Gluten-Free Vegan Taco Salad with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing
This 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!{ Plant-Based | Raw | Vegan | Gluten-Free | Dairy-Free | Soy-Free | No-Cook | Paleo-Friendly | Medical Medium® Compliant }
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.
Notes
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.