Recipes

Nutty meat

Posted by peggie on

Nutty meat is a staple in our household. Surprisingly enough, my omnivore boyfriend is the one who showed this to me! There’s a little vegetarian/vegan restaurant in Fair Oaks, CA that has hands-down the best vegetarian tacos I’ve ever had. At Sunflower Drive-In, they call them their nutty tacos, and we are such big fans that every time we visit we’ll buy two or three tacos each and eat the leftovers the rest of the week. Now that we live in Sacramento proper, the restaurant is a little far and out of the way, so we tried our best to make our own version of this. Our version is not the same, but is very delicious and can be eaten raw as well.

A batch of nutty meat takes some planning, since you have to soak the nuts for so long, but it freezes really well and can be used anywhere you would use ground meat. It doesn’t usually last very long in our household.

Mix the cashews, almonds, and walnuts together in a bowl.

Add enough water to cover and let soak at room temperature overnight. After soaking, you can drain off the liquid and use it in a creative way, like soup! If not, just discard the liquid.

Working in batches in your food processor (mine’s really small!). Pulse together the sunflower seeds, carrots, and nut mixture until the nuts are about the size of a grain of coarse sea salt. Mix in the seasonings, and then you’re done! It’s that simple. I usually like to sauté my nutty meat to heat it up and then use it in tacos or burritos, but you can eat it raw just as it is.

Nutty Meat

Servings: 10     |     Active Prep Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup cashews
  • 1 cup walnuts
  • 1 cup almonds
  • 1 cup sunflower seeds
  • 2 carrots
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce
  • 1/2 tsp ground cumin
  • 1/2 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
  • 1/4 tsp cayenne (or more for more spice)

Instructions:

  1. Mix the 3 types of nuts together in a bowl and soak overnight at room temperature.
  2.  Drain the liquid from the nuts.
  3. Working in batches in the food processor, chop the nuts, sunflower seeds, and carrots into roughly the size of coarse sea salt.
  4. Mix in the seasonings.
  5. The nutty meat can be eaten raw, or if you prefer, you can sauté it in a pan to warm it up.