Vegan Carnitas Tacos, made with king oyster mushrooms for the perfect meaty taste and texture. Coated in a smoky sauce and served in soft corn tortillas.
Serving Vegan Carnitas Tacos
We love serving tacos with a side of vegetables. Our recipe for simple Corn Salsa is perfect.
Pulled King Oyster Mushrooms
The king oyster mushrooms are the star of the dish and perfectly mimic the texture of the pulled meat. Depending on where in the world you are they could be called king trumpet or eryngii mushrooms. Until quite recently, these have been quite hard to find, only really being widely available to us in our local Asian market. However, they are now widely available in Tesco locally which is a major supermarket in the UK.
If you can’t find these mushrooms then you could still make the dish with other mushrooms or a shredded vegan meat alternative. If using other mushrooms I would suggest using portobello mushrooms. Cooking them and pressing them as I do in the Vegan Bulgogi recipe. Slicing them into 1cm strips rather than the 2cm strips stated in the recipe. This would get you closest to the texture of the king oyster mushrooms.
Vegan Carnitas Tacos
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil
- 300 g king oyster mushrooms
- 2 white onions sliced
- 6 cloves garlic minced
- 2 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 2 teaspoon ground cumin
- 2 teaspoon Mexican oregano
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon cracked black pepper
- Juice of 2 oranges 120ml
- 6 to 8 fresh corn tortilla
- White onion diced
- Coriander chopped
Instructions
- Prepare the king oyster mushrooms. Shred them by pressing a fork into the thick stem of the mushrooms and running it down the side. Pull apart the created shreds of mushroom. The caps can be sliced to the same thickness as the shreds.
- Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once hot add the mushroom shreds. Cook stirring frequently until the mushrooms are starting to turn golden around the edges, around 4 minutes.
- Add the sliced onions and continue to cook until the onions are soft and translucent and the mushrooms are deeply golden around the edges, around 8 minutes.
- Reduce the heat to medium before adding the garlic. Cook for a minute before adding the smoked paprika, ground cumin, Mexican oregano, salt and cracked black pepper. Stir to coat the mushrooms and onions in the spices and cook for 1 minute watching not to burn the spices.
- Add the orange juice and cook until the mixture is sticky, around 3 minutes.
- Taste for seasoning then remove from the heat.
- Serve the mushrooms and onions in fresh corn tortillas topped with diced raw white onion and chopped coriander.
