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Crispy and hearty oven baked tacos with spinach! So satisfying and delicious! These tacos are oven baked (not deep fried) and therefore not only healthy but also vegan (meat-free, dairy-free), gluten-free, and easy to make. Are you excited about this delicious vegan dinner idea?
Oven Baked Tacos Made With Spinach Tortillas
How pretty are these oven baked green tacos? I just love the natural green color which is so vibrant and rich! The secret? Spinach! I made my favorite Spinach Tortillas which are seriously my go-to recipe for healthy tortillas! These spinach tortillas are much healthier than any tortillas from the store. Why? Not only are they gluten-free, but they are also grain-free, plant-based (dairy-free) and protein-rich.
No wheat, no corn, just two different flours (chickpea flour and tapioca flour), water, spinach, and salt! That’s it! No artificial colors, no preservatives or other questionable ingredients. However, if you are too busy, stressed or not in the mood to make your own tortillas, don’t worry! You can, of course, also use store-bought tortillas (I sometimes do too but I prefer my homemade tortillas). Flour tortillas, corn tortillas, soft or hard shell tortillas are fine too!
Filling For Oven Baked Tacos
So, let’s talk about the filling. These oven baked tacos are stuffed with simple ingredients. I wanted to keep it really easy and therefore only used kidney beans (you can use black beans or chickpeas instead), bell pepper (you can use red, orange, yellow or green pepper), mushrooms (canned or fresh are fine), onion, garlic, rice, and different condiments. And that’s it! If you want to keep this recipe grain-free, simply use quinoa instead of rice. If you don’t like pepper or mushrooms, just use different ingredients of choice. Some examples would be zucchini, eggplant, sweet potato, tomatoes, corn, etc.
Of course, I couldn’t resist adding my easy vegan cheese sauce. Because vegan cheese is a must for delicious oven baked tacos, don’t you agree?! However, you can always use store-bought cheese instead of the homemade vegan cheese sauce. Do whatever makes you happy! 🙂
How To Make Oven Baked Tacos?
It’s seriously super easy to make these vegan baked tacos. All you need is tortillas (either homemade, store-bought flour tortillas or corn tortillas, soft ones or tortillas with hard shells) and the savory filling. The filling is done in 10 minutes in a skillet. You just have to fry all ingredients in the pan and add about 2 tablespoons of the filling onto a tortilla. Top it with vegan cheese (either homemade or store-bought) and fold the other side of the tortilla over the filling (if you use soft tortillas). Check the pics above to see how easy it is!
You can reheat leftovers of the filling in a pan/skillet the next day. The rice mixture keeps well in the refrigerator (covered) for up to 3-4 days or in the freezer for a couple of months. You can also store the tortillas (covered with a bag) in the fridge or even freeze them (in freezer bags). The tortillas will become a bit dry in the fridge. Simply put them individually into a hot skillet (20 seconds from each side) until they are warm and pliable again.
Perfect For Kids
These oven baked spinach tacos are perfect for kids! Why? Kids normally don’t like to eat spinach (well at least I didn’t really like eating lots of spinach when I was little). You can add lots of fresh spinach to these homemade tortillas and the great thing is that it’s pretty much tasteless! I am not kidding! I really love these spinach tortillas so much, to me they actually taste better than my regular homemade tortillas (without spinach)!
Great Side Dish Or Dinner
You can serve these oven baked vegan tacos for dinner or as a side dish. I normally eat a huge rainbow salad for lunch but sometimes I am extra hungry and make these baked tacos in addition. You can make big ones or small ones (depending on the size of the tortillas). This time I made the tortillas pretty small in a 12.5 cm (5-inch) skillet and in my opinion they turned out super cute!
These Oven Baked Tacos Are:
- Meat-free (no chicken, no beef, etc.)
- Vegan (egg-free, dairy-free)
- Gluten-free
- Can be made grain-free
- Protein-rich
- Flavorful
- Hearty
- Healthy
- Easy to make
- A delicious dinner or side dish
Should you recreate these baked vegan tacos, please leave a comment below and don’t forget to tag me in your Instagram or Facebook post with @elavegan and #elavegan because I would love to see how your vegan baked tacos turned out! If you like crispy tacos, I am sure you will also love my Buffalo Chickpea Taquitos!
Crispy Oven Baked Spinach Tacos
Ingredients
- 9 small spinach tortillas (5-inch diameter)
- 2 cups of cooked rice (360 g)
- One 15 oz can kidney beans or black beans (rinsed and drained)
- 1 small/medium onion
- 1/2 tbsp oil
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/2 bell pepper
- 3/4 cup canned mushrooms (100 g) or use fresh
- Spice mix: 1/2 tsp onion powder, 1/2 tsp ground cumin, 1/2 tsp paprika, 1/4 tsp smoked paprika, 1/4 tsp ground ginger, 1/4 tsp black pepper (or more to taste), sea salt to taste
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp soy sauce (gluten-free if needed)
- 4 tbsp plant-based milk
- 1/3 cup passata
- 2 tbsp hot sauce (or use less/more to taste)
- 1 batch vegan cheese sauce
Instructions
- Cook rice as per the instructions on the package. You will need 2 cups of cooked rice for this recipe.
- Prepare spinach tortillas as per this recipe (click). Or use store-bought flour tortillas or corn tortillas of choice.
- Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan/skillet over medium heat and add the onion, mushrooms, and bell pepper.
- Sauté for about 3-5 minutes, then add garlic for a further minute. Stir occasionally.
- Add all spices, balsamic vinegar, soy sauce, plant-based milk, passata, and hot sauce. Stir and let simmer for about 3 minutes.
- Add cooked rice and beans, stir and turn off the heat.
- Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
- Preheat oven to 410 degrees Fahrenheit (210 degrees Celsius) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Make one batch of the vegan cheese sauce (click) or use store-bought vegan cheese.
- Add about 2 tbsp of the rice filling on one side of a tortilla and 1 tbsp of the vegan cheese. Fold the other side over the filling and press it slightly down with your fingers (see pictures above in the blog post). Do the same for the remaining tortillas.
- Transfer all tortillas onto the baking sheet. Bake in the oven for about 10-15 minutes or until crispy. Enjoy hot!
If you are using Pinterest, feel free to pin the following photo:
As a fan of your spinach tortillas and your vegan cheese sauce, I have no doubt these tacos are going to be delicious 😀
The baked tacos look mouth-watering!
Nolwenn ☀
Thanks, Nolwenn! I hope you will give them a try. 🙂
What flour to use for the tortillas?
You buy store bought spinach tortillas
Hi Maria! The flours and method are mentioned in the tortillas recipe! It’s a clickable link. 🙂
Sounds great! I already love the normal tortillas, which I turn into burritos, so that is going to be perfect!
Awesome! Please report back if you give them a try. 🙂
These look so delicious! Love the recipe <3
Will try it soon! 😀
Great! I hope you will like the recipe, Bianca! 🙂
If I have no issues with gluten does it work to use regular flour in place of both flours in the tortilla recipe?
I cannot answer this question since I do not use wheat flour. You would need to try it yourself. It will be a completely different recipe though. 🙂
Hi – I made this entire recipe last night. Overall it was a huge success. Our family is moving to a plant based diet and looking at trying new things. The taco filling was delicious and the cheese sauce was great. I had a harder time with the tortillas. They came out thick and spongy. I made two batches and used more water with the second batch but they were still too thick. I think if they had been thinner it would have been perfect. They definitely were not crispy. I live in Denver which is high altitude. Wondering if that might make a difference? Still a hit with the family and will be repeating, but need to work on the tortillas. Any tips or suggestions would be great!
Hm, that’s weird. Mine always turn out thin and pretty amazing in general, they were never thick or spongy. Also, if you read the reviews on the tortillas recipe, they are very positive. So I really don’t know what might have gone wrong. It could be the high altitude (I live close to the sea). Maybe try using even more water next time and see if that works? 🙂
Hello! Thank you for your recipe. I made it today and it turned ou GREAT! I really loved it! 🙂
Just a question: I used brewer’s yeast instead of nutritional yeast because it was what I had at home. Do you know brewer’s yeast? Do you think the flavour is much different than nutritional yeast? I enjoyed it anyway, but I never tried nutritional yeast and I was thinking if the sauce could turn out better.
Thank you!
So happy you loved these spinach tacos, Raquel! I think I tried brewer’s yeast once but the taste is different from nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast has a pleasant cheesy taste, so you should definitely give it a try. 🙂
Loved this recipe! The spinach tortillas are amazing (my hubby adores them!) and the taco filling is very tasty (love that it’s spicy). Thanks for this great recipe, I’ll add it to our rotation.
Sounds amazing, Nancy! Thanks a lot for your great feedback! 🙂
So good! I used All-purpose gluten free flour instead of chickpea flour. Turned out great, however while I prepared the filling I wanted to keep the tortillas warm in the oven, which made them stick together. (my blonde moment of the day) For the filling I used: onion, garlic, quorn, butter beans, chilli, diced tomatoes and diced orange kumara. Topped it off with your cheese sauce! Loooved it. Thank you so much for your recipe!!
So glad it turned out delicious! Thank you, Sabrina. 🙂
Really wonderful! Everyone, including my picky 3 year old, loved these! These will definitely be added to our meal rotation.
That’s awesome, Jordyn! Thanks for your lovely feedback. 🙂
Great recipe! My partner and I are dodo birds and forgot the passata. We substituted with a chunky salsa and it was actually delicious!
Sounds great! Thanks for your feedback, Maci. 🙂
What can you use if your family doesnt like mushrooms.
Thanks
You can use veggies of choice, e.g. zucchini or whatever they prefer. 🙂
Made these again last night. We love them. Used JYDMIX Crepe maker (from Amazon) to make the tortillas. Used your spinach tortilla recipe and they turned out perfectly – nice and thin. The only thing I’d say is to make two batches of the tortillas to use up all the filling and cheese.
Amazing! Thanks so much for your great feedback, Vanessa. 🙂
These are great! My second time making them. I add both kidney beans and black beans and less rice to give a bit more protein. I also add an Anaheim pepper and some cayenne in there too for some heat.
I’m wondering if you’ve tried freezing them and if so, how do you heat up the leftovers?
Hi Hayley. I wrote about it in the blog post. I will copy and paste it for you:
You can reheat leftovers of the filling in a pan/skillet the next day. The rice mixture keeps well in the refrigerator (covered) for up to 3-4 days or in the freezer for a couple of months. You can also store the tortillas (covered with a bag) in the fridge or even freeze them (in freezer bags). The tortillas will become a bit dry in the fridge. Simply put them individually into a hot skillet (20 seconds from each side) until they are warm and pliable again.
How many servings of the cheese sauce should I make for 9 tacos?
I would probably double the recipe of the vegan cheese sauce for 9 tacos. 🙂
What can I substitute for passata? Thanks ela!
Tomato sauce. 🙂
Hey is there any substitute for nutritional yeast?
It is quite expensive in India
You can leave it out! There isn’t really a good substitute. 🙂
I am currently trying to make this recipe. But it’s pretty challenging to have my iPad up and I’m using it on the stand and all these ads and stuff that you have on your site make the page constantly flip so I’ve got to keep re-scrolling.I realize you make your money that way…just a REAL bummer.
Hi Adreean! Yes, blogging is my full-time job and that’s how I make money in order to pay my bills. You could take a screenshot or print the recipe. 🙂