These protein rich Vegan Enchiladas are made with lentils and other healthful ingredients. They’re gluten free, nut-free and plant-based ideal for dinner or lunch and very delisious!
They are so delicious, rich in protein, plant-based, nut-free plus they feature only ingredients that are wholesome. I’m sure, your whole family will love it!
They’ve a fantastic texture and taste, blended with flavorful-spices along with other plant based ingredients they remind a ground-meat.
That is the reason why they are the ideal filling for plant based enchiladas. In addition, I like that lentils because they’re not-expensive. They’re much easier to digest and they cook much quicker than just beans or chickpeas.
These simple to make enchiladas are filled with just healthy plant-based ingredients, such as lentils, rolled-oats, sunflower-seeds, bell-peppers, tomato-paste, carrot, tomato, ground-chia seeds, onion and flavorful-spices. If you aren’t fond of sunflower-seeds, you can of course, also utilize any seeds or nuts instead.
Vegan Enchiladas Lentils
Ingredients
- 12 tortillas
- 7 oz vegan-cheese or more to taste
Enchilada Filling:
- 2½ cups vegetable-broth
- ½ cup sunflower-seeds
- 1 cup dry-lentils
- 3 heaped tbsp tomato-paste
- 1⅓ cups rolled-oats gluten-free if needed
- 1 medium tomato chopped
- 2 bell-peppers
- 1 medium carrot grated
- 1 large onion chopped
- 2 tbsp chia-seeds (ground) or flax-seeds
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 1-2 hot chili-peppers chopped (or less if you don't like it too spicy)
- 1 tbsp oil to fry the veggies
- sea-salt and pepper, to taste
- spice mix: 1/2 tbsp onion-powder, 1/2 tbsp garlic-powder, 2 tsp dried oregano, 2 tsp ground-cumin, 1 tsp smoked-paprika
Enchilada Sauce:
- 1 tbsp gluten-free-flour (or all-purpose flour if not GF)
- 2½ cups tomato-sauce
- 1 tbsp olive-oil
- sea-salt and pepper, to taste
- spice mix: 1/2 tbsp chili-powder, 1/4 tsp cayenne-pepper, 1 tsp garlic-powder, 1 tsp ground cumin, 1 tsp onion-powder
Instructions
- Rinse lentils thoroughly to remove any dirt and put them in a medium-pot. Add broth and bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer.
- Simmer using a lid for 20minutes or till tender. Then remove the pot from heat but remain covered about 10minutes.
- While the lentils-cook, prepare your enchilada-sauce initially. Then begin creating the enchilada filling.
- To create the enchilada sauce, warm the olive oil in a skillet over moderate heat. Add all spices and cook for approximately two minutes. Stir in the flour and cook for a few minutes. Then add the tomato-sauce and bring to a boil. Let simmer till the sauce is thick about 5minutes.
- To create the enchilada-filling: In a skillet heat oil on moderate heat and then add garlic & saute for 3-4minutes, stirring periodically. Add chopped bell-peppers, tomato, grated-carrot and 1-2 hot chili-peppers and sautw about 5-7minutes. Remove from heat and put aside.
- Add all dry-ingredients (spices, sunflower-seeds, pepper, salt , oats and also the ground-chia seeds) to food-processor and mix for 20-30seconds. Add the cooked veggies along with the tomato-paste, then mix again.
- Add the cooked lentils and mix tlil everything is blended. If the mixture is not thick enough or does not stick together, then add more ground-oats.
- Preheat oven to 390°F. Then spread 2 heaped tbsp (or 100-120 g) of enchilada-filling over the surface of tortilla.
- Roll-up tortilla and put in a greased baking-dish. Repeat this step with the other tortillas.
- Then pour the enchilada-sauce on top of the tortillas. I created 2 layers of 4 tortillas per (7 x11 in baking-dish) however you can make only 1 layer with 8 tortillas.
- Bake uncovered for 15minutes. Remove from oven, pour my easy vegan-cheese sauce on the top (or use your favourite vegan-cheese to flavor) and place the enchiladas back in the oven for 10-15minutes.
- Serve warm, garnished with fresh-cilantro or greens of choice (optional). It is also possible to pour a bit of vegan sour-cream on top if desired.
Notes
Chickpea flour is a Fantastic alternative for oats.
You’ll be able to use different nuts or seeds (e.g. walnuts) rather than sunflower-seeds.
I topped these tasty vegan enchiladas with Easy Vegan Cheese Sauce that made them much more flavour.
Please, if you recreate this Vegan Enchiladas Lentils recipe, don’t forget to give me star rate or comment below. Thanks!
Try these other Delicious Vegan Recipes options:
- Healthy Vegetarian Mexican Rice Casserole
- Crispy Vegan Potato Tacos with Jalapeno Cilantro Sauce
- Vegan Thai Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Lettuce Wraps
- Chipotle Vegan Burrito with Cilantro Lime Rice Recipe
This sounds and looks delicious. One question tho I need to process that in the food processor for 20-30 minutes?? Minutes not seconds?? Not sure my processor can last for 20-30 minutes.
my false, i mean in 20-30 seconds not minutes and this post is update on the Instructions.
let’s to make this recipe, I’m sure you’ll love it 🙂
Looks like a good recipe. I am not allergic to nuts, but cook for some people who are sensitive. How is this recipe nut free, aren’t most vegan cheeses made with nuts?
you can using sunflower seeds because sunflower seeds not nut 🙂
Step 6 – just confirm it’s 20-30 seconds?
This sounds delish – can’t wait to try it!! Thank you!
Uups… thanks for correct. let’s trying i’m sure you’ll love it 🙂
Hi! this recipe looks awesome!
Maybe I have skipped over this while reading but, is this recipe freezable??
Thanks!
Hii… Thanks for visiting this page. I never tried freezing them. Let me know if you give it a try 🙂
I had about 3 times the filling I needed with a generous 2Tbsp in each enchilada. There was more filling than my high end Ninja blender could handle. Even scraping the sides regularly, I found a LOT of the dry ingredients at the bottom of the blender. Half the amounts would still have some leftovers, and blend better. I loved the sauce and flavors. There was the perfect amount of sauce for 12 enchiladas. It was only the filling that was excessive. Thank you for sharing this!
Hi… Carolyn. Thanks for visiting my blog. I was very happy when I heard this recipe went really well 🙂
There are lots of vegan cheeses that are coconut oil or pea protein based as well 🙂
Hi Samantha, Thank’s for visiting my blog. Yups, these so great to vegan plan. I think so 🙂
This was great! Thanks for sharing. It was perfect, and I LOVED the vegan cheese sauce! A+++
Hi Tara, thanks for your rate and visiting my blog. I’m happy if everyone including you managed to make this recipe well. although there are many steps, but the results will be satisfying 🙂
Thank you for sharing this recipe!! I’d been procrastinating for a long time in making it because it just seemed like so much work, but finally my strong craving for enchiladas wore me down. I gathered my strength and got to it. These were FANTASTIC!!! It was worth the work that goes into making them. I did luckily have a batch of my own homemade enchilada sauce in the freezer, so that helped. I followed the advice of another commenter and lessened the recipe and still had filling left over. Next time I’ll make the full recipe and freeze some for later. Even my 10 yr old, whose on her way to eating vegan liked them.
Hi Renita, thanks for your rate and visiting my blog. I was like that in the beginning too, but my curiosity finally led me to make this recipe 🙂
This was absolutely divine! My partner is from Mexico and he gave this five thumbs up! We demolished it within days and will definitely be making it again. Thank you so much for such a fabulous recipe!
This was excellent. I could not find raw sunflower seeds so I just cooked a little extra lentils. I did not add the hot peppers and I used vegetable broth instead of oil. My granddaughter who loves the chicken enchiladas that I make for my non vegan family members, said this one was even better.
This recipe was absolutely DELICIOUS! I highly recommend this dish!
The best even my non vegan family loved it,the sauce is the bomb.I just freeze extra filling for a quick meal next time.Use food processor.Thank you for great recipes.
This Vegan Enchilada recipe is excellent & my husband & I aren’t Vegan, we’ve just been trying to incorporate more veggies in our diet! My husband said he could hardly believe there wasn’t any meat in it! ☺️ We will definitely be making this again & again! I made pics to share w/friends & I will suggest trying the recipe to others.
Thanks for posting this recipe! We’ve never had enchiladas before, but wanted to try something different for a change. We LOVED them!! We used a little bit less of certain spices as I had run out, so I can’t even imagine how great it’s going to taste once I can put the proper amount in!
Thank you!