These BBQ Cauliflower and Chickpea Tacos are delicious, flavorful and filling!
Tacos in the morning, tacos in the evening, tacos in the summertime. If you eat cauliflower in a taco you can eat tacos anytime! Sorry, I just had to get that out, because it has been running through my head for about 2 hours now! I apologize in advance for it now being stuck in your head for the next two hours 🙂
All songs aside, true story: if you stuff your tacos full of cauliflower you can eat them all the time and trust me, you will want to! I tested these tacos about three times before I got them just perfect and it was one of the best weeks of my life.
I have yet to eat these tacos in the morning, but I did enjoy them for both lunches and dinners, for 5 days in a row…
Do you ever find yourself making a dish over and over again because you love it so much? As much as I enjoy experimenting in the kitchen and coming up with new recipes for the blog, on the weekdays I usually find myself eating the same things over and over again. It could be that I’m lazy, or it could be my mildly obsessive personality.
When I buy a new outfit that I love, I sometimes wear it every single day for a few days, then wash it and wear it again. And don’t even get me started on how many times I listen to my favorite songs on repeat until my husband probably wants to break the CD so we never have to hear it again.
I also get obsessed with certain ingredients and I find myself putting them in everything I make. Right now cauliflower is that ingredient. I came up with these tacos because what better way is there to eat cauliflower than stuffing inside my other food obsession: tacos. And it turns out, there is not better way!
I’ve been obsessively watching (I told you I had an obsessive personality!) Bobby Flay’s BBQ addiction show lately and it really inspired me to make my own BBQ rub. I feel silly saying that I had never made my own rub before, but I really don’t think I had!
I’m not sure why though, because it is so easy. Literally all you do is add a bunch of spices together and mix them up, and you are done! Then you rub it all over your ingredient of choice and it transforms it into a seriously flavorful meal.
You really can’t have proper BBQ without a healthy serving of slaw on top of it. I took a little shortcut here and used a bag of pre-sliced cole slaw mix, but you could also slice your own cabbage and carrots if you would like.
To me, the most important element of the slaw is the dressing and homemade dressing is always better than the store bought stuff, so that is one shortcut I will never take! For this slaw, I made a classic creamy dressing and then I added the juice of one lime, and let me tell you, it was creamy and tart and delicious!
BBQ Cauliflower & Chickpea Tacos with a Creamy Lime Slaw {gf+v}
- Yield: 4 - 6 1x
Description
A delicious and filling vegan dinner that everyone will love!
Ingredients
- 1 head of cauliflower
- 1 1/4 cup of cooked chickpeas
- 1 teaspoon olive oil
- 10–12 corn tortillas
- sliced jalapenos, if desired
BBQ Rub:
- 1 teaspoon cumin
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon coconut sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
Creamy Lime Slaw:
- 1 14 ounce bag of cole slaw mix or 6 – 7 cups of thinly chopped cabbage and carrots
- A scant 1/2 cup of veganasie, or mayonnaise
- 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon maple syrup
- 1 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
- 1/4 teaspoon celery seed
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 pinch black pepper
- 1 teaspoon water
- Juice of one lime
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F.
- Make the slaw: In a medium sized bowl add all of the slaw dressing ingredients. Mix ingredients together until a creamy sauce has formed. In a large bowl, add the cabbage mixture and pour dressing over. Mix until everything is combined. Place in the refrigerator until ready to use.
- In a small bowl or jar, add all of the BBQ rub ingredients and mix together.
- Separate all of the cauliflower florets and chop them into bite size pieces. Place florets and chickpeas onto a large sheetpan and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with BBQ rub. Toss everything together with your hands so that cauliflower and chickpeas are coated with the rub. Place the sheetpan in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes, flipping once.
- If desired, warm up corn tortillas on the stove or in the oven. Add about 1/4 cup of cauliflower and chickpeas to each taco and top with a few tablespoons of slaw. Top with sliced jalapenos if desired.
- Enjoy!
- Category: Entree, Gluten Free, Vegan
You May Also Enjoy:
BBQ Black Bean & Quinoa Tacos with Cilantro Slaw
I had grand plans of getting a photo with Cheeto’s head inside a hamburger bun, apparently he had other plans 🙂
What a lovely recipe – I had to do a lot of improvising (no mayo for my wife – EVER) so went with more of a dressing on the veggies. For the BBQ sauce, I didn’t have time to make from scratch, so found some wet BBQ sauce at the store and did a light lathering, hoping that the dressing on the slaw would be all the flavor I needed – I added some ground up peanuts to the whole mix when I served them and found that the flavor from the peanuts complemented the BBQ sauce perfectly. Thank you for putting this out there – it was a wonderful dinner tonight.
Hi Mike,
Your changes sound really good! I especially like the additions of the peanuts! So glad you and your wife enjoyed them 🙂
This recipe looks amazing. Can’t wait to try it! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks so much! I hope you enjoy it 🙂
I made these tonight for my family and they were SUCH a hit- have you ever tried making mayo that is egg free? Thanks!
Hi Marisa! That is so great to hear! I’m so glad you liked them! I have never tried to make my own egg free mayo but I do buy the brand, “Just Mayo” that is vegan and it is really good!
I made these last night and they were AMAZING!!! I left out the chickpeas because we have has a lot of those lately. But my husband, who is staunchly anti-veggie unless it’s covered in butter and cheese, devoured these and said that they were so flavorful. Can’t wait to try more of your recipes!
That is so great to hear, Kristen! And I love that your husband even enjoyed them too! I’m always trying to get mine to eat more vegetables! Thank you so much!
I just made these this week and I don´t often comment on blogs but I just had to tell you these were phenomenal! Healthy, veggie and tasty – the holy grail surely!
Thank you for such a fabulous recipe!
Hi Sarah! Thank you so much for your comment! Yah! I’m so glad you enjoyed them! Now you have me craving them again 🙂
My hat is off to you! This recipe is very creative and the way I love to eat, it not only looks delicious and colorful (plated beautifully) but oh so tempting that I want to eat one now. Can’t wait to make them, just had cauliflower tonight so I have just enough left over to try this tomorrow 🙂 Thank you! PS – I will eat them for breakfast, why not?
Thank you so much!! I hope you really enjoy it! Also, I would totally eat these for breakfast 🙂
We’ve recently become vegetarian and this has been my favorite meal so far! The spice rub on the beans and cauliflower is amazing on its own, but with the slaw, it went to a whole new level! Thanks for a great recipe! I’ll be back!
Hi Angie!! That is awesome! I’m so glad you guys love it! I’ve been using this spice rub on so many things it makes everything it touches taste delicious 🙂
Hi Izzy, I made these tonight and they are really good. I’m vegan and my husband isn’t, so I copycatted you and put the rub on chicken tenders for him. He had the same tacos, only with a little chicken in the mix. He was very happy and so was I!
I had to put the chickpeas and cauliflower on separate baking sheets, as I don’t have super large pans, but that worked out fine. I’m thinking to try putting everything on the grill next time, since it’s grilling season now — make it even more bbq-y. Haven’t ever done cauli or chickpeas on the grill, but there’s a first time for everything.
Oh — yummy slaw, too. Thanks for the recipe and the beautiful photos.
Hi Lisa! Yah! I’m so glad to hear that you liked these tacos!! That sounds like a great idea to do them on a grill! We’ve been grilling so much lately, but I haven’t thought to put chickpeas or cauliflower on the grill either!
Thanks so much for letting me know that you made these and enjoyed them 🙂
First time on your blog Izzy. You have a very beautiful space, loved it. Would visit often now! 🙂 And these tacos look absolutely delicious and YUM! SUPER SUPER delish! 🙂