Tasty Vegan Enchiladas With Avocado Cream Sauce – The Best Advice

What are Enchiladas? Enchiladas are a delicious dish originating from the hot and happening kitchens of Mexico. Enchiladas are traditionally made from corn tortillas, stuffed with vegetables, meat, cheese, or a combination of those, depending on individual preferences. It’s quite similar to the Mexican taco but has two key differences.

First, the tortilla is made from cornmeal, unlike tacos which are made of wheat flour. Second, the Enchiladas are covered with sauces on top and look a lot like the Italian lasagna.

The tortilla rolls are topped with two types of sauces, a spicy chilly based sauce and a creamy cheese-based sauce. Of all the plethora of dishes available in the Mexican cuisine, Enchiladas are one of the most famous and most relished recipes worldwide.

What Are Vegan Enchiladas

Two major aspects are rendering the authentic enchiladas as non-vegan friendly. Firstly, a majority of the fillings used in many recipes are meat-based. And the creamy sauce on the top is made using cheese, another animal-based product.

Hence, with our vegan enchiladas with avocado cream sauce recipe, we will introduce you to a delicious vegan-friendly way to make this traditional Mexican food, at the convenience of your home.

We’ll take you through all the steps in the preparation, and provide useful tips and suggestions to make your cooking experience better.

Method Of Preparation

The steps involved in the making of the vegan enchiladas with avocado cream sauce may seem exhaustive. But we have broken down the entire process into simpler segments, so it’s easier for you to follow. The traditional enchiladas have three major elements.

First is the enchilada sauce which gives the overall flavor to the dish. We have used the Ranchero Sauce as the base sauce for the enchilada.

The second element is the stuffed tortilla rolls which make up the middle segment of the dish. Now, for the stuffing, you have innumerable options and combinations that you can try. You can choose from a variety of options like beans, potatoes, mixed vegetables, mushrooms, etc.

We have mentioned the recipe for two different types of fillings for the tortilla rolls- potato-based and beans based, both delicious alternatives. It comes down to your personal preference.

The final element of the entire dish is the creamy avocado sauce on the top, which is going to be replacing the cheesy layer of the traditional enchilada.

The avocado sauce made from avocados and dairy-free yogurt perfectly complement the other hot and spicy elements of this Mexican delight.

We will be breaking this recipe to three main steps

How to prepare vegan stuffing for tortilla rolls
How to prepare vegan ranchero sauce
How to prepare vegan avocado cream sauce

The Stuffing For The Tortilla Rolls

We will be looking at two options for you to try:

Potato based stuffing
Bean based stuffing

Option 1: Vegetable Stuffing (Potato based)

Although you have multiple options in the choice of vegetables, using potatoes for making the filling give a great overall taste to the dish. Another reason why this is preferred is for its ease of preparation.

Peel some washed potatoes and grate them finely and keep them aside in a bowl.
Add some virgin olive oil, salt, smoked paprika powder and cumin powder into the bowl, and mix them, till the spices are uniformly distributed.
Roast the contents of the bowl in an oven at a temperature of about 425 degrees Fahrenheit (218⁰C), for around 25 minutes.
Add some chopped spinach to it, and stir the ingredients thoroughly. Your vegetable stuffing is now ready.

Option 2: Bean Stuffing

Boil Beans in some water with a pinch of salt till the beans are soft and tender.
As the beans are being boiled, simultaneously heat a pan on low flame.
Add Olive oil into the pan and some minced garlic and finely chopped spring onions. Sauté the contents of the pan until they are cooked and tender. Keep stirring.
Once the onion starts sweating, add in some chopped capsicum and give it a light stir. Once the beans are boiled add the beans to the pan. Add some salt to taste. Be cautious of how much salt you add as you have already boiled the beans with a pinch of salt.
After a few minutes of stirring the contents of the pan, add some sweet paprika and some cumin powder. Mix the spices uniformly, and then try to mash the beans in the pan using a spatula or a presser. Keep the stuffing aside and start making the sauce.

Ranchero Sauce:

Ranchero Sauce is going to our spicy choice for our vegan enchilada. Made using tomatoes, chilli pepper and other spices and herbs, the sauce is a very important part of this Mexican dish, hence, it is important to get it right.

Cook red bell peppers with virgin olive oil in a pan, till they start smoking.
Next, add some finely chopped garlic followed by chopped onions. Sauté the mixture for a minute, and then add some freshly cut tomatoes into the pan.
Add a tablespoon of refined flour and a cup of vinegar, followed by a salt, basil leaves and a touch of cayenne pepper.
Keep stirring till the tomatoes are dried up and then add some water into the pan and heat till the sauce starts boiling.
Simmer down the flame and add some Habanero sauce to give the Ranchero its authentic taste.
Mix the ingredients and stir on low flame for a minute, and then turn off the flame.
Blend the contents of the pan using a blender, to form a puree. If the consistency is too thick, add a little water and keep stirring till the sauce starts to boil. Your Ranchero Sauce is ready.

Avocado Cream Sauce

Cut the avocados into halves and remove its seeds. Scrape out the fruit pulp using a spoon and add into a blender jar.
Add some cilantro leaves and squeeze a freshly cut lemon into the jar.
Add a cup of dairy-free yoghurt and some salt to taste.
Blend its content till you have a thick creamy green avocado sauce.
Pour the sauce from the jar and store it in a container or a bowl till the rest of the ensemble is cooked. This sauce is going to be the final top layer of your dish.

Avocados are a great addition to your diet.

Tortilla Discs

Tortilla Discs are widely available across the country in various supermarkets. The store-bought corn tortillas are hassle-free to use and reduce your workload.

But in the unfortunate event that you can’t find any ready made tortillas in your locality, there are multiple simple recipes available online to make them.

Although they are quite easy to prepare, they are time-consuming, so make sure you have them ready before making the other segments of the dish.

Steps to put all the three elements together:

Take a baking pan of appropriate size. Fill up the bottom of the baking pan with a nice thick layer of the enchilada sauce.
Take corn Tortilla discs and add a generous stuffing of either the vegetable fillings or the bean fillings, and make tortilla rolls. Make sure the rolls are short enough to fit into the baking pan, if they aren’t, divide them in the centre to make shorter rolls.
Place the stuffed rolls over the layer of the enchilada sauce in a straight line. After you have completed one whole layer of tortilla rolls, pour some more of the enchilada sauce all over the rolls, till about eighty per cent of the baking pan is filled.
Pour the avocado cream sauce you have prepared on the top of the contents of the pan, giving it a nice creamy layer above.
Place the baking pan in the oven for about ten minutes, with a temperature set to 180 degrees Celsius or roughly 350 degrees Fahrenheit. This is to ensure the creamy sauce melts and blends with the enchilada sauce.
Remove the pan from the microwave and allow it to cool down for a minute or two.
The delicious, hot and spicy Vegan Enchiladas with Avocado cream sauce is now ready to be served to your guests.

Vegan Enchiladas with Avocado cream sauce are no less delicious or nutritious than its non-vegetarian counterpart.