It’s handy having teenage kids who are Pinterest junkies. What feels like ages ago, my oldest daughter found a recipe for black bean tacos and volunteered to help make it for dinner one night. I love adding black beans to my traditional ground beef tacos (I love the flavor it adds, but I mostly love the way it stretches the meat out) but I had never considered making meatless tacos with black beans as the main feature.
As we chopped the and mixed the ingredients for the filling, I fell in love with the color. And the smell! Oh, it smells heavenly!
Without further ado…the black bean taco recipe!
Vegetarian Black Bean Tacos
- 2 (15 or 15.5 ounce) cans of black beans, drained and rinsed
- ½ cup red onion, chopped
- 1 tsp. cumin
- 1 tsp. paprika
- ¼ to ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- 1 large tomato, diced
- Coarsely ground sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste
- 2 Tbsp. olive oil
- 1 cup monterey jack cheese, grated
- 12 corn tortillas (or as many tortillas as needed for filling)
- Mix all ingredients except oil, cheese and tortillas in a large bowl.
- Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat, a little at a time. Place a tortilla in the oil and add about ¼ cup of the bean filling on one half (it doesn't take much!). Sprinkle with a small amount of cheese.
- Let the tortilla cook open faced until it starts getting bubbly and browned on the bottom. Fold the tortilla in half and press gently with a spatula. If needed, flip the tortilla over to crisp on the other side for a minute.
- Place tacos on a paper towel to soak up some of the oil while making the rest. You might want to place them on a cookie sheet in a warm oven for a few minutes before serving so the first tacos don't get cold.
- Serve with fresh salsa, guacamole and sour cream if desired.
These tacos go perfectly with a side of Spanish rice and a green salad. Enjoy!
Note: As a reader pointed out, there is typically more filling than the 12-taco-recipe calls for, so you can either make more tacos til you run out of filling, half the recipe, or add a scoop of the filling to a salad the next day for lunch. It makes a wonderful taco salad!
This recipe is modified from one my daughter found at endlesssimmer.com. My biggest modification was adding tomatoes to the filling, which I thought added some nice color and flavor as well.
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I made these with flour tortillas, added a little lime juice & everyone loved them. Great for a quick snack?????
Sorry about that! I just use the standard 15/15.5 ounce cans. I’ve rarely seen anything different for black beans
What size cans for the beans?
You’re right – I always have some of the filling left over and usually save it for the next day to make a taco salad. It’s so good! I love recipes like this where it’s totally easy to increase or decrease the parts that you like the best (or don’t want so much of). I’m going to make a note about the serving sizes, though, for sure!
Made this for dinner last night! The servings are very off. I cut it in half and it still made 11 small tortillas! It was very good, but next time I would definitely up the amount of tomatoes, onions and cilantro!
Looks yummy and easy to make. I love tacos!
These sound easy and delicious! Thanks for sharing!
OH Lolli :) looks delicious and I can almost smell them