Love enchiladas but hate to roll? ME TOO! Meet your new best friend: vegan black bean chilaquiles! This one was so easy I feel like it was a cheat. Cooking these up, the number one thing going through my mind was, why oh why haven’t I done this before? Here’s the lowdown: I love enchiladas. You can see how much I love them here and here. But there are numerous parts of the whole enchilada process that I’m not a huge fan of. First and foremost is the multi-step process of rolling. If you want good enchiladas, you’re best bet is to crisp the tortillas before rolling, but that always (if you’re me) results in cracked and misshapen enchiladas. With chilaquiles it doesn’t matter if you get cracks and weird shapes. In fact, I’d say it’s a good thing. Just look at that beautiful mess.
Also, enchiladas require lots of steps. Crisp the tortillas, make the sauce, make the fill, roll, and bake. That’s a lot, and in the end, you (or again, I) usually end up with something sloppy anyway. So why not embrace the sloppy and make chilaquiles instead?
How to Make Chilaquiles
The process is super simple. Tortilla chips get mixed up in a saucy, spicy matrix that kind of takes on the roll of both sauce and fill where enchiladas are concerned. Some recipes call for store bought chips, and I’m sure they’d be fine here. Other recipes call for deep frying your own chips, but I don’t have the patience (or willingness to consume fried food) for that. I kept it super simple and lightly oiled some tortilla wedges, then baked them up in the oven. While the chips cook up, a mix of spicy black beans, corn, and fire roasted tomatoes simmers up in a skillet on the stove. Add the chips to the skillet, gently mix, and you’ve got a new favorite Mexican comfort food.
Because toppings are key, I whipped up some tahini queso for drizzling on my chilaquiles, because I have a thing for tahini cheez ever since this sandwich happened. Cashew cream, avocado slices, or pretty much anything you’d use to top some nachos or a bowl of chili are fair game though.
You can save time by using store-bought tortilla chips if if you like. Are these chilaquiles gluten-free? If you use gluten-free tamari for the cheese sauce, they are! If you’re into store-bought vegan cheese, feel free to use that in place of the tahini queso. Toppings: seriously, the sky is the limit here! Try guacamole, hot sauce, salsa, or vegan sour cream!
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