This Gluten-Free Vegan Taco Salad with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing is an easy and healthy recipe made with clean, real food ingredients. It's the perfect no-cook plant-based meal that's customizable and ready to enjoy in under 15 minutes!
Here's Why This Recipe Works
My top 3 favorite reasons:
- A No-Cook Recipe + Customizable
- Ready In Less Than 15 Minutes
- Made With Clean, Real Food Ingredients
A No-Cook Recipe + Customizable
This easily customizable salad is perfect for Taco Tuesday or any day of the week that when you want an easy and healthy plant-based meal.
It's a "raw" salad, meaning there is no cooking involved - the salad is raw, the vegan taco meat is raw/no-cook and the dressing is raw/no-cook.
My vegan taco salad is a bowl filled with nutrient-dense goodness and you can customize this recipe with your favorite ingredients and quantities.
For example,
- Ingredients: I used cilantro, jalapenos, black olives, tomatoes, red onions, avocados but you could also add black beans, diced red bell peppers, corn* or even use a vegan "cheesy" sauce* (*not Medical Medium® compliant) instead of the Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing for variety.
- Amounts: The quantity of each ingredient is customizable too. There is no right or wrong amount of each ingredient to use, just add as much or as little as you like. I used about a ½ cup of each ingredient and 2 large handfuls of mixed salad greens. The salad dressing and "taco meat" were enough to make two generous servings.
Have fun being creative and make a taco salad you will love!
Ready In Less Than 15 Minutes
Although there are several steps to make this recipe, the most time-consuming is prepping the veggies.
Once you have the veggies prepped, you need to prepare the vegan taco meat, which takes less than 5 minutes using a food processor.
All that's left to do is make the Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing in a Vitamix which also takes less than 5 minutes.
While I separated all the ingredients in the bowl to take a pretty photograph, what you will actually need to do is toss all the ingredients together and drizzle with the salad dressing and sprinkle the optional chips on top.
So have fun and enjoy eating a fresh, raw ingredient salad with lots of healthy ingredients that are raw, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, and paleo-friendly.
Made With Clean, Real Food Ingredients
This recipe is made with a solid list of fresh, clean ingredients.
For example, salad ingredients such as salad greens, tomatoes, cilantro, black olives, red onions, avocado, and jalapenos.
In addition, the dressing is made with cashews, water, cilantro, garlic, lime juice, and Himalayan pink salt and the vega taco meat is made with walnuts, avocado oil, ground cumin, ground chipotle, and Himalayan pink salt.
Enjoy my healthy plant-based salad that's raw, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free, no-cook, paleo-friendly, and Medical Medium® compliant.
Karielyn's Expert Tips + Ingredient Substitutions:
Here are some of my expert tips to make this recipe perfectly:
Lime Juice. The freshly squeezed lime juice will give the best flavor and nutrients since it hasn't been pasteurized, but you could also use store-bought organic lime juice.
Avocado Oil. It can be substituted with organic extra-virgin olive oil.
Onions. My favorite variety of onions to use is red onions, but any variety would work except a sweet onion since this is a savory recipe.
Tomatoes. I used Roma tomatoes in this recipe, but feel free to use your favorite variety.
Jalapeno + Chipotle Powder. Feel free to adjust or omit these ingredients if you don't like spicy foods or will be serving this dish to children.
Optional Chip Topping. There are several gluten-free + grain-free tortilla chips you could use as a topping for this salad. For example:
- Forager Organic Vegetable Chips - made with fresh-pressed vegetables, ancient and sprouted grains, and a touch of sea salt. You can buy them online here and here.
- Siete Grain-Free Chips - made with cassava flour, avocado oil, coconut flour, ground chia seeds, and sea salt. You can buy them online here and here.
- Thrive Market Grain-Free Chips - made with the same ingredients as Siete Grain-Free chips but they are about $1.00 less per bag. You can buy them online here.
- Organic Homemade Raw Corn Chips - my homemade corn chips are easy to make and are a good option if you didn't need the recipe to be 100% Medical Medium compliant.
Himalayan Pink Salt. This is my salt of preference, however, it can always be substituted with sea salt.
Want More Healthy Plant-Based Salad Recipes?
Check out these:
- Strawberry and Spinach Quinoa Salad with Balsamic Vinegar
- Vegan Greek Salad
- Blueberry Mango Salad with Tahini Ginger Dressing
- or my CLEAN EATING Cookbook with 75+ plant-based vegan + gluten-free recipes made with clean, real food ingredients just like this one that you will love!
Did You Make This Recipe?
I'd love to hear about it! Please give it a rating and leave a comment below...it would make my day! : )
Gluten-Free Vegan Taco Salad with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing
Equipment
Ingredients
For the salad:
- 2 handfuls organic mixed salad greens
- ½ cup organic tomatoes (diced)
- ½ cup organic fresh cilantro (chopped)
- ½ cup organic black olives (sliced)
- ½ cup organic red onions (diced)
- ½ organic avocado (diced)
- 1 organic jalapeno (sliced)
For the vegan taco meat:
- 1 cup organic walnuts
- 4 teaspoons 100% pure avocado oil
- ½ teaspoon Himalayan pink salt
- ½ teaspoon organic ground cumin powder
- ¼ teaspoon organic ground chipotle powder
For the dressing:
- 1 cup organic raw cashews
- ½ cup water, filtered/purified
- 1 cup organic fresh cilantro
- 2 cloves organic garlic
- 4 tablespoons organic lime juice (freshly squeezed)
- ¼ teaspoon Himalayan pink salt
Instructions
Prepare the veggies:
- Prep the veggies you will be adding to the salad (example: cilantro, jalapeno, black olives, tomatoes, avocado, onions, etc) by dicing, slicing and chopping the amount you'd like to use, then set aside.
Prepare the vegan taco meat:
- Add all ingredients for the "taco meat" to a food processor and process until the walnuts are broken down into tiny pieces, taking care not to over-process.
- Taste and adjust the seasonings to your preference, then set aside.
Prepare the dressing:
- Add all ingredients for the dressing to a Vitamix and blend until the mixture is creamy and smooth.
- Taste and adjust the seasonings to your preference.
Assembly
- Divide all parts of the salad equally between two serving dishes (example: salad greens, salad toppings, vegan taco meat) and drizzle the dressing over the top.
- Optional: Add broken pieces of your favorite gluten-free tortilla-style chips on top.
Recipe Notes
- Forager Organic Vegetable Chips - made with fresh-pressed vegetables, ancient and sprouted grains and a touch of sea salt. You can buy them online here and here.
- Siete Grain-Free Chips - made with cassava flour, avocado oil, coconut flour, ground chia seeds, and sea salt. You can buy them online here and here.
- Thrive Market Grain-Free Chips - made with the same ingredients as Siete Grain-Free chips but they are about $1.00 less per bag. You can buy them online here.
- Organic Homemade Raw Corn Chips - my homemade corn chips are easy to make and are a good option if you didn't need the recipe to be 100% Medical Medium compliant.
Nutrition Information
Copyright Notice
The instructions, notes, and photographs for this recipe by Karielyn Tillman of The Healthy Family and Home™ website are copyrighted material. This copyrighted work is protected and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International License and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) and cannot be legally used without my written permission.
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