favorite homemade or store bought salsa!
Queso – You know I love my queso! In the video, we used Trader Joe’s Cashew Fiesta Dip, but I also love Good Foods Plant-Based Queso Style Dip. You can also use your favorite homemade plant-based queso.
Shredded Lettuce – We like using butter lettuce!
Don’t forget to check out the video and leave us a comment below to let us know what you like to include in your tacos!
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Love all your videos! Have you tried to use a taco rack to back the tortillas, like this one? https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004R90X/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1
I’ve been debating buying it to try, but wasn’t sure about the $20 price tag.
Keep the videos coming!
I thought about it… but we definitely don’t need any more kitchen gadgets LOL. I think it would work really well though!
I bought one but have not tried it yet. I will try to remember to post about it when I do.
How many peppers do you think I would need if I wasn’t making this for the stuffed peppers. I want to make it for tacos and salads
I would say 2 should be good or one really large one!
We enjoyed your “refried” beans on our Krocks-inspired tacos! It will definitely be our go-to for “Krock-O” night. TJ was out of stock on the fire roasted SOS salsa, and we used the Food for Life yellow corn tortillas. They didn’t curl as much in the oven probably because they are pretty thick, but it worked out fine to break them in half like you do in your video. I added a teaspoon of lime juice to the beans as well. The TJ queso is excellent, and I mixed some in a bowl with the beans and it will likely be my trademarked “Cheese Goop” that I always enjoy for the Super Bowl.
This was our first meal following a potato torture to kick off our WFPB life change. My wife was doing fine, but I wimped out at the end of just 10 days. I literally had an anxiety attack with the thought of eating another potato! We each lost almost 5% over the 10 days, so it was still a huge success. We are profoundly inspired by your story, and the honesty in your videos. Thank you, Jessica and Brian for putting yourself out to the world.
We can’t wait to try out all of your recipes!