Vegan Black Bean and Veggie Enchiladas with Nacho Cheese Sauce

For Cinco De Mayo I decided to veganize a family favorite veggie enchiladas recipe and jazz it up with a new recipe for nacho cheese. This nacho cheese sauce is so good I find myself looking for things to smother with it. Yes, it is that good. So, of course I added it to my veggie enchiladas.

Even The Kids Can Do It

I adapted this recipe when my kids were pretty young and I wanted them to start cooking. I thought it would be fun until I realized it required me to let them use a knife.

While they were old enough, they had little experience and, as an Emergency Room nurse, I confess that the thought of having to go to work on my day off was as unappealing as having them get cut. Nevertheless, we gave it a go. I took some deep breaths and tried not to be too controlling with the hopes that they might find cooking fun.

Their enthusiasm for cooking was mediocre until they tasted the results. Even I was surprised at how good the enchiladas came out. While we were using dairy cheese at the time, I believe the vegan version of these veggie enchiladas is even better tasting, better for you and certainly better for the planet and the animals.

Lovely organic peppers ready to be chopped
Lovely organic peppers ready to be chopped

Everyone In The Kitchen to Make Veggie Enchiladas

If you are struggling with getting your kids to try new foods or transitioning to a vegan or even more vegetarian diet, I cannot encourage you enough to share the kitchen with them. Getting them involved in the meal preparation, even if they are resistant at first, is essential and there is nothing like their looks of surprise and pride when they make something that everyone enjoys. Because this recipe has a few different tasks (stirring, chopping, rolling the veggie enchiladas) it is a great one to try with new cooks or hungry friends.

Cooking up the veggie enchilada filling in the wok
Cooking up the veggie enchilada filling in the wok

The cooking and assembling is barely more complicated than a stir fry. Chop up the peppers, onions and zucchini, toss them into a wok with the other ingredients and cook. Then place them in the tortillas, wrap them up, and into the pan they go.

Filling for the veggie enchiladas on the tortilla

veggie enchiladas assembled, topped with sauce and shreds, and ready for the oven.
veggie enchiladas assembled, topped with sauce and shreds, and ready for the oven.
Potatoes and carrots ready to become nacho cheese sauce in the Vitamix
Potatoes and carrots ready to become nacho cheese sauce in the Vitamix

Vegan Sour Cream (from Forks over Knives)

  • 12 oz extra firm silken tofu, drained
  • 1 Tbs fresh lemon juice
  • 1 Tbs red wine vinegar
  • salt to taste

Combine all ingredients in a blender and puree until smooth and creamy. Chill until ready to serve.

note: I have used regular firm tofu and it has been fine. Tofutti also makes a great sour cream that is available in most grocery stores and is a fine substitute.

Please enjoy and let us know what you think!

Delicious black bean and veggie enchiladas, topped with the amazing nacho cheese sauce and sour cream. Dig in!
Delicious black bean and veggie enchiladas, topped with the amazing nacho cheese sauce and sour cream. Dig in!
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Vegan Black Bean and Veggie Enchiladas with Nacho Cheese Sauce and Sour Cream

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  • Author: Georgia @ fullofbeans.us
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Description

Wonderful delicious meal for a family (or party) or just to enjoy for multiple meals. Filled with beans and crunchy veggies for yummy texture and nutrition.

Ingredients

Units Scale

The Enchiladas

  • 10 large corn or flour tortillas
  • 1 cup corn, fresh or thawed frozen
  • 1 red bell pepper, diced
  • 1/2 green bell pepper, diced
  • 1 small red onion, diced
  • 2 medium zucchini, diced
  • 3 cups cooked and drained black beans (or 2 15 oz cans)
  • 1 Tbs olive oil
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 2 tsp chili powder
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • vegan Mexican or cheddar style shredded cheese (optional)

Easy Enchilada Sauce

  • 3 cups low sodium tomato sauce
  • 2 tsp chili powder
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp oregano
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • salt and black pepper to taste

Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce

Instructions

Enchiladas

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees
  2. Lightly oil a large skillet and sauté over medium to high heat the bell peppers, onions, corn, and zucchini until softened, approximately 5 minutes.
  3. Toss in the spices, black beans and salt and pepper until heated through and well combined. Remove from heat.
  4. Lightly oil a 9×13 pan.
  5. To fill tortillas, lay each flat on a work surface and fill with approximately 1/2 to 2/3 cups of the bean mixture, depending on the size of your tortilla.
  6. Sprinkle with a scant 1/4 cup of vegan cheese shreds, if using.
  7. Roll up tightly and place in prepared pan, seam side down.
  8. Repeat with remaining tortillas and place them side by side.
  9. Pour sauce over enchiladas and sprinkle with more cheese shreds if desired.
  10. Bake for 30 minutes until bubbly.
  11. Serve with Nacho Cheese Sauce and/or Sour Cream. Garnish with fresh chopped cilantro.

Easy Enchilada Sauce

  1. Mix all ingredients and heat gently.

Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce

  1. Steam potatoes and carrots together until soft.
  2. Blend with remaining ingredients, except peppers, in blender until smooth and creamy. A Vitamix is excellent for this task – we depend on ours!
  3. Stir in peppers and enjoy

Notes

Nacho Cheese recipe : https://www.fullofbeans.us/vegan-nacho-cheese-sauce/

Did you make this recipe?

Share a photo and tag us — we can't wait to see what you've made!

 

Georgia is an unpretentious foodie who, at 50, transitioned from a vegetarian diet to a whole foods plant based diet and is loving it. She works as a nurse, plays as a quilter, loves to run, hates to race.
She thinks dogs are actually angels (in dog suits).

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This Post Has 32 Comments

  1. My meat eating family LOVES this recipe. I make it at least twice a month. It is nice for me because I am vegetarian and when I make this I don’t have to make two dinners that night.

    Reply

    1. Hi Lisa! Oh, that’s wonderful. The enchiladas are a perfect one to feed a group, and being able to make one dish for everyone is a bonus (we totally get it!).
      Thank you so much for leaving a comment – it means a lot to us. 🙂

      Georgia & Greg

      Reply

    1. Hi Nicole!
      Sorry we missed your question for a few days. I have never tried making it the day before, but it should work OK. The tortillas might get saturated, though. Perhaps assemble the tortillas but wait to pour the sauce on until its time to bake.

      Reply

  4. This looks delicious. I have changed the way I cook for my family after reading the Forks Over Knives book and have a question regarding the cheese sauce. Is there anyway to make the sauce without using the olive oil?
    Thank you,
    Lizzy

    Reply

    1. Oh Lizzy,
      your comment/question was stuck deeeepppp in our spam filter. We were doing some website “house-cleaning” and found it. SO sorry. 🙁
      Regarding your question: first of all, isn’t Forks Over Knives amazing? It changed so much for us. Anyway, we’ve never made the recipe without the oil, but you could try reducing it a little and see how it works. But that recipe makes a giant batch so the 1/3 cup of oil is spread over many many servings (and you can always be sparing with it if dietary fat intake is an issue).
      We really need to add nutritional info to the recipes (its a little bit of extra work, tho) but we have roughly figured this one out and, per serving, its still quite a “win” over dairy cheese sauces.

      Thanks for commenting – hope this response finds you out there in the internet!
      Peace

      Reply

  5. I am on weight watchers and my husband cardiac diet. I made this tonight with no salt tomato sauce and salt added black beans. I also didn’t not put cheese sauce but we put fat free sour cream when serving it.Since I only had 9 small corn tortillia I just made layers instead of rolling them. Worked out perfect! Thanks!

    Reply

    1. Hi Donna,

      Thanks for trying this recipe. 🙂
      I think you could probably just omit the vinegar and and a little more lemon juice. Tofutti makes an excellent vegan product called “Sour Supreme” that you might try. Its very good and doesn’t have any vinegar in it at all. Please let us know how it works out!

      Peace, Georgia & Greg

      Reply

    1. Hi Renata!
      How exciting! Congratulations on making such a big change in your life 🙂
      Thank you so much for letting us know and thank you for trying the Enchilada recipe. We’re glad you enjoyed it – its a fav of our’s.
      Please let us know if we can help you in your transition in any way.

      Peace, Greg & Georgia

      Reply

  8. I’m curious if you have froze this before? Prepping some freezer meals and would love to add this to the list!

    Reply

  9. Oh my gosh….I bow down to you for this delicious vegan recipe!! The couple of changes I made pertained to the nacho cheese: I added a can of rotel instead of fresh jalapeno. I removed the skin of the potatoes after boiling, I’m not sure if you included skin in your mix. And I added about a teaspoon of garlic powder. I also didn’t have nutritional yeast or shredded cheese at all AND EVERYTHING TURNED OUT AMAZINGG!! Thank you, thank you.

    Reply

    1. Oh my, thank you so much! It means more than you know to get feedback like this. Thanks for visiting the site, making the enchiladas, and taking the time to come back and leave your lovely comment!
      🙂

      Greg & Georgia

      Reply

  10. Thank you for this recipe, I tried it tonight and me and my omnivores just loved it, definitely going to be a regular dinner for us.

    Reply

    1. Hi Lory, we have never done it, but I would try cooking it as directed, sealing it well, and freezing it. I think it should be fine. For using I would put it frozen into the oven and heat it for about an hour at 350°F. Let us know how it turns out if you give it a try. ?
      – Georgia

      Reply

    1. Not yet but that is a great idea! Thanks for thinking of it. If you try it before we do let us know what you think. If you’re on Instagram, we would love to see a picture of it. Please tag us so we don’t miss it. Thanks also for visiting the site. Georgia

      Reply

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