- Hey guys, it's Candace the Edgy Veg
and today I'm going to show you how to make vegan tacos.
(calm music)
So the Level Up is a series on my channel
where I take a food that you guys vote for,
that you guys love and we level it up
three different ways.
What says summer and freshness and fun than tacos?
Tacos are a super quick and easy meal
that everyone loves, always a crowd pleaser
and they're really, really good when they're vegan.
As you guys know, I'm always reading your comments
and I had some feedback apparently,
or you guys had some feedback for me
saying that you didn't wanna know what each level was
until the end of the video, so I'm not telling you
what the levels are, so you have to watch
the entire video to find out what it is.
Ha, suckers!
You asked for this though, so you're welcome.
(biting sound)
Alright, the first thing I'm going to throw together
is what I call a taco slaw, so this is just a basic slaw
using a lot of the ingredients that are in the tacos.
The slaw is going to be used in all three levels.
It's also just a great slaw to have on hand
all the time, you can eat it on its own
as a salad, throw it in a burrito,
put it on a pulled pork, jackfruit, whatever sandwich.
Okay, so I'm going to create a quick dressing.
We have some apple cider vinegar here,
and then we also have some maple syrup,
and then here we have some celery salt,
dried dill, and pepper.
Just mix that together, this whisk
is a bit aggressive for this.
(laughs)
Alright, set that aside.
Alright, and then for the slaw part
we are using red cabbage or purple cabbage,
pretty much the same thing.
There, if you only have green cabbage,
that's fine too, I just love to use purple cabbage
because it gives the tacos a really nice color
and I love vibrant food.
Then we have some grated carrot and then no tacos
are complete without cilantro so we are adding that.
If you don't like cilantro, there are a few
of you weirdos out there, you can use parsley instead
or if you don't like parsley, we need to have a chat
about your spice and lack of taste buds
and yeah, you can just leave that out
if you don't like that.
So this creates a beautiful, vibrant slaw.
Just fun to look at.
Food should have color.
Now we are going to add our dressing.
Now you can taste this and if you like
your slaw a little bit more dressed
you can add a little bit more apple cider vinegar,
little bit more maple syrup to your taste.
I like to do this the night before
or even you know, a few hours before
and allow the slaw to sit and then all those flavors
come together, they marinate the veg,
it breaks down a little bit, it pickles a little bit
which is nice.
Oh, the dill smells so good.
So I'm going to set that aside
and we are going to start on level one.
Alright, to make our beans, I'm just adding
a little bit of water to the bottom of the pan.
This cuts down on oil if that's a thing
that you care about.
I don't really, I just find that it helps the beans
cook a lot more juicy, if you will.
Alright, so we've added our spices,
this is paprika, cumin, and garlic salt.
We're going to add our beans,
this just looks a bit sad.
Okay, so we are going to cook that until
it's heated through, about five to 10 minutes
until they're soft.
Alright, while the beans are cooking,
I'm just going to slice up some avocado.
Avocado's beautiful, and that is going to be
our fats for this one.
Voila!
Okay, that's all you have to do for level one,
we have our refried beans which are just
these pinto beans that I mashed
with some salt and cumin, we have our corn kernel,
I just used frozen corn, I always have frozen corn
in my fridge 'cause I use it for so many different things.
We have some tomato, some cilantro,
sliced avocado and of course our black beans.
So I'm just gonna take some of these refried beans
and spread it onto the bottom of our bottom.
I guess it's the top, technically of our tortilla shell.
You can use corn, you can use flour,
my supermarket was out of corn so I just
opted for flour today.
You can also use hard-shell tacos if that's
a thing that you're into.
And we're gonna throw on our black beans.
Then our corn kernels, our tomatoes,
then we have our sliced avocado,
and our cilantro.
Now if you like it spicy, you can add some hot sauce
which I'm going to do, but that's completely optional.
Alright, and there you have your level one,
your basic but delicious, quick, and easy vegan tacos.
Okay, level up tacos number two is buffalo cauliflower
and ranch tacos, I'm so excited,
it's pretty much just buffalo cauliflower wings
in a taco, it's delicious.
We are going to use hard-shell tacos for this one
because I'm not breading them so you do get
that crunch which is amazing for these.
The first thing we are going to do
is add some garlic powder, nutritional yeast,
salt, and cornstarch into a large bowl.
To that we are going to add some, you can use
coconut oil or vegan butter or margarine,
this is a butter-flavored coconut oil
that's completely vegan which is amazing.
And then we are going to add some Frank's Red Hot.
Give that a good whisk.
Gonna add a little bit more, you can definitely
eyeball this and once you have your cauliflower in there
you might have to add a little bit more of the oil
or of the Frank's Red Hot.
Alright, now we are going to toss our cauliflower in it.
So we're just gonna add the cauliflower florets.
Alright, this guy's gigantic.
(chuckles) That's what she said.
(laughs)
You come here for the food, you stay for the naughty jokes.
Give the cauliflower a good toss in the sauce
and then you can bake this or you can do
what I'm going to do which is use your air fryer
and air fry them.
So this will take about half the amount of time
as baking will and it makes them nice and crispy.
I just got an air fryer, it's kind of my new obsession.
Definitely cuts down on baking time,
makes really nice roasted vegetables,
so thought I'd give it a try for these
and that way you don't have to bread them
and deep fry them either, which you know,
deep frying is great but we don't need it all the time.
And it can be messy and time consuming
so we'll just do it this way instead.
Okay, so these are good to go.
Now let's throw it into our air fryer.
You'll want to cook that for 10 minutes.
And then we are going to give them a shake
and cook them for another 10 minutes.
Okay, our cauliflower is done.
Oh, it's so crispy and delicious.
Going to start with the slaw on the bottom.
Alright, we are going to build these tacos.
Going to start with the slaw on the bottom.
I decided to use the hard taco shells for this one,
I just think with cauliflower wings
like they're usually breaded so I thought
for that crunch, the hard-shell tacos
might be nice but you can use whatever taco shells you have
and then we are going to add some cauliflower,
and as you can see, the cauliflower does shrink
quite a bit so keep that in mind when you
are chopping up your florets.
Then we are going to add a little bit of red onion,
just a hint of onion.
I need to wipe my hands.
And then we have our vegan ranch.
Now you can make vegan ranch from scratch
or you can go to the store like I did and buy it.
This one is really good, it's the one
by Earth Island.
Dan makes a nice one as well.
Now you can put as much or as little
as your heart desires, I like just a little drizzle
and then cilantro and serve that with a squeeze of lime.
Oh, that's a gross lime, try that again.
And then just serve it with a lime on the side,
don't know what's the best way to do this here.
Then you just squeeze the lime on when you serve it.
So level three is my version of, it's like
a vegan version of bang-bang shrimp tacos
so we're going to make bang-bang sauce
which is sweet chili sauce mixed with mayo
mixed with Sriracha, and for our shrimps
it's more like a bang-bang fish taco but vegan.
We are going to use hearts of palm, they do really,
really well when they're breaded, and yeah,
we're just gonna slice them up
and coat them in Panko and throw them into a taco.
Alright, the first thing we're going to do
is slice them up.
The great thing about hearts of palm is that
they are flaky, almost like fishes, see?
Like that, right there.
So I'm just going to, I mean they're not
going to look like shrimps and the whole point
is just to have little pieces, so then this way
you get this kind of flaky situation.
So depending on how big they are, just cut them
into little pieces.
I'm doing little triangles, you can also do them
into medallions if you want or just like this,
I just like the kind of mismatched look
that cutting them into triangles makes
when you bread them and it kind of releases
that flakiness that they have as well.
So I got the idea from bang-bang shrimp tacos
but it is really more of like a bang-bang fish taco style
because it's kinda flakier like fish is.
Alright, so slice up all of your hearts of palm.
Okay, I'm going to make the bang-bang sauce
right away, then once we've cooked the hearts of palm,
and we have everything ready to go,
we'll have the marinated sauce ready to go.
So I have some vegan mayo here.
I'm going to add some sweet chili, we're going to add
about a tablespoon I think of Sriracha.
You can always go in and taste it and add more.
It's going to be a really nice, sweet
and then also spicy sauce.
Give that a good mix.
Alright, we're transferring bowls
or else this is going to take forever.
Where's my whisk at?
Look at that, that's way better.
Now we're going to dredge and coat our hearts of palm
and I'm going to cook them in the air fryer.
You can also deep fry them or bake them.
I just love how quick and easy the air fryer is.
To make our coating, I'm going to
add some paprika and some garlic powder
to just a little bit of flour here and that's just
going to add some nice seasoning.
Just flavor that hearts of palm a little bit.
And then I'm going to dump it onto this plate.
And then on the other plate we are putting
our Panko breadcrumbs, and then in a bowl
we have our egg replacer.
Now we are going to take our hearts of palm,
toss it in some flour, then into our egg replacer,
and then into our Panko.
So I'm just using one hand for dry,
one hand for the wet ingredients and throw it
into the basket,
and repeat.
Okay, I'm going to give these guys a light spray
with this spray liquid coconut oil.
You can use whatever cooking spray you have.
You can also skip this but I find that it gives it
like a nice almost fried-like texture and flavor
and then we are going to cook these at 400 degrees
for four minutes, flip them and then cook them
for another four minutes in the air fryer.
Let's toss these hearts of palm into our bang-bang sauce.
Actually we're gonna put the sauce onto them,
not the other way around.
Alright, do it gently, and it's sauced!
Okay, now let's build these guys.
Adding some of our taco slaw to our tortilla, there we go.
Then we are going to take the hearts of palm,
I would say about three is probably a good amount,
two to three depending on how big your tortilla is.
For this one three is perfect.
Top it with some tomato, you could also do salsa here
or some pico, garnish with cilantro.
Again, if you don't like cilantro,
you can use parsley or just leave that out altogether.
And that is our bang-bang style tacos.
Alright guys, there you have it,
leveled up tacos three different ways.
We have our basic, we have our buffalo cauliflower wing
and then we have the bang-bang style.
I'm going to go for this one because it's just
so colorful and pretty.
Oh my god, yeah, yes, very tasty.
I love that it's spicy and sweet at the same time
and also creamy.
The hearts of palm is also nice and flaky,
it's super delicious.
Alright guys, I want to know what you want me
to level up next, so leave me a comment
in the comments section below.
Harley, sit, thank you.
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and I will see you next time, bye!