Vegan Enchiladas Recipe (Sweet Potato and Black Bean)

These flavorful vegan enchiladas are made with sweet potato, black beans and a quick homemade enchilada sauce. The recipe uses basic ingredients to create a delicious plant based enchilada casserole.

You can serve these enchiladas as-is or topped with any of your favorite sauces, like vegan sour cream, avocado sauce, guacamole, queso or chipotle aioli!

Vegan Sweet Potato Black Bean Enchilada Ingredients

This recipe uses simple ingredients that are available at most grocery stores. While the enchiladas are vegan, no ‘special’ vegan ingredients are needed (although you can add vegan cheese if you like)!

Bean and Sweet Potato Filling

To make your enchilada filling, use the following ingredients or their substitutions:

• Sweet potato: As the main base for the enchilada filling, you’ll need one medium-large sweet potato.
• Onion and garlic: Add lots of flavor to these enchiladas with onion and garlic. Feel free to add as much garlic as you like!
• Bell or poblano pepper: Whenever possible, I like to make this recipe with a poblano pepper for extra flavor, but a bell pepper of any color (I typically use green for this recipe) is great too. You could substitute the pepper for extra beans, onion or sweet potato if you don’t have any on hand.
• Black beans: As the second main filling ingredient, you’ll need some cooked/ canned black beans. One large (19 ounce) can works perfectly or, use 2 cups of cooked, drained and rinsed black beans. Any other bean could work as well so use what you like or have on hand.
• Vegetable oil: To boost the flavor, sauté your onion, garlic and pepper in some vegetable oil. I typically use avocado oil for this recipe but use what you like.
• Corn: I love adding corn to my enchiladas for an extra vegetable. Frozen corn works great for this recipe but feel free to use fresh corn if you have it. If you don’t like corn, use another vegetable or extra sweet potato/ pepper/ beans.
• Cilantro: I’m a huge fan of cilantro and love adding plenty to this recipe for a distinct, fresh flavor. You can skip the cilantro if you’re not a fan or substitute it for another herb of your choice.
• Spices: This filling uses chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, salt and black pepper for a tasty, smoky flavor. I use American-style chili powder which is mild in terms of its heat profile. You can add spicy heat with cayenne pepper, red chili flakes, hot sauce, jalapeno pepper (or any other hot pepper) or serve the enchiladas with a hot sauce of your choice.
• Lime juice: Added at the end of cooking, lime juice brightens all the heavier, smoky flavors from the spices. Using an acidic ingredient like citrus or vinegar always enhances flavor.

Vegan Enchilada Sauce

For a tasty homemade enchilada sauce, use these ingredients:

• Vegetable broth: This creates a nice flavor in enchilada sauce. If you don’t have vegetable broth, water can work. I use a no-salt-added broth so I can adjust the salt level to my liking. If your broth has salt, taste the sauce before adding any additional salt.
• Tomato paste: The base for this quick enchilada sauce is tomato paste. It blends with vegetable broth to create the perfect saucy thickness.
• Spices: Use onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, chili powder, cumin and salt to create delicious flavor in this easy enchilada sauce. You can adjust any or all of the spices to your liking!

Enchilada Assembly

To put the recipe together, there’s one last ingredient:

• Tortillas: You’ll need 6 large flour tortillas to assemble the enchiladas.

How to Make this Vegan Enchiladas Recipe

This is a simple vegan enchilada recipe to make, but it does require some time to cook and assemble.

Step 1: Cook Sweet Potato and Black Bean Filling

To start, peel and cube your sweet potato. I like to cut it quite small so that it cooks faster and makes the wraps easier to roll.

Once the potato is ready, add it to a large pan along with about an inch of water. Place a lid on the pan, bring it to a boil over high heat, then lower the heat to medium-high and cook for about 5 minutes.

The sweet potato should be fork tender when it’s done. Cook time depends on how large your sweet potato pieces are. For me, it takes about 10 minutes total.

Carefully drain the water from your sweet potato, then remove the sweet potato from your pan.

While the sweet potato cooks, I like to prep the other vegetables and filling ingredients. If you don’t like to multi-task, get everything prepped before you start cooking.

Add vegetable oil and chopped onion to a pan. Cook on medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, before adding bell pepper and minced garlic.

Cook for another 3 minutes, stirring regularly. If your garlic starts to brown (or burn), lower the heat slightly and splash some water into the pan.

Next, add black beans, corn and spices. Toss to coat everything with the spices; you may need a splash of water to help the spices mix in.

Cook for another 2-3 minutes before adding your cooked sweet potato back in, along with chopped cilantro and lime juice.

Remove the pan from your hot stovetop.

Step 2: Prepare Enchilada Sauce

As the filling cools (making it easier to assemble the enchiladas), prepare your enchilada sauce.

Simply whisk all the sauce ingredients together until well mixed. This is an incredibly easy recipe but if you want more info on it, check out my full post for easy vegan enchilada sauce!

Step 3: Assemble and Bake Enchiladas

To assemble, pour about a third of your enchilada sauce onto the bottom of a large baking dish (9x13 inches is good). Spread the sauce into an even layer.

Next, lay out 6 large tortillas and evenly divide your filling between them all. If you want to use vegan cheese in this recipe, add it to the wraps now (many brands are unlikely to melt on top of the enchiladas).

Wrap each enchilada as tightly as you can and place them into the pan, seam-side down, so they stay held together.

Once you’ve wrapped all the enchiladas, pour the rest of your sauce over top and spread it into an even layer.

Bake in an oven preheated to 350 °F for 15-20 minutes. Once cooked, remove from the oven and serve hot.

How to Serve Enchiladas as a Balanced Vegan Meal

I consider a balanced meal one that contains a good source of plant-based protein, carbohydrates, fats and lots of vegetables or fruits.

There’s some plant-based protein in this recipe from the black beans. There’s plenty of healthy carbohydrates from the sweet potato and tortilla wraps. Select whole wheat tortillas for extra fiber if you like!

This recipe is loaded with vegetables and should create a filling meal.

It is a fairly low-fat recipe, which some people enjoy. If you want to make the meal more satisfying, add some extra healthy fats on top of the enchiladas when serving (see ideas below).

Vegan Enchilada Toppings

These enchiladas are delicious on their own, but I love adding extra sauce or toppings when serving this recipe.

Some of my favorite vegan enchilada toppings include:

• Vegan sour cream (homemade or store-bought)
• Guacamole
• Extra cilantro
• Avocado sauce
• Chopped avocado
• Lime juice
• Black bean and corn salsa
• Fresh chopped tomatoes
• Chipotle aioli/ mayo
• Vegan queso

If you want to add vegan cheese shreds to this recipe, I highly recommend adding it to the wraps as you fill them.

Vegan cheese often doesn’t melt well, especially when baked on top of a casserole in the oven. The steam inside your tortilla wraps will give cheese the best chance at melting.

How to Refrigerate and Reheat Homemade Enchiladas

Refrigerate leftovers in an airtight container for up to 5 days. To reheat over the next few days, microwave one serving at a time until heated through to the center.

While leftover enchiladas are quite tasty, this recipe is typically best enjoyed the day it’s made. If refrigerated and reheated, tortilla wraps tend to become soggy and may rip apart more easily.

If you make this recipe, please rate and comment below to help others benefit from your experience!

More Vegan Main Meal Recipes

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