Hello Gluten Warriors!

My husband is a perpetually hungry vegan who is forced to live gluten-free because of yours-truly… but unlike me, he eats so much! Therefore, I am often resorting to food that it is filling (read: high in good fats), high in protein, and (as always) ideally cooked in one pot.

Enter: Mexican-inspired cuisine.

One of my go-to dishes is this super-satisfying Mexican nacho dish! It’s all vegan and gluten-free, but looks and tastes like the real deal! It’s a big dish and it doesn’t keep well (only for the amazing reason that it is a whole gloppy mess of deliciousness!), so bring in the hungry people! It also works really well as a party appetizer, as nachos are wont to do.

P.S. If you’d like something that can be eaten in smaller portions, try my Mexican Burrito Bowl recipe. It’s the demure counterpart to this unapologetically loud and beautiful one!

Now… back to your regularly-scheduled,  luscious and abundant nachos recipe:

Ingredients

• About 100g or 2 cups of corn chips (please buy the gluten-free variety with as few ingredients as well, and as always, with corn, go organic!)
• 1 large sweet potato, cubed
• 1 onion or leek
• 1 large avocado
• 4 small tomatoes
• A small bunch of cilantro (if you’re into cilantro)
• Half a lime
• Half can of red or black beans
• 1 carrot, shredded
• Vegan cheese (optional) (Important: check for gluten-free variety)
• 3 tablespoons of vegan soy yoghurt (Important: check for gluten-free variety)
• 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast (Important: check for gluten-free variety)
• 30g or so of tempeh or tofu, broken up into small pieces. You can also use mushrooms instead or in addition to the tempeh/tofu.
• 5 tablespoons of tomato sauce or tomato paste
• Olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Chilli powder to taste (optional)

Method

1. First, we start with the starches! Grease a large baking dish with olive oil. Throw in the cubed sweet potato.

2. Cut up onion or leeks in thin slices, and mix in with the cubed potatoes. Drizzle in olive oil, salt and pepper.

3. Bake in oven for 20 mins at 180 degrees Celsius.

4. In the meantime, saute the tempeh/tofu/mushrooms in a small pan, and add the tomato sauce. Depending on your taste, you can add salt, pepper, cilantro, and/or chilli to the mix. I like mine spicy (but you knew that!). This is our vegan chili con carne.

5. Also in the meantime, let’s make the guacamole! Now this is easy to do, but the trick to amazingness is in finding the right avocados! I prefer Hass over the other 17 kinds! You’ll want ones that are ever-so-slightly soft on the outside, and have tips (I call them “belly buttons”) that break off easily, revealing a light green inside. So slice open a perfectly ripe avocado, remove the seed (there’s an easy way to do it – Google!), and scoop out the insides into a bowl. To that bowl, add the diced tomatoes, the juice of half a lime, a teaspoon of salt, some pepper to taste, chopped cilantro if you like it. Mix, mix, mix!

6. Now, take your dish out of the oven and assemble the rest of the nacho extravaganza! First, give the sweet potatoes a toss to ensure the seasoning is evenly coating those succulent little cubes! Next, layer of half can of beans on top of the baked sweet potatoes. Third, stick the corn chips all over the dish, ideally at an angle, so that it is not completely covered with the beans. Sprinkle with vegan cheese if you are going to use it. In general, I avoid processed food, even when it is vegan… and this dish doesn’t even really need it. Put the whole thing back into the oven for a quick 5-minute heat up!

7. In this time, make the vegan sour cream! Add the vegan yoghurt (ideally chilled and able to keep it’s yoghurt-like form) to the nutritional yeast, and mix! You can add some lime juice to this too if you like it extra sour.

8. Take the dish out of the oven… everything is now nice and warm! Now, layer the chili con carne over the chips rather randomly over the whole dish. You know, like actual nachos! After that, do the same with the guacamole. Next, the shredded carrot is sprinkled over. It will actually look like American cheddar cheese! Finally, the vegan sour cream goes on top, also in blobs across the dish.

Oooooooh! Tantalizingly delish. Enjoy with friends and a bottle of vegan wine.

Quick note: Behold below a photo of a variation of this recipe, if you want to skip the tasty chips and vegan sour cream (making your meal extra healthy and zero-waste as well)…

Peace,

Daisy