Sweet Potato and Lentil Tacos
on Mar 09, 2020, Updated Jul 08, 2024
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These healthy Sweet Potato and Lentil Tacos are easy to make and full of plant-based protein! Top them with a drizzle of avocado cream and fall in love with the most delicious vegetarian taco you’ve ever had!
Thanks to my friends at Pacific Foods for sponsoring this post. As always all opinions are my own.
Tacos have come a long way from the ones I ate growing up. It was either ground beef or turkey filling and usually a hard crunchy shell. Now I can’t even tell you the last time I had a ground beef or crunchy shell taco. Tacos and tostadas have a whole section of their own on my blog because I love them so much. Today I’m adding to the collection and sharing the recipe for these Sweet Potato and Lentil Tacos.
Many people are under the impression that a taco needs to be filled with meat. Don’t get me wrong, I love these Grilled Salmon Tacos with Strawberry Avocado Salsa and these Greek Chicken Tacos with Tzatziki and Hummus. However, a plant-based taco is equally delicious and a great option if you’ve been cutting back on meat consumption like I have.
What Do I Need to Make the Tacos?
- Brown or green lentils
- Sweet potato, 1 or 2 depending on the size
- Yellow onion
- Garlic
- Tomato paste
- Chile powder, cumin and smoked paprika
- Pacific Food Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Broth
- Avocado
- Limes
- Cilantro
- Greek yogurt or coconut milk/cream (optional)
- Tortillas
Making these lentil tacos is both easy and affordable. Lentils only cost about $1.50 a pound making them far less expensive than what you pay for any kind of meat. The easy part, is that unlike dried beans, lentils don’t need to be soaked before cooking. Brown and green lentils will need approximately 20-30 minutes to cook, which happens to be about the same amount of time the sweet potatoes will need to roast.
How to Make the Lentils for the Tacos
To make the lentils for the tacos, start by adding olive oil to a medium sized saucepan. When the oil is hot add in the onion and let it soften for a couple minutes. Next, add in the garlic and all the spices. It’s going to start smelling really good at this point! After another minute stir in the tomato paste and lentils.
Finally, pour in Pacific Foods Organic Low Sodium Vegetable Broth, stir everything together and bring it to a boil. Once it’s boiling, partially cover the saucepan with a lid, lower the heat and let it simmer until the lentils are tender.
As you may already know, Pacific Foods is my go-to for all of the broths I use in cooking. The ingredients they use are simple, clean and don’t contain any weird ingredients that you have to Google to find out what they are. The flavor of their broths is also superior to other brands I’ve used in the past and important to consider when you’re cooking.
As I mentioned above, the amount of time it takes to cook the lentils is the perfect amount of time to roast the sweet potato. The sweet potato cubes are tossed in olive oil and seasoned with salt, pepper and chili powder.
The toppings you add to these hearty, vegetarian tacos is of course up to you, but I highly recommend topping them with avocado crema (cream). You’ll need half of an avocado, cilantro, lime juice and either Greek yogurt or full fat coconut milk or cream. Everything goes into a blender or food processor and puréed until it’s smooth. You can also skip the yogurt or coconut milk and it will be more like a puréed guacamole.
Add these tasty, plant-based Sweet Potato and Lentil tacos are the perfect way to add a meatless meal into your weekly menu and not feel like you’re missing out on anything!
More Vegetarian Tacos Recipes
Black Bean Tacos with Avocado Corn Salsa
Egg, Green Chile and Cheese Breakfast Tacos
Sweet Potato and Lentil Tacos
Ingredients
Tacos
- 2 teaspoons olive oil
- 1/2 cup diced yellow or red onion
- 2 cloves of garlic grated or minced
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 teaspoons chile powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 3/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
- 1 cup dry uncooked lentils
- 3 cups low sodium vegetable broth
- 3 cups peeled and diced sweet potatoes, approximately 2 medium sweet potatoes
- 1 teaspoon chile powder
- 10 corn tortillas or tortillas of choice
Avocado Crema
- 1/2 of an avocado, peeled
- 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt or full fat coconut milk optional
- 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons chopped cilantro
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400° F and line a baking sheet with foil. Place the diced sweet potatoes on the sheet pan. Drizzle with olive oil and season with the teaspoon of chile powder, salt and pepper. Toss until coated and place in the oven to roast for approximately 20 minutes or until they're tender.
- While the sweet potatoes roast, heat a medium sized saucepan over medium heat. When hot, add in the olive oil and diced onion. Sauté 2-3 minutes and then add in the garlic and spices. Sauté another minute then stir in the tomato paste and add in the lentils. Pour the vegetable broth in and stir everything together. Bring to a boil then reduce the heat to medium-low, cover the saucepan partially with a lid and simmer for 20-30 minutes or until the lentils are tender.
- In a blender or food processor add all of the ingredients for the avocado crema and blend until smooth. Add water a tablespoon at a time to loosen in until desired consistency is reached.
- Fill warmed corn tortillas with the lentils, sweet potatoes and topped with the avocado crema, red onions and cilantro.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I don’t usually follow recipes to a T. I use them as guidelines and I adapt based on what I have on hand, so in that fashion this was a fantastic jumping-off point for some delicious meatless tacos. I sauteed the vegetables in bacon fat, cooked the lentils along with some TVP (textured vegetable protein) in homemade chicken bone broth and used an equivalent amount of taco seasoning instead of the seasoning that it called for. I topped our tacos with pickled red onions, shredded cabbage, and Greek yogurt because I didn’t have any avocado on hand for the recipe. It was really good! We are diehard meat eaters, but I’m trying to find some interesting recipes for “Meatless Mondays” and whatnot. The best part of this recipe is we had left overs for lunch the next day, plus enough of the lentil mixture to use in place of ground beef in stuffed peppers later in the week (prepared the pepper stuffing with rice, a can of beans, mushrooms, a can of tomatoes, tomato sauce, and some nutritional yeast. Dare I say it…. the stuffed peppers turned out better than my usual meaty recipe. I’m definitely planning to make both meals again.
this was so good! my whole family loved it and we have some picky eaters.