Our Fully Loaded Vegan Nachos are a delicious snack to share with friends and family or a fun weeknight dinner. Topped with our yummy Walnut & Cauliflower vegan "ground beef" and served with a homemade vegan cheesy cashew sauce, this recipe will become a family favorite!
What are Loaded Nachos?
Loaded Nachos is a simple snack or main dish that consists of adding a variety of yummy toppings to your favorite tortilla chips.
For our Healthy Vegan Nachos version, we add fresh veggies, a flavourful "meaty" mixture made from cauliflower and walnuts, we add pulses, a mouth-watering cheesy cashew sauce, some plant-based yogurt, and chopped fresh cilantro. Sounding delicious already?
You can add as many toppings as you like, but keep in mind that you need three essentials when making Vegan Nachos: Tortilla chips, a vegan cheese sauce, and some flavourful vegan taco meat.
Our Vegan Nachos recipe is:
- A great party snack
- Perfect for a weekday lunch
- Fun to make
- Family-friendly
- Dairy-free
- Easy to prepare
- Flavourful
How to make the Best Loaded Vegan Nachos?
Ingredients
Tortilla Chips. Regular tortilla chips are all you need. Avoid flavored chips as they are full of additives and you will be adding loads of healthy flavors to your tortillas.
Fresh Ingredients. Tomatoes, bell red peppers, avocado, red onion, sweet corn, and cilantro are our favorite ingredients when making loaded nachos. We finely chop all the ingredients to make a fresh salsa or this pineapple pico de Gallo, and mash the avocado to add on top of the tortilla chips. Other ingredients that you can add are green onions, black olives, and jalapeños to add some spice or mango or pineapple to add some sweetness.
Protein. Loaded means that you won't need anything else to complete your meal. These loaded vegan nachos have everything you need to keep going. As a protein, we use our vegan taco meat made from ground baked cauliflower and walnuts. For this vegan taco meat, you will need cauliflower, walnuts, yeast flakes, garlic powder, tomato paste, salt, and pepper.
Pulses. To add some extra protein to your vegan nachos, you can add some pulses such as black beans. We love the texture they add to the dish plus the nutritional value. You can use refried beans, pinto beans, garbanzo beans or white beans too.
Vegan Cheese Dip. Who doesn't love a cheesy dip with their nachos? For our vegan nachos, we make a dip from cashews, yeast flakes, smoked paprika, maple, turmeric, lemon juice, and water. I could drink this sauce, it's seriously delicious! If you need to substitute yeast flakes, we have some vegan alternatives for nutritional yeast that can help you.
Plant-based yogurt. For this veggie nachos, we use Alpro Greek Yogurt combined with lime juice and salt to make a simple vegan sour cream, but you can use any creamy plant-based yogurt you like.
Vegan Cheese Dip
The perfect vegan nachos should always come with the perfect vegan nacho cheese dip.
Our vegan queso dip is made with pre-soaked cashews, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, lemon juice, turmeric, garlic powder, maple syrup, water, and salt.
All ingredients are combined in a blender and blended until smooth to make a delicious dip that you won't be able to stop eating.
Tips: We normally soak the cashews overnight as you get a smoother dip, but you can also speed up the process by soaking them in hot water for 20-25 minutes.
Vegan Taco Meat
Preparing your vegan minced meat will take a really short time and all you have to do is leave the mixture baking while preparing the rest of the ingredients.
Our Vegan Taco Meat can be used for a variety of recipes such as this Vegan Bolognese, our yummy Moussaka, Quesadillas or Tacos. You can as well, use other meat substitutes such as TVP (textured vegetable protein), pulses such as black beans, lentils or kidney beans or even minced tofu, like we do for our Tofu Bolognese.
Step-by-Step Method to make the best Vegan Taco Meat
- Cut the cauliflower into big florets and add it to a food processor. Add the walnuts and pulse a couple of times. Add to the food processor yeast flakes, black pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.
- Keep pulsing a few times until everything is completely combined and grounded.
3. Transfer the mixture to a baking tray and add the tomato paste and drizzle some olive oil. We place a silicone baking mat on our tray before adding the cauliflower and walnut mixture so it doesn’t stick to the bottom.
4. Bake for about 35 minutes stirring the mixture halfway through.
Assembling the nachos
- Start by placing the corn tortilla chips on a big sheet pan.
- Add the vegan cheese sauce evenly on top of the tortilla chips. Save some sauce for the top.
- Add the vegan taco meat, black beans, and mashed avocado.
- Place the chopped fresh veggies evenly to cover the whole tray, you can also make a Mango Pico de Gallo to go over your nachos.
- Add another layer of chips and taco meat.
- Add some more vegan nacho cheese sauce, plant-based yogurt, and chopped cilantro.
Serving Suggestions
This healthy vegan nachos recipe is definitely our favorite to make for game day, parties, finger food-style dinners, and lazy weekdays when we need something nice and comforting. Check out some other crowd-pleaser appetizer recipes here.
As much as our plant-based nachos are a snack or starter, our loaded nachos can be served as a main dish. It is a perfect option for those days that you just don't feel like cooking, cause we've all been there. It is loaded with fresh vegetables and healthy unsaturated fats from the avocado.
We love placing the baking pan in the middle of the dining table and sharing the nachos with family or friends. You can serve other dips with it like this delicious Tofu Sour Cream.
If you want to serve these plant-based nachos with another Tex-Mex dish, we strongly recommend making these Tofu Fajitas, or Mushroom Tacos.
For drinks, we especially enjoy pairing the nachos with a refreshing Malibu Pina Colada, and for the kids, we make them a non-alcoholic piña colada, which they absolutely love!
Add some jalapeños, green chiles, or hot sauce if you like your nachos with a bit of spice.
FAQ & Tips
- Are our Loaded Nachos Kid and Toddler Friendly? Our loaded nachos are totally kid and toddler-friendly. Our toddler loves tortilla chips dipped in vegan cheese dip. It's a fun dish loaded with fresh veggies and nuts so the perfect option for your little ones. Make sure to get good quality tortilla chips if your little ones will be joining. Some of them contain too much salt and other unnecessary additives.
- Do you bake the nachos before serving? This recipe doens't need baking. If you want to briefly bake them you could but make sure you don't leave them for a long time as they will get soggy.
- Can I make this beforehand? You can prepare the vegan cheese dip and the taco meat the day before. This will make the making process really easy when you want to assemble the nachos.
- Serve the nachos right away as they get soggy after a while.
- You can double the vegan cheese dip if you want extra cheesy nachos or to have some extra sauce to serve on the side.
- Can I make my own tortilla chips? Yes, if you have some extra time, you can make your own tortilla chips. Check this Homemade Tortilla Chips from Simply Recipes.
The Best Loaded Vegan Nachos
Ingredients
Ingredients for the vegan taco meat
- 200 g cauliflower
- 100 g walnuts
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- Black pepper
- salt
Ingredients for the loaded nachos
- 300 g tortilla Chips
- 2 tomatoes finely chopped
- 1 red bell pepper finely chopped
- ½ red onion finely chopped
- 1 avocado chopped
- sweet corn
- ½ cup Plant-based yogurt
- ½ teaspoon salt
- A Handful of fresh cilantro
- 1 lime
Ingredients for the vegan cheese dip
- 100 g overnight soaked cashews
- 2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ¼ smoked paprika
- ¼ teaspoon turmeric
- ½ cup water
- ½ teaspoon maple syrup
- ½ teaspoon salt
Instructions
Vegan Taco Meat
- Preheat the oven to 200ºC or 400ºF
- Cut the cauliflower into big florets and add into a food processor. Add the walnuts and pulse a couple of times.
- For seasoning, add into the food processor yeast flakes, garlic powder, black pepper and a pinch of salt. Keep pulsing a few times until everything is completely combined and grounded.
- Transfer the mixture to a baking tray, add the tomato paste and drizzle some olive oil.
- Bake for about 35 minutes stirring the mixture halfway through.
Vegan Cheese Dip
- For the vegan cheese dip, add to a blender the presoaked cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon juice, garlic powder, smoked paprika, turmeric, water, maple syrup and salt. Blend all the ingredients until you have a smooth consistency.
Loaded Nachos
- Prepare the ingredients. Finely chop the tomatoes, bell pepper and red onion. Drain the water from the corn if you are using canned corn. Mash the avocado and add a drizzle of lime so it keeps fresh and drain the water from the black beans.
- Mix the plant-based yogurt with 1 tablespoon of lime juice and ½ teaspoon salt.
- Start by placing the tortilla chips on a big tray.
- Add the vegan cheese sauce evenly on top of the tortilla chips. Save some sauce for the top.
- Add the vegan taco meat, black beans, and mashed avocado.
- Place the chopped fresh veggies evenly to cover the whole tray.
- Add some more tortilla chips, and taco meat.
- Add some more vegan cheese sauce, plant-based yogurt, and chopped cilantro.
- Drizzle some lime juice, serve and enjoy!
Notes
- If you want to add some spice to your loaded nachos you can add chipotle sauce, jalapeños or chopped chilis.
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| If you tried our recipe, please leave a comment or tag us on Instagram. We are always happy to see your creations! |
Linda Pennil says
Looks delicious, I’ll surely try it
Laura says
Thank you Linda! 🙂