Vegan Black Bean Sweet Potato Nachos + The Natural Colors Cookbook by Maggie Pate

I’m so excited to share this post with you because today is the day that my sweet friend Maggie’s book, The Natural Colors Cookbook, is released! You may have noticed the beautiful gauzy textiles I use in my food photography, and if you scroll to the end of each blog post you’ll often find Nade Studio listed under my “Prop Love” shout-outs.  Maggie is the creative force behind Nade Studio, a talented and knowledgeable natural dyer and textile artist. The Natural Colors Cookbook is a how-to guide for creating natural dyes in your home kitchen using foods and plants, and many times focusing on the parts destined for your compost bin. Take avocado skins and pits for instance, they make a beautiful light pink dye.

To celebrate the release of her book, Maggie invited me to take part in her Food Waste Party, where a group of us food bloggers create a recipe from one of the many foods found in her book that can also be used to create a natural dye. I chose black beans, which dyed the gauze pictured a pale blue-grey color.

I love black beans in many things but especially love them with sweet potatoes. The earthy creamy bean-y beans are an excellent match for sweet earthy sweet potatoes. Turning this combo into nachos seemed like the right thing do, who’s with me??? Chips are swapped with baked sweet potato rounds, and get topped with seasoned black beans and all the nacho fixins. This also gave me the opportunity to show you a recipe where you can use some of my other recipes: the vegan queso sauce, and cashew cream cheese or strained vegan yogurt as sour cream alternatives.

These nachos were so good and {bonus!} are a little bit healthier with sweet potatoes instead of chips. I hope you give them a try and please let me know what you think if you do. As always I love seeing your creations! If you make or are inspired by any of my recipes please tag me in the photo and caption (@fareisle) and use #fareisle so I can see them and share on my insta stories!

Oh, and be sure follow Maggie on Instagram for natural dye and textile inspiration, as well as beautiful food!

xx Kaity

recipe after the jump…

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Vegan Black Bean Sweet Potato Nachos

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• Prep Time: 20 minutes
• Cook Time: 1 minutes
• Total Time: 21 minutes

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Description

You probably never thought cheesy nachos could be improved upon, but they just got infinitely better!!! Swap the chips for healthier sweet potatoes, which also just happen to be best “flavor” mates with black beans. So good!

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Scale 1x2x3x

Ingredients

• 1 cup dried black beans
• 2 large sweet potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup sliced mushrooms
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 1 tablespoon virgin coconut oil
• 1–1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
• 1 bayleaf
• 1 garlic clove, smashed
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin, divided
• 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander, divided
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• cayenne or chile pepper powder to taste
• 1 cup vegan nacho cheese (queso) sauce (recipe on the blog)
• 1/2 cup salsa
• 1 avocado, peeled, chopped or sliced
• 1/4 cup vegan sour cream alternative such as soy or coconut milk yogurt (recipe on the blog)
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves
• optional: chive blossoms or other edible flowers for garnish

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Instructions

1. The night before, rinse beans and cover them with water in a bowl. Soak beans overnight.
2. Strain off soaked beans and cover them with about 2” of water in a saucepan. Bring beans to a boil with 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, bayleaf, smashed garlic clove, dried oregano, 1/4 teaspoon each of ground cumin and coriander, coconut oil and ground cayenne or other chile pepper to taste. Once beans come to boil, reduce heat to a rolling simmer and cover, leaving lid slightly cracked.
3. Cook beans until they are tender. Start checking for doneness at 30 minutes, but they may take up to 1 hour to cook. If the water level gets to low, add more water as needed and bring back up to a boil as before.
4. When beans are done cooking, remove the pot from heat and let beans sit in the cooking liquid until you are ready to use them. You can also cool beans to room temperature then refrigerate them in the cooking liquid up to 1 week ahead of time.
5. While beans are cooking, preheat oven to 425˚F and prep and bake the sweet potato rounds.
6. Wash and dry the sweet potatoes then slice them into thin rounds. Add them to a bowl with 2 tablespoons olive oil and 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt and toss them until they are evenly coated.
7. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and arrange sweet potato rounds into single layers on each tray. Bake for 10 minutes then flip sweet potatoes with a fork. Bake for another 5-10 minutes until they start to brown and get a little crispy on the edges. Remove from oven when done and set aside until your are ready to assemble the nachos.
8. While beans are cooking and sweet potatoes are baking, chop onion and slice mushrooms. Heat a skillet on medium high and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Add onions and mushrooms and remaining cumin and coriander powder. Sauté until onions and mushrooms start to brown, about 3-5 minutes.
9. Drain beans over a bowl to save the bean liquid, and add them to the skillet with 1/4 teaspoon salt, just to heat them through, about 1 minute. (Keep bean liquid to cook rice in at another time, refrigerate or freeze it until ready to use.) Taste for salt and add more if needed.
10. Assemble nachos on a parchment lined baking sheet or in a oven safe baking dish. Layer sweet potato rounds on the bottom. Top with beans, onion and mushrooms mix and vegan nacho cheese (queso) sauce.
11. Bake for about 5 minutes at 425˚F just to get everything hot. Remove from oven and top with salsa, sour cream alternative, avocado, cilantro and edible flowers if using. Serve immediately. Nachos are best eaten right away.

 

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Prop Love: Naturally dyed table line (dyed with black beans!) by Nade Studio, Maggie’s textile business. Walnut spatula by Four Leaf Wood Shop. Plates and pinch bowl by Facture Goods.