Vegan Fajitas
In the mood for mouthwatering vegan fajitas? Then, you’ll fall in love with this simple yet satisfying twist on the classic Mexican dish. This recipe is packed with colorful veggies, seasoned plant-based proteins, and a burst of zesty flavors.
Fajitas are a popular Mexican dish consisting of a grilled protein, sliced into strips, and served with sautéed peppers and onions. The filling is often wrapped in a flour tortilla, creating a flavorful and customizable handheld meal. Vegan fajitas replace the meat with plant-based proteins, offering a cruelty-free and equally delicious alternative.
While vegan tacos, tostadas, tamales, burritos, and quesadillas are all incredibly delicious, there’s always a special fondness for vegan fajitas. They’re one of the most versatile of recipes and an easily requested, vegan-friendly option at restaurants. If you’re ready to start savoring every bite of these fantastic fajitas, let’s get started!
Why You Must Make These Vegan Fajitas
There’s something so satisfying about making your own Mexican-inspired wraps at home. Adapting the recipe to use your favorite veggies and flavors is another plus. If you’re still not convinced, here are even more reasons why this recipe is awesome:
- Easy to Make: Simply stir fry, add sauce, and wrap!
- Savory and Satisfying: Veggies and plant-based protein are a great combination for helping you feel satiated.
- Great for Using Leftovers: The perfect recipe of using up veggies on the edge of expiring or small amounts of food that isn’t quite enough for a meal.
- Wholesome Ingredients: No preservatives or artificial flavors in this recipe! Compared to packaged fajitas (or even restaurant options), this is a much healthier choice.
Ingredients and Substitutions
While you’ll want to keep the classic flavor of your fajita, the ingredients can vary. Substitutions are actually encouraged in this recipe!
Soy Curls: This plant-based protein is such a great alternative to chicken. It has a wonderful texture and soaks up any flavor. For more recipes including this versatile ingredient, make sure to check out this Soy Curls guide!
Vegetable Broth: Soaking the soy curls helps to rehydrate them for the best consistency. You can either use your own homemade or store bought vegetable broth or your favorite vegan bouillon mixed with water. You don’t have to stick to vegetable broth, either. Choose from vegan chicken, mushroom broth, or other flavors, too!
Sliced Vegetables: Thinly sliced bell peppers and onions are the traditional shape for fajitas, but you can mix it up by using large chunks, diced veggies, or even zoodles (zucchini noodles) instead!
Spices: If you love spicy and buffalo sauce is a little too tame for you, how about adding habanero or sriracha? To tone down some of the heat, feel free to omit the buffalo sauce and add smoked paprika, ginger, or oregano. Delish!
Tortillas: Choose burrito-sized tortillas for your fajita filling if you’ve got a big appetite or smaller corn tortillas if you like more compact soy curl fajitas. To keep the tortillas from falling apart, make sure to add the filling right before eating to prevent sogginess. Or, add a leaf of lettuce to the tortilla before adding the veggies and vegan “chicken.”
How to Make Easy Vegan Fajitas
Here is a simple step-by-step guide on how to make vegan chicken tacos. It’s a breeze once the curls are soaked and ready to sauté. Once you make fajitas in your very own kitchen, you’ll be hooked!
Step 1: Prepare the Soy Curls: Soak the soy curls in vegetable broth. Heat 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil in a skillet over medium-high heat. If you’re using a different plant-based protein, you can skip this step.
Step 2: Sauté Vegetables: Sauté the sliced bell peppers, onions and garlic in oil until they are tender-crisp and slightly caramelized. You can also use a frozen vegetable mix from the grocery store. They might just take a little longer to cook.
Step 3: Combine Soy Curls and Vegetables. Add the soaked curls to the skillet with the sautéed vegetables. Toss everything together along with the spices to combine. Add the buffalo sauce and let the flavors meld for a few minutes.
Step 4: Warm Tortillas. Choose from any type of tortillas you like! If you’re sensitive to gluten, try using corn, almond, cassava, quinoa, chickpea, or gluten-free tortillas instead.
Step 5: Assemble Fajitas. Spoon the “chicken” and vegetable mixture onto the center of each tortilla.
Step 6: Add Toppings and Fold. Customize your fajitas with toppings like avocado, cilantro, cabbage, dairy-free sour cream, and shredded vegan cheese. Fold the tortillas around the filling to form fajitas and serve immediately.
Serving Tips and Suggestions
Wrapping up a batch of fajitas can be lots of fun. The ingredients are so versatile that you can almost use anything at all from the fridge. This recipe is absolutely perfect for little bits of veggies or leftovers that you’d rather not throw away. Here are a few more ways to serve or switch things up:
- Protein Possibilities: If soy curls aren’t your thing, feel free to use jackfruit, chickpeas, cauliflower wings, tempeh, tofu, or other plant-based chicken options.
- Savory Sides: You can’t go wrong with savory Mexican rice, vegan refried beans, tomatillo salsa, or sliced avocado.
- Tempting Table Service: While your filling is cooking, heat up a small cast iron pan in the oven. When the fajita mixture is done, transfer to the cast iron serving pan and bring to the table while it’s still sizzling. Make sure to use pot holders!
- Vary Your Vegetables: Peppers and onions are traditional fajita veggies, but you can use any vegetable you like best! How about adding in some chopped tomatoes, mushrooms, or zucchini? Or, be bold, and use beets, brussels sprouts, cabbage, carrots, or cauliflower instead!
- Take Out the Tortilla: For fun and tasty twist, how about making a vegan fajita bowl instead? Place a scoop of your favorite grain in the bottom of a bowl, a handful of dark leafy greens, a generous scoop of vegan soy curl fajita filling, and complete with your favorite toppings.
Don’t miss a chance to make these scrumptious vegan fajitas! They offer a nutritious and flavorful alternative to traditional meat-based Mexican recipes. With a medley of colorful veggies and bold seasonings, these fajitas not only please the palate but also make a delicious addition to your plant-based weekly meal rotation. Enjoy!
Vegetarian Fajitas FAQs
You can certainly freeze vegetable fajitas for up to 3 months. Freeze the soy curls and vegetable filling in a freezer-safe container. Place the tortillas in its own freezer-safe bag and store separately from the filling for best results.
Fajita ingredients should last 3-4 days if stored in a sealed container in the fridge. Keep the tortillas separate instead of preparing a batch of fajita wraps with filling. This will keep the fajitas from getting soggy and will make reheating much easier.
Yes! Instead of flour tortillas, use corn tortillas. Or, better yet, homemade corn tortillas!
Reheat refrigerated fajita filling in the microwave or in a skillet until desired temperature. Do the same for the tortillas and then assemble. Feel free to use an air fryer to reheat both at the same time—350 degrees for 3-5 minutes or until it’s warmed to your liking. If using frozen ingredients, you can thaw the veggies and tortillas overnight in the fridge or slowly heat in a skillet over medium low heat.
Good question! You can substitute any plant-based meat in place of the soy curls in this recipe. Or, if you’d rather not use a meat substitute, choose any type of bean or simply make extra veggies for the filling. Take advantage of your pressure cooker and make a batch of Instant Pot beans ahead of time for an even easier prep!
Vegan “Chicken” Fajitas
Ingredients
- 2 cups soy curls
- 2 cups vegetable broth
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 1 green bell pepper, sliced
- 1 yellow onion, thinly sliced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- ¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper or chili powder, optional, if you really love spice
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- ⅓ cup buffalo sauce
- 8 – 10 flour tortillas, taco size
- 1 large lime, sliced into wedges
Optional Toppings
- Avocado
- Cilantro
- Shredded purple cabbage
- Vegan sour cream
Instructions
- Combine soy curls and vegetable broth in a large bowl and set aside.
- In a large frying pan, heat oil over medium heat.
- Add the bell pepper, onion, and garlic, and saute for 5 minutes, or until onions are translucent.
- Drain Soy Curls (save the broth for future use or discard), turn heat to medium-high, and add the soy curls, cayenne (if using), cumin, salt, and pepper. Stir-fry, allowing the fajita ingredients to sit undisturbed so the peppers and soy curls start to char. Mix just regularly enough to prevent sticking and burning. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
- Add buffalo sauce and mix thoroughly.
- Place each tortilla on a burner with the flame turned on low, and allow each tortilla to warm up, and also develop a light char before flipping, repeating, and then moving to the next tortilla.
- Fill taco tortillas with the buffalo soy curl fajita mixture and serve with a wedge of lime and any toppings you desire!
Nutrition
Vegan fajita photos by Amanda McGillicuddy for World of Vegan, all rights reserved.
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Leave a Comment
These look so good! Can’t wait to try!!
Delicious and full of flavor
These turned out absolutely delicious! Love the choice of seasonings. Perfect for a quick lunch or dinner. Will be making again!
I’m drooling just reading the recipe! These vegan fajitas sound SO good!
Seriously tasty! I always just add veggies to my fajitas, but this vegan chicken will bring it to a whole new level. Yum!
Easy, quick, delicious and healthy!! I’m in!!
Love this dish.
This recipe was easy and delicious!! I love being able to use soy curls, because they have lots of protein and taste amazing in these tacos 🙂
Love the spicy kick of the buffalo sauce!