Breaking news: vegetarian taco meat is a weirdly delicious thing. Like, all plants. In tacos. That really closely resembles ground beef and possibly even tastes better. This is a miracle of epic proportions.

Do we love tacos or DO WE LOVE TACOS? We – team POY, readers and bloggers and friends and family alike – definitely love tacos. We also love all derivatives of tacos – taco bowls, burritos, burrito bowls, quesadillas, enchiladas, tostadas, nachos, etc., which is good news for the magic of vegetarian taco meat because it goes with everything. All of them. Not one taco relative left behind.

The number of types of tacos I’ve made is beyond counting. It would actually be embarrassing. That number is not slowing down anytime soon, pals. Being a taco fanatic means I am definitely not going to say no to a beef taco if you offer it to me, but I am also a part-time vegetarian and I really love a good meatless alternative.

I have no real explanation for this except that I love to eat plants and I find cooking vegetarian recipes to be easier. And more fun. So chipotle-spiced, easy-to-make veg taco meat was born.

How to make some mind-blowing Vegetarian Taco Meat:

Here’s what we have going on in this vegetarian taco meat situation:

cauliflower
walnuts
chipotle peppers
a few spices
salt

Can you handle it? It’s too easy. It should be wrong but it’s so right.

Once that gets all ground up, we’re going to bake it.

You still with me?

Serve It Up with All the Things

While it’s baking, since you’re going to have about 30 minutes of down time, this is the perfect opportunity to get into a salsa frenzy and whip up every type of friendly taco buddy that you can think of.

I went with the trifecta pictured here: corn and black bean salsa, pico de gallo, and guacamole because I don’t want to hate my life.

My taco vision quickly got out of control and I opted for a taco bowl – er, maybe burrito bowl, technically, with the rice and everything – instead of a traditional folded-in-a-tortilla fashion. Which is a callback to what I said at the beginning: that this vegetarian taco meat is ready to go with anybody in the taco family.

Only love for this mountain of glory.