The black bean filling in these tacos is filled with some exciting flavours of a great mole sauce: chili, spices, chocolate, raisins and a touch of peanut butter. Complex and insanely good! Corn tortillas are grilled and then topped with some charred sweet potato and cauliflower. 
Meat free meals at it’s best!
I honestly can’t decide what is better: the black bean mole by itself or eaten together with all the accompaniments in the tacos. This is seriously good eating! I have recently started creating lots of vegetarian meals, even though I’m not vegetarian. I want to prove that with the right textures and exciting flavour combinations, you can have knock-your-socks-off meat free meals every now and then. Even my husband agrees! (Sometimes..) He did on this occasion.
Its almost a little embarrassing how excited I got about this mole. We were watching an episode of Chef’s Table on Netflix and this particular show was about one of Mexico’s only Michelin starred chefs. The way he made his mole was fascinating! After watching it, I had to try a recipe with those flavours. If you don’t know about mole (the national dish of Mexico) already, let me tell you the ingredient list is crazy! It has fruit, nuts, chocolate, cinnamon, chillies, and bread to name a few. Everything ground together creates this dark and rich sauce that is very complex. So to my spicy black bean chili I added a handful of raisins, some peanut butter, and grated in some dark chocolate. WOW. It was hard to stop at one taste.
I had reserved some spice mix from making the chili so I could sprinkle over some thin slices of sweet potato and cauliflower. Roasted until charred at the edges, these are the taco toppings. Along with the obligatory sour cream, cheese, guacamole and coriander (cilantro) of course!
Cover with spices then roast in a hot oven until charred at the edges.
Just a note that I recommend using the corn tortillas, not the flour ones. The corn tortillas are healthier for one, and have a great additional flavour and texture. Make sure to heat them just before using. I charred mine over the BBQ right before we ate outside but a large hot skillet will also do. Try making homemade tortilla chips sometime with them! Here is the recipe.
Make your own tacos = the best!
Meat Free Meals with a Difference:
Want more ideas for great meat free meals? How about Sweet Potato Falafel Buddha Bowl, Avo and Edamame Hummus Rice Bowls, Grilled Mushroom Japanese Noodle Bowls or this Mulligatawny.
Here is your recipe for Black Bean Mole Soft Tacos:
- For the mole:
- 2 cups dried black beans
- 1 onion, diced
- 1 carrot, diced
- 1 red pepper, diced
- 1 bunch cilantro, stems and leaves chopped and separated
- 2 chilies, preferably dried and different varieties, seeded
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- For the spice mix:
- 1.5 Tbsp ground cumin
- 1.5 Tbsp ground coriander
- 1.5 Tbsp paprika
- 2 tsp salt
- 1 Tbsp raisins
- 1 Tbsp peanut butter
- 1 Tbsp dark chocolate
- 2 spring onions, finely chopped
- 1 sweet potato
- ½ cauliflower
- reserved spice mix (see above)
- 1 tsp honey
- Corn Tortillas
- Guacamole
- Sour cream
- Grated cheese
- Soak the beans for around 8 hours or overnight and then drain. Cook in twice their volume of stock of choice for about 30 minutes or until just soft. Set aside.
- In a stock pot add some olive oil and sweat the onion, carrot, chillies, coriander/cilantro stems and red pepper until soft. Add the garlic for a further minute. Add the coriander seeds. Add 1 tbsp each of cumin, coriander, paprika and 1 tsp salt and stir together. (set aside the rest of the spices for the roast veggie toppings) Cook for a few minutes.
- Add the beans and their cooking liquid and stir. Add the raisins and peanut butter. Cook until reduced and thickened.
- Take off the heat, grate over the dark chocolate and stir.
- Top with the chopped spring onions.
- Heat oven to 220C/400F.
- Cut the sweet potato into thin wedges and place on a baking tray lined with baking paper. Cut thin slices of cauliflower and separate into single pieces on a another baking tray. Drizzle with oil and then the reserved extra spices from the black bean chili. Lightly drizzle with honey. Roast for 30-45minutes, until charred on the outside.
- To serve, heat the tortillas for a minute or two on each side over a hot grill pan.
- Assemble the tacos with black beans on the bottom, then top with the vegetables, some cilantro and toppings.
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