Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup

Easy Black Bean Soup PinThis Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup is just what it says, quick and easy. Amelia’s mom, Jane, got this recipe from the AARP Magazine and gave it to us. Amelia’s dad told us he LOVED it! We were just as impressed!

After we went vegan and started eating a whole-food plant-based (WFPB) diet, Jane was legitimately concerned. Like most American’s and western dieters, she was raised to believe that we need meat, dairy and eggs to be healthy. She voiced her concern about our dietary changes, but trusted that her daughter had done the research and knew what she was talking about.

Rather than becoming judgmental and insisting that we were wrong and she was right, Jane decided to educate herself by first reading How Not To Die by Dr. Michael Greger. Then she watched What The Health on Netflix and started looking at more information from the WFPB doctors and scientists.

It took her a little while to come to terms with the unhealthy food marketing myths that we were all raised to believe, but now she often tells us how right we are. She even bought Dr. Greger’s How Not To Die Cookbook and cooked several of his recipes for us!

I have immense respect for anyone who will look at new information with an open mind, and be willing to change their stance when presented with new, credible information. It was certainly difficult for me to change my mind and I sometimes still think to myself, “It’s been over 2 years and I still haven’t died yet!” In reality, I’m far healthier, my cholesterol is down and I’ve lost nearly 30 pounds without trying.

Back to the recipe at hand… This Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup recipe couldn’t be much easier. It literally took a couple of minutes to prepare and less than 10 minutes to cook. You just add two cans of black beans to a pot with a cup of salsa and a teaspoon of cumin. Stir it up and heat it until it simmers.

The original AARP recipe didn’t call for salt, but we thought it needed some so Amelia added 1/2 tsp and that seemed to bring out the flavors more. We also used our Grandpa’s Vegan Dipping Hot Sauce as the salsa, but you can use store-bought to save time. Just make sure it doesn’t have added oils.

It would also be delicious with some sautéed chopped peppers, jalapeños, garlic and/or onions. You can sauté them first with some veggie broth or water in the same pot (covered) for about 5 minutes. This is called steam frying. Then pour the other ingredients in on top and stir. Continue heating it until it’s bubbly.

You can serve this Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup plain in a bowl, or serve it over brown rice, yellow potatoes or sweet potatoes. Yum!

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Lazy Girl Easy Vegan Enchiladas

Easy Vegan Enchiladas PinThis Easy Vegan Enchiladas recipe is fast and easy to make. Why spend time trying to wrap and bake tricky enchiladas when you can do them open-faced?

I love our Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas recipe, but we never have it because it’s such a pain to make. When we first made them for the website, it took us 3 tries to get them to come out good enough to be photographed. And we haven’t made them since!

So I asked Amelia if we could do them a different way that would be easier. After all, it’s the ingredients that taste good; not the shape. I suggested we sauté the filling in our cast iron skillet and then bake it covered in our Vegan Enchilada Sauce, but Amelia’s way was even easier. We served them open-faced on corn tortillas and poured the enchilada sauce over them. Then we topped them with some baked corn tortilla strips.

These “lazy girl” enchiladas, as Amelia calls them, are by far the easiest and fastest way to make delicious enchiladas.

Easy Vegan Enchiladas

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Summer Black Bean Salad

Summer Black Bean Salad PinThis Oil-Free Summer Black Bean Salad recipe was inspired by a recipe from Amelia’s Aunt Marie. It’s easy to make and full of color and flavor. It tastes great all by itself as a side dish, or over a leafy green salad.

Last time we were back in Atlanta visiting Amelia’s family, her mom Jane made us this dish and everyone loved it! Aunt Marie included olive oil and cheese in her recipe, so we just removed those and didn’t notice them missing. In fact, I’m guessing the cheese would overpower the mild flavors of the other veggies.

A friend of ours told us this recipe is similar to Cowboy Caviar. However, real Cowboy Caviar also has black-eyed peas, diced tomatoes, and several other seasonings. Aunt Marie’s recipe is certainly a lot easier to make with its fewer ingredients and most of the flavor coming from the salsa.

Amelia’s mom inspired us to make more dishes with salsa as the flavor enhancer. It’s a lot easier and faster to make a delicious dish when all you have to do is open a jar of salsa and pour it in. We generally use my Grandpa’s Vegan Dipping Hot Sauce instead of store-bought salsa because we think it tastes better and it also saves us about $3/jar.

This recipe makes a great side salad for your favorite Mexican dishes, like Vegan Tortilla Soup or Mexican Lasagna.

If you choose to eat this Summer Black Bean Salad over leafy greens, you may want to add some fresh lime juice and/or vinegar to the greens beforehand to give them more flavor.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Tex-Mex Jackfruit

Tex-Mex Jackfruit PinThis Tex-Mex Jackfruit recipe is a veganized version of the old standard Tex-Mex Pulled Chicken. We served it over rice but it would go great wrapped up in a tortilla. It’s savory, satisfying and delicious!

The key to getting the jackfruit to mimic the look and texture of pulled chicken is to steam fry it until it’s soft, and then use a fork to pull it apart. This will string-a-fy the jackfruit.

Once you add in the remaining ingredients and serve it over rice or in a tortilla with some extra salsa, it’ll fool just about anyone. Our non-vegan family loved it! Amelia’s dad honestly thought it was chicken! He was shocked when we told him it was a fruit!

A lot of vegans don’t like the idea of eating things that mimic meat, but if you’re trying to get someone to taste new cruelty-free foods, or you’re cooking for non-plant-based eaters, these types of recipes really help bridge the gap. They also show people just how tasty and creative plant-based foods can be.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas

These Vegan Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas are so deliciously amazing we can’t get enough of them! They’re sweet, spicy, savory and oh so flavorful!

If you’ve ever cooked your own enchiladas, especially without deep frying the tortillas in oil, you’ll be able to sympathize with us on how challenging it is to get them to look pretty. We had to cook this recipe 3 times to not only perfect the ingredients, but to get the pictures to come out well enough to post on our website.

But it was SOOOO worth it!

The trick was to steam the tortillas in a steamer pot for about 1o to 15 seconds before assembling them. Kind of like how they do it at Chipotle. That made the tortillas very soft and pliable. We also used Mi Rancho Organic Corn Tortillas with Guar Gum, which also helped hold them together through the steaming and assembly process.

We actually took these photos before we baked them, though. So yours might not look the same when they come out of the oven. You can see in the prep photo below what they look like in the casserole dish fresh from the oven.

These Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchiladas pair well with a little shredded lettuce salad on the side, along with some Corn Tortilla Corn Chips  and some of my Grandpa’s Dipping Hot Sauce. We used grandpa’s hot sauce in our enchiladas, too. If you plan to do the same, be sure to make it ahead of time.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Nachos

Vegan Nachos PinThese Vegan Nachos are loaded with goodies. Vegan Refried Beans, Potato Cheese Sauce, Vegan Cashew Sour Cream, jalapeños, black olives, avocado and salsa make this one yummy party dish!

Nachos are one of those treats that most people expect to give up when they go vegan, but there’s no need to make such a supreme sacrifice. The potato cheese sauce tastes better than the nasty cheese you find on most non-vegan nachos, and the cashew sour cream is absolutely delicious!

We used the toppings that we like the most, but you can be as creative as you want to be. These vegan nachos would be great with some sautéed onions or mushrooms, seasoned tofu, Tex-Mex jackfruit, vegan chorizo or anything else you can think of.

We bought some yellow and blue corn chips for this recipe, but you can easily make this with some Corn Tortilla Corn Chips.

Just promise me you’ll serve these at your next gathering of non-vegan friends so they can see how good veganized food can taste!

Vegan Nachos Instructional Video

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Black Bean Burgers

Vegan Black Bean Burgers PinThese Vegan Black Bean Burgers are quick and easy to make, but it’s also filling and delicious. Tastes great on a whole grain bun with Swiss chard, a slice of tomato and spicy mustard.

The texture and consistency of the patties is a lot like ground beef. We baked them in the oven, but you could easily throw them on the grill to get some of that extra smoky flavor or fry them in a skillet if you’re not concerned with keeping them oil free.

You can make up a batch of these and keep them in the refrigerator for several days. Since they’re not made of meat, they won’t spoil or stink up your fridge. You can even individually freeze them and pull out one or two at a time.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Vegan Jambalaya with Black Beans

Vegan Jambalaya PinThis Vegan Jambalaya with Black Beans recipe is like a little taste of Naw Luns (that’s Cajun for New Orleans). This dish is hearty, filling, a little spicy and oh so flavorful.

This jambalaya is also a great recipe for your weight loss plan. With only 200 calories per serving, it packs 11 grams of fiber and 10 grams of protein, as well as 31% RDA of Iron. With a delicious recipe like this, you don’t need to punish yourself with a bland weight loss diet.

I ate the first bowl plain without any toppings. For the second bowl, I put a dollop (about 1 tbsp) of unsweetened So Delicious Plain Yogurt on top. It tastes a bit like sour cream so it gave it a little extra tanginess. Cashew Cream Cheese would be delicious, too. You can also add some hot sauce (Tabasco or Red Hot) and stir it in to give it more kick.

We originally made this recipe with Beefy Crumbles, but now that we don’t eat oil anymore, we removed them. You could add some oil free Lightlife Gimme Lean Sausage to give it even more flavor, but we don’t have that in Ecuador. Booo! 🙁

This pairs well with our Vegan Cornbread recipe (unless you’re an oil-free eater).

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Cauliflower Couscous Tex-Mex Tacos

Cauliflower Couscous Tex-Mex TacosThese Cauliflower Couscous Tex-Mex Tacos are a favorite in our household. They’re not only super fast and easy to prepare, but their also filling and nutritious with 10 grams of fiber and 8 grams of protein.

You can eat the cauliflower couscous mixture as a side dish without the corn tortilla. It would pair well with a Mexican Salad, Roasted Green Beans or Roasted Asparagus.

Some diced avocado would also be a delicious topping for these tacos. We were trying to shed a few pounds when we made this recipe so we skipped the avocados to reduce the fat calories.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.

Beet Burger w/ Black Beans & Quinoa

Beet BurgerThis Beet Burger w/ Black Beans & Quinoa is a colorful, healthy and delicious alternative to traditional veggie burgers. The beets, black beans and quinoa provide 12 grams of fiber, 18 grams of protein and 39% RDV iron.

Beets are very versatile and high in iron. You don’t need to cook them before preparing this recipe. Just grate them in your food processor and they’ll cook up in the oven.

Quinoa is a high protein grain that makes a great binding agent. Be sure to rinse it thoroughly before cooking to remove the saponin coating that gives quinoa a bitter taste.

We opted to bake the burgers in the oven since they’re pretty delicate and come apart easily. Baking them also cuts out the oil needed to fry them in the pan. But if you prefer to fry your beet burger, add a little oil to a large skillet and cook them for a few minutes on each side until crispy.

Pairs well with Oven Roasted Red Potatoes or Vegan Green Beans with Bacon Flavor.

If you make this recipe, please let us know your thoughts in the comments below. And please share with your friends to help spread the word about healthy plant based eating.