Vegan Enchiladas

These vegan enchiladas are the best! Stuffed with butternut squash and black beans, topped with tomato sauce and the cheesiest vegan cheese sauce!

Up until a few years ago I thought enchiladas were some sort of noodle thing.

I’m pretty sure I had them confused with cannelloni.

They are actually tortillas stuffed with a delicious filling, topped with tomato sauce and cheese and then baked in the oven for 20 minutes.

So…sort of similar to a cannelloni type deal but not the same.

They are really simple to throw together, but not quick. There are a few steps involved, but they’re all really easy and fun. It’s the perfect meal to throw together for a family dinner, especially if there are a few people to help out with preparing it.

And if you love these enchiladas you’ll likely also love our vegan quesadillas and vegan fajitas!

How To Make Vegan Enchiladas

You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.

Butternut Squash:

• Add the peeled and cubed butternut squash to a bowl along with olive oil, sea salt and black pepper and toss it all together so that all the butternut squash is lightly coated.

• Transfer to a parchment lined baking tray and bake in the oven at 400°F for around 30-35 minutes until roasted.

Tomato Sauce:

• While the butternut is roasting, get started on your tomato sauce.
• Add chopped onion and crushed garlic to a pot or saucepan along with olive oil and sauté until the onions are softened.

• Add canned chopped tomato, coconut sugar, oregano and cayenne pepper and bring to a gentle simmer.

• Using an immersion blender blend into a smooth sauce. If you don’t have an immersion blender then allow it to cool for a few minutes and then transfer to your blender jug, blend and then return to the pot.
• Add sea salt and black pepper to taste.

Black Beans:

• Partially drain the can of black beans and add them to a pot.

• Heat the beans (and a little of the liquid they came with in the can) until simmering and then add the roasted butternut squash and ½ cup of the tomato sauce and mix together.

Cheese Sauce:

• Add the olive oil to a pot and let it heat until hot. Add flour and fry it briefly in the oil, stirring vigorously and then add soy milk and whisk it vigorously to get rid of lumps.
• Bring it to the boil stirring constantly. When it boils let it continue to boil, stirring all the while, for a few minutes until it thickens.
• Remove from the heat and add dijon mustard, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder, smoked paprika, salt and ground black pepper and stir in.

Assemble:

• Take a 9×13 oven proof dish and measure your tortillas against the size of the dish. We needed to trim our tortillas slightly to fit the dish.
• Then pour out some of the tomato sauce and smooth it down evenly along the bottom of the dish.

• On a separate plate or board lay a tortilla down flat. Spoon out some butternut squash and black bean filling and then roll up the tortilla.

• Place the rolled tortilla into the oven-proof dish, seal side down.

• Repeat with the next tortilla and keep repeating until your dish is full.
• Pour the remaining tomato sauce over the top of the rolled tortillas and smooth it down.

• Add the cheese sauce carefully to the top and smooth it down.
• Place into the oven and bake for 25 minutes at 350°F.

• Serve topped with fresh chopped cilantro.

Chef’s Tips

You can use a store-bought tomato sauce or enchilada sauce. If you want to save time on this recipe then you can definitely use a store-bought option instead of making it up from scratch yourself.

The cheese sauce is a variation on a bechamel sauce, flavored to be super cheesy. It also firms up wonderfully on the top of your enchiladas. We used a very similar sauce in our vegan lasagna. However, if you want to mix things up a bit, our vegan nacho cheese sauce would also be wonderful on top of this!

Another option to add to the filling if you want to add more protein to the dish is to make up a batch of vegan taco meat and use that instead of the butternut squash to create a delicious high protein filling. Or just add it along with the butternut squash and black beans.

You can use corn tortillas or flour tortillas. In this recipe we used flour tortillas but corn is also great to use. If you use corn tortillas then you will need to warm them first so that they fold and roll up more easily and don’t break. The easiest way is to wrap four corn tortillas at a time in a damp paper towel and microwave for 30 seconds to 1 minute. You can also warm them on the stovetop or in the oven. This article from The Kitchn shows three different ways to warm your corn tortillas.

Make Them Gluten Free

If you’d like these vegan enchiladas to be gluten-free then use a gluten free all purpose flour blend instead of the regular flour when you make the cheese sauce and make sure your tortillas are corn and not flour tortillas.

Make Ahead, Storing and Freezing

If you want to make these enchiladas ahead of time, you can make the entire recipe up until the point that you would assemble the enchiladas and bake them. Store the ingredients (butternut squash and black bean mix, tomato sauce and cheese sauce) separately in the fridge and then assemble and bake the next day.

Leftovers will keep for 3-4 days in the fridge.

They are also freezer friendly if you want to freeze some. Thaw overnight in the fridge and then reheat.

More Delicious Vegan Mexican Recipes

1. Vegan Burritos
2. Vegan Nachos
3. Vegan Taco Meat
4. Vegan Nacho Cheese
5. Vegan Queso
6. Vegan Jalapeño Poppers

Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!