Stop what you’re doing and make this Taco Bell Copycat Vegan Crunchwrap Supreme. I assume that you might be planning to do so (since you’re reading this blog post), but really, it’s essential that you make this recipe.
In the 2 weeks since I first tried this recipe, I have made it 5 times. I think that is a record for me since I am always testing new recipes for the blog (and now my second cookbook!).
The main reason I have made it so often is that Max is *obsessed* with these crunchwraps. I’ve never seen him obsess about food in this way before. I guess I should be flattered, but it is also mildly annoying when he comes into the kitchen every day and asks “Hey, what are you making? Are you making me a crunchwrap?”
Table of Contents
1. What is a Crunchwrap Supreme?
2. How to Veganize This Recipe
3. Ingredients in Vegan Taco Meat
4. How to make Vegan Taco Meat
5. Assembly Instructions
I actually made them for the first time while filming a Youtube video, so I hope you check out the video. It’s full of tips on what worked (and didn’t work) and lots of laughs.
I made a VEGAN Crunchwrap Supreme better than Taco Bell
What is a Crunchwrap Supreme?
A crunchwrap supreme is one of Taco Bell’s most popular dishes.
In short, it’s a bunch of taco fillings + a crispy tostada shell wrapped up in a giant flour tortilla, then griddled until golden and crispy on the outside and soft and gooey yet crunchy on the inside thanks to the tostada.
It’s been described as a “gift from the fast food gods” and the “best thing on Taco Bell’s menu”, so I had to make a vegan version at home.
How to Veganize This Recipe
Ground Beef → Vegan Taco Meat
A traditional Taco Bell Crunchwrap Supreme is made with ground beef. And initially, I thought about just using a store-bought vegan meat substitute, such as soyrizo or Beyond Meat. But, I decided to develop my own homemade taco meat because (1) it felt like cheating to use a store-bought meat substitute in this recipe and (2) I wanted the challenge of making a taco meat recipe, since I’ve never made anything like it.
I’m just going to toot my own horn and say that I think this vegan taco meat is *fantastic.” It’s really rewarding to be able to make your own taco meat at home (more info on the actual recipe in the next section), but if you prefer to keep things quick, you can use store-bought vegan beef crumbles such as this or soyrizo.
Nacho Cheese Sauce → Vegan QUESO
This vegan queso tastes like a hybrid between queso sauce and nacho cheese sauce, and is the perfect cheeze for this recipe (and for quesadillas, tacos, and burritos).
Best of all, it’s so easy and quick to make. All you need to do is blend up a handful of ingredients in a blender!
If you want the cheese sauce to taste even more nacho-cheese like, I recommend adding (1) pickled jalapeños and (2) pickled jalapeño brine. I used 2 tablespoons of each, and it really takes the cheese sauce over the top.
Note: if you have my cookbook, The Vegan Instant Pot Cookbook, my Queso recipe would be fantastic in here too!
Sour Cream → Vegan Sour Cream
Sour Cream → Vegan Sour CreamAs I mention in the Youtube video, I think the best vegan sour cream is from Tofutti. It tastes *just like* traditional sour cream but even better.
If you can’t find Tofutti sour cream or prefer to avoid highly processed foods, I’ve included a vegan sour cream recipe below. The base for my sour cream recipe is (1) cashews and (2) coconut yogurt. The cashews make the sour cream extremely creamy and thick, and the coconut yogurt brings that characteristic tang that is essential in sour cream. I’ve made sour creams without coconut yogurt before, and I have to say, the addition of coconut yogurt makes it much more realistic.
The other ingredients are lemon juice, white vinegar, salt, garlic powder, and water.
My vegan sour cream recipe is delicious and works just as well in this recipe as the store-bought vegan one. But to be honest, when I make these crunchwraps for Max and I to just enjoy, I use the store-bought sour cream since it’s one less component for me to prepare :)
Given all the flavors and components in this vegan crunchwrap supreme, you can’t actually taste the difference between a crunchwrap made with my sour cream and a crunchwrap made with Tofutti sour cream. Which is to say – whichever option you use, it will be delicious.
The Fixings: Lettuce, Tomato, Guacamole, Salsa, and Cilantro
The rest of the fixings in a crunchwrap supreme (lettuce, tomatoes, salsa) are vegan so there’s no need to “veganize them.”
That said, my version includes three extras that are not part of Taco’ Bell’s classic crunchwrap supreme. First, guacamole, because guac makes everything better. I made a version of these without guacamole, and while it’s still very delicious, I do like it better with guac. Two, salsa. I’m kind of surprised Taco Bell doesn’t add salsa since it’s an easy and cheap addition, but you can really taste the salsa in this recipe so I love it. And three, cilantro, for a little fresh herbaceous flavor.
Tortilla and Tostada
What makes the crunchwrap genius is the combination of a (1) a soft flour tortilla and (2) a crispy tostada shell. This is what makes it taste a hard taco shell wrapped in a quesadilla/burrito.
I make my own tostadas because I find store-bought tostadas to be quite bland (or perhaps, it was just the brand I bought). Luckily, it is *so easy and quick* to make your own tostada shells. All you need to do is brush some soft corn tortillas with oil and bake them in the oven for 10 minutes until nicely browned and crispy.
Note: if you don’t want to make your own tostadas and can’t find store-bought tostada shells, feel free to substitute with. a handful of tortilla chips.
Ingredients in Homemade Vegan Taco Meat
The base for this ground meat is actually very healthy. It consists of lentils, mushrooms, onions, and walnuts.
- Lentils. I used green lentils, but you could also use brown lentils.
- Cremini mushrooms and yellow onion. The mushrooms bring a nice earthy and slightly meaty flavor. No need to cook the mushrooms or onions separately before adding them to the ground meat mixture.
- Walnuts. I love adding walnuts because they add a surprisingly meaty, chewy texture and yet another source of umami in addition to the mushrooms. Since we are trying to mimic the taste of meat, the more umami the better!
The remaining ingredients help bring flavor to the taco meat. They include nutritional yeast (more umami), taco seasoning (a must in a Taco Bell recipe), ground flaxseed meal (helps to bind the ingredients together), smoked paprika (for a slight smoky taste, always helpful when trying to mimic meaty flavors), and salt/pepper.
There are two other flavoring ingredients that are optional. They’re not common ingredients so I kept them optional, but they significantly increase the “beefy” taste of this taco meat.
First, porcini mushroom powder. It adds so much savory goodness (hello, more umami!) in a concentrated form. I buy mine on Amazon, and use it whenever I want to punch up the volume in a savory dish (it’s also excellent in homemade vegetable broth). Here is another alternative mushroom powder that is sometimes sold at Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s has one as well (though it’s not as potent as the one I used in this recipe).
Or, if you have dried mushrooms at home, you could also put those in a food processor or spice grinder and pulverize until they’re finely ground up.
And the second optional ingredient is vegan beef broth seasoning. This seasoning powder is typically mixed with water to create vegan beef broth, but I just use the powder in this recipe. The seasoning truly smells like beef, so if it’s important for you to replicate the taste of beef in this recipe, I recommend getting this product.
I personally don’t need my taco meat to taste like beef (I never liked beef much, even before going vegan), but I wanted to develop a crunchwrap supreme recipe that tastes as close to the original Taco Bell one as possible. Just kidding. My version is WAY better than Taco Bell’s. It might just be in the Top 5 of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten.
How to make Vegan Taco Meat
First, you’ll need to cook the lentils. The key is to slightly undercook the lentils. This helps the lentils retain some texture, which is key in making a ground beef substitute. If you fully cook the lentils, the texture of the taco meat will be softer and won’t brown up as well.
The cooked lentils will get mostly (but not fully) pureed in the food processor. Watch the video at the 03:07 mark to see the desired texture of the blended lentils.
Meanwhile, toast the walnuts to bring out their nuttiness and temper the bitterness. Then, add the walnuts to the food processor (first take out the lentils and them to a large bowl) and quickly blend until you have a fine crumb. Add the mushrooms and onions to the walnut crumbs and blend until very finely chopped up. Watch the video at the 04:00 mark to see the desired texture.
Then remove the walnut-mushroom-onion mixture from the food processor and add it to the large bowl with the pureed lentils. To that bowl, add the remaining taco meat ingredients and fold with your hands until you get a slightly sticky mixture that comes together.
Do not add the remaining ingredients to the food processor and just blend everything together. This will overwork the mixture and cause it to become too sticky. It is important to fold in these ingredients by hand.
Once you have a mass that comes together, it’s time to cook the taco meat in batches. Break up the taco meat with your fingers into small chunks and add them to a lightly oiled skillet. Cook for 4-5 minutes, breaking up the taco meat further into small crumbles, until it’s lightly browned.
Assembly Instructions
First, assemble all of your components. This is the order in which I layered my components.
- Large Flour Tortilla
- Vegan Queso (spread it out in a circle in the middle in roughly the same size as the tostada shell, but leave a generous border)
- Vegan Taco Meat (add on top of the cheese sauce)
- Tostada Shell (add on top of the taco meat)
- Vegan Sour Cream (spread on top of the tostada shell; it’s actually easier to spread the sour cream on the tostada separately before adding the tostada on top of the taco meat; place sour cream side up.)
- Tomatoes (on top of sour cream)
- Salsa (on top of tomatoes)
- Lettuce (on top of salsa)
- Guacamole (on top of lettuce)
- Cilantro (on top of guacamole)
- Extra tortilla wedge (on top of cilantro; instructions below)
The ideal size of a flour tortilla for a crunchwrap is 12 inches. Unfortunately, I’ve never seen such large tortillas at grocery stores, only at restaurants. The largest size I’ve been able to buy are 10-inch tortillas like this. It’s large enough to fold the crunchwrap around in 6 folds, but the tortilla isn’t large enough to fully fold over the fillings in the center.
This dilemma requires a little McGuyvering, but luckily it’s simple. Take an extra flour tortilla and cut it in half, then cut each half in half, so you end up with four triangular wedges (see the fourth photo above). Use that triangular wedge to cover up the taco fillings in the center before folding over the main flour tortilla over the taco fillings.
If this sounds confusing, I recommend watching the Youtube video at the 14:39 mark.
Finally, heat up a skillet over medium heat with a small amount of oil and cook the crunchwrap supreme (seam side down). After it’s golden and crispy, flip and cook it on the other side. Voilà, that’s it!
PRO TIP: Exercise restraint and adding only a moderate amount of fillings to your wrap. An overstuffed crunchwrap might fall apart when you fry it.
I do recommend eating your Crunchwrap Supremes shortly after you make them because the longer they sit, the softer the tostada shell will get. It’s still tasty, but you miss out on the quintessential crunchiness that makes a crunchwrap supreme.
That’s all you need to know about this Vegan Crunchwrap Supreme! If you make it, please leave a comment below or on Youtube with your feedback! And of course, tag me with your remakes on Instagram!
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
The BEST Vegan Crunchwrap Supreme
Ingredients
- 10-inch burrito-size flour tortillas
- Vegan Taco Meat (recipe below)
- Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce (recipe below)
- Tostada Shells (store-bought, or homemade recipe below)
- Vegan Sour Cream (store-bought, or homemade recipe below)
- Guacamole (recipe below)
- Chopped tomatoes
- Salsa of choice
- Shredded iceberg lettuce
- Cilantro leaves
Instructions
Place a flour tortilla on a flat surface. Reserve an extra tortilla and cut it into four wedges – you’ll use it to patch up the bottom of each crunchwrap (most burrito-size tortillas are not large enough; see notes and photos in blog post). NOTE: if you’re just making one crunchwrap, you can use your tostada shell to cut out a round of the flour tortilla of the same size and use it to patch up the bottom of the crunchwrap (this is the prettier option but more wasteful if you’re making more than one crunchwrap). Add all of the fillings, but do not overstuff or overfill! Spread out a layer of the Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce in the middle, in roughly the same size as the tostada shell, but leave a generous border. Add some of the Vegan Taco Meat on top, spreading out to the border of the cheese sauce. Spread some Vegan Sour Cream onto a Tostada Shell. Place the tostada shell on top of the vegan ground beef, sour cream side face up. Top the sour cream with a small handful of chopped tomatoes, followed by a few spoons of salsa, a small handful of shredded lettuce, a few spoons of the Guacamole, and a few cilantro leaves. Place one of the extra tortilla cut-wedges on top of the fillings. To fold, start with the bottom of the flour tortilla and fold the edge up over the center. Continue this process, for a total of 6 folds (like a hexagon) and press down to ensure the tortilla doesn’t unfold. NOTE: If your flour tortillas are dry, I recommend briefly microwaving them in a damp paper towel to add some moisture, as dry tortillas will start to unfold. Cook the crunchwraps. Heat a skillet with a bit of oil over medium heat. Add a crunchwrap, seam-side down and cook for 2-3 minutes, until the surface is golden brown. Flip and cook for another 2-3 minutes until the second side is golden-brown. Take off the heat, slice in half, and enjoy!
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
Vegan Taco Meat
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup (180g) green lentils or brown lentils
- 8 ounces (227g) mushrooms stems removed very roughly chopped
- ½ of a small-medium yellow onion very roughly chopped (~75g once chopped)
- ¼ cup (28g) walnuts toasted
- 1 tablespoon flaxseed meal
- 3 tablespoon nutritional yeast
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more to taste
- freshly cracked black pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 2-3 tablespoon taco seasoning (start with 2 tablespoons)
- ½ teaspoon porcini mushroom powder add more as desired (optional but adds a concentrated pack of umami)
- 2 teaspoon vegan beef broth seasoning (optional but really makes this taco meat taste like beef)
- olive oil or oil of choice for cooking
Instructions
Cook the lentils. Bring some water to a boil in a saucepan and lightly salt the water. Once boiling, add the lentils. Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook the lentils for just 8-10 minutes. The point is to slightly undercook the lentils: they should be mostly cooked but not fully cooked with a distinct bite, as they’ll get cooked later and the taco meat will get mushy if fully cooked. Drain the lentils thoroughly. Transfer the cooked lentils to a food processor and blend a few times, followed by a few pulses, until the lentils are partially blended with a few pieces still intact. Transfer the lentils to a large bowl and set aside. Wipe out the food processor bowl. NOTE: Watch the Youtube video at the 03:07 mark to see the desired texture of the blended lentils. While the lentils are cooking, toast the walnuts. Add to a dry skillet over medium heat and toast for 5 minutes until they smell toasty and are darker in color. Back in the food processor, add the toasted walnuts. Blend briefly until you have fine crumbs, but don’t over-process, or it will start to turn into walnut butter. Add chopped mushrooms and onions to the food processor and blend a few times, followed by a few pulses until they are very finely chopped. NOTE: Watch the video at the 04:00 mark to see the desired texture. Make the taco meat filling. Add the walnut-vegetable mixture to the bowl with the blended lentils. Then add the flaxseed meal, nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, smoked paprika, taco seasoning, porcini mushroom powder (if using) and beef broth flavoring (if using). Use your hands to mix the taco meat until the mixture comes together with your hands. It should easily come together but not be very sticky. If the mixture is too sticky, add a few tablespoons of all-purpose or gluten-free flour and toss to combine. Cook the taco meat. Heat a large (12-inch) nonstick skillet over medium/medium-high heat with a tablespoon of olive oil. Once hot, add about 1/3 to 1/2 of the mixture to the pan (do not overcrowd) and break the taco meat up with a wooden spoon or angled spatula into as small pieces as you can. Cook for 4-5 minutes, or until browned and slightly crispy. Repeat with remaining taco meat.
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup ~120g raw cashews, soaked overnight (or soaked in boiling water for 1 hour)
- 1/2 cup ~112g vegan unsweetened plain yogurt (I used this one)
- 1/2 cup ~120g salsa of choice
- 2 tablespoons water
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- 2 tablespoons pickled jalapeños + 2 tablespoons pickled jalapeño brine, optional but what gives this a distinct nacho taste
Instructions
- Drain the soaked cashews and pat dry. Add the cashews, along with the remaining ingredients, to a high-powered blender. Blend until thick, creamy, and smooth.
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
Homemade Tostada Shells
Ingredients
- 6 to 8 Soft corn tortillas
- Neutral-flavored oil of choice
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400ºF/200ºC.
- Lightly brush soft corn tortillas with oil. Spread them out in a single layer on large baking sheets (I can fit about 5 on a half sheet pan)
- Bake for 4-5 minutes, then flip the tortillas and bake another 4-5 minutes until the tortillas are crispy and lightly brown. Use immediately.
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
Homemade Vegan Sour Cream
Ingredients
- 1 cup (130g) raw cashews, soaked overnight or for 8 hours*
- 21/2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1/2 cup ~112g coconut yogurt (I used this one)
- Heaping 1/4 tsp sea salt plus more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
- 3-4 tablespoons water more as needed
Instructions
- Add all of the ingredients except for the water to a high-powered blender and blend until smooth and creamy, scraping down the sides frequently. Then add a tablespoon of water, at a time, until you the sour cream comes together and the cashews are fully pulverized.
- Taste for seasonings, adding more salt, lemon juice, or vinegar as needed.
- Refrigerate before using.
Notes
Big Vegan Flavor
Techniques and 150 recipes to master vegan cooking.
Guacamole
Ingredients
- 3 ripe avocados
- 1 large juicy lime juiced
- 1 jalapeño diced (or add a pinch or two of cayenne pepper)
- 2 garlic cloves crushed
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro chopped
- Kosher salt or sea salt to taste
Instructions
- Scoop out the avocado flesh into a bowl. Squeeze the lime juice on top. Add the jalapeños, garlic, and cilantro, and mash everything up with a fork until smooth but there are still some rough avocado chunks. Season to taste with salt.
this is worth the work, yum yum, I love the taco meat from lentils.
Thanks for the lovely feedback, Grace!
These are amazing!! My husband was looking forward to this all week and had 3! Said perfect flavour and texture!! We followed everything to the recipe except for sour cream just used real store bought what we had on hand. Loved the pickled jalapeño in the vegan cheese. Soo good.
Thank you for your lovely comment, Natalia! It makes us happy to know that you enjoyed the recipe.
This is sooooo delicious. A labor of love that’s worth the time. My vegan teenager chowed this down, so I want to make it for her and friends. Have you tried browning them in the oven? Just curious since many teens require many crunch wraps!
Hi Kerry, so glad you loved the recipe! No we haven’t tried oven baked, we love a pan fried crunch wrap! We fear the wraps wouldn’t seal or get the crispy edges that make this wrap so good! If you’d like to test this out (no promises this will work), you could add some oil to the bottom of your sheet pan, and place the crunch wraps folded side down, and bake for 5 mins at 350F. Flip, and repeat for a few minutes, until crisp.
Can i prepare the taco “meat” and keep it in the fridge overnight, or should i rather fry it and then reheat?
Hi Uli, you can do either but I personally would prep it ahead of time and cook day of! :)
Sounded so delicious. Unfortunately I got to the end and realized there was no nutritional information provided. Calculating that myself would double the time it takes to make it. I wish there had been a note at the top that the recipe information was not complete. I wouldn’t have wasted my time.
This is one of our favorites! Much better that the TB version. If anyone has calculated the macros for a serving, please share :)
Hi Jacqueline, thank you so much for your kind review!
Woah. This was BEYOND AMAZING I wish I could add 100 stars. I requested this for my birthday dinner because a) fully committing to plant based and b) obsessed with taco bell. My husband (who does not cook much) made this. It was SO SO SO good. After he made the queso, and we both tried it, we agreed it was some sort of witch magic that made it taste that good with those ingredients. And likewise with the “meat filling”… it was so spot on. We did buy the tofutti sour cream and vegan yogurt at the store, but the rest came together wonderfully! I cannot wait to eat it again this week! Thank you, Nisha!
Thanks for the awesome review, Priti! And happy belated birthday! :)
Nutrition info for recipes please.
I love it when I get an email from you with new recipes! Today and wanted to cook up something different and special! Something that stretched my vegan cooking skills a bit and something that would surprise my family. Well, this recipe did the trick! I had a blast making up the separate components and they came out beautifully. Nisha, you did a bang-up job creating this one! The only thing I would recommend is to omit or use less salt and look for a lower sodium taco seasoning. I admit, I made the taco meat filling twice as the first go around was too salty. I’d post a picture but, I don’t see how I can do that here. I’ll try instagram.
Hi Christy, thank you for sharing your experience with us! This is a favorite recipe of mine as well :) Cheers!
I cannot explain how much happiness this recipe brings to my family, ESPECIALLY the queso!! We are obsessed and love to show it off to our non vegan friends. Thank you so much Nisha for taking the time to create such a perfect recipe!
Yay! So happy to hear it, Marina :) Thanks for making the recipe again and again and for sharing your thoughts!
I was looking through recipes today and found the taco meat recipe. Couldn’t remember why I had never made it. Since I had some mushrooms to use up, I decided to make that. On the way to the store, I remembered it was for this recipe. So I pulled this recipe up on my phone and got the ingredients to make these.
I had made the crunch wrap supreme recipe before, but used Boca ground for the meat. It turned out okay.
This time I made these with the real taco meat they’re supposed to have, but left out the vegan sour cream, because I dislike sour cream.
These turned out really good this time, but it took a long time, even by my slow cook standards. I’ll be eating these through the rest of the weekend, but it will probably a year or more before I make them again.
I*t’s hard to justify the time it takes me, when I’m making these for just me. I can make better RPL recipes in less time. 4 stars because it takes so long.
I went at this kind of backwards. If I had read the prep time: 2hrs & cook time 30 minutes before I went shopping for ingredients, I’d have skipped it entirely. So that part was my error.
We’re sorry the recipe took you a bit too long to cook, Ken. Glad to hear you enjoyed the flavor at least. Feel free to use storebought versions of sour cream, salsa, guac, vegan ground meat, etc. to save yourself time in the future!
Hi,
Looks so yummy. planning on making this. Other than the crunchiness part, how long does it last?
Hi Kay, we recommend storing all of the components separately and making the crunchwraps on the day of for maximum freshness. The queso and homemade sour cream will last about 1 week in the fridge, stored in a jar with a lid. The taco meat should last 3-4 days (you’ll want to reheat it in a pan so it stays relatively crisp). The guacamole, as you might guess, is best fresh, though you can probably store it with the avocado pit in the fridge for one day. Store the cooled tostadas in an airtight container at room temperature for about a week.
Good information, thank-you! This may help some with the time management and those doing meal prep for the week.
You’re welcome, Angie!
Just love you and your recipes!
Aww, thanks Dawn! We appreciate you!
These look amazing! I’d like to make them for my family, but my son has a nut allergy (except for cashews, pistachios, almonds, & peanuts). He can also have seeds. Would you recommend any of these as a walnut substitute? Thank you.
Hi Marie, I think roasted almonds would work fine as long as they get pulsed finely. Sunflower seeds might also work but have a stronger taste. Hope you can all enjoy them!
My family really loved this recipe. I didn’t have porcini mushroom powder or vegan beef stock but my mum especially loved the mushroom walnut lentil mixture. I also made my own salsa and tortillas because I hate store bought tortillas. It was very labor intensive but it was all worth it. I will make this again. All the elements combined are very delicious. It was very satiating.
Thank you for your lovely comment, B! It makes us happy to know that you enjoyed the crunchwrap, and we are impressed with how above and beyond you went with this recipe!
I’ve made these around 6 times now and wowee they are incredible and just one of those recipes you just keep coming back to. They are a huge hit at parties! Going to make them camping this weekend.
So awesome to hear that, Sesha! Guess I’ll have to try this recipe myself very soon! :)