A vegan, plant-based version of authentic potato and egg breakfast tacos you'd find throughout Texas at taco trucks, restaurants, and mama's house. Eggy tofu scramble, tender potatoes, sweet onion, and buttery flour tortillas bring it all together.
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I've been working to perfect this recipe for a long time. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, potato and egg breakfast tacos are a seriously nostalgic food for me.
🧄 Very useful ingredient notes
- Pre-cooked potatoes - Keeping pre-steamed whole potatoes in the refrigerator has changed my life. Makes so many easy meals possible, like this one. Using raw potatoes for this takes a lot longer, since they have to cook, plus they tend to stick to the pan.
- Firm tofu - Use the water-packed, refrigerated firm tofu that you have to drain.
- Black salt - Kala namak (aka black salt) is actually light pink in color and gives this meal an eggy flavor and aroma, due to the sulphur compounds in the salt. Find it at Indian grocery stores, health food stores, or buy black salt on Amazon.
- Vegan butter - If you use oil/vegan butter, use that for this dish. However, to keep it oil-free, I've offered a few alternatives in the below section and in the notes section of the recipe card.
📋 Substitutions and variations
Here are some suitable substitutions for the ingredients in this recipe:
- Vegan Butter -
- For a vegan option with oil - Vegan butter is not something we use often. This recipe is nostalgic and traditionally is made with butter or oil. If you use oil or vegan butter in your cooking, I'd recommend using vegan butter for this recipe for the most authentic flavor (for a vegan version of these, that is).
- For an oil-free, vegan option: use 1 tablespoon nutritional yeast combined with ¼ teaspoon onion powder OR 1 teaspoon Trader Joe's onion salt.
- For a low-fat, vegetarian (non-vegan) version: use Kinder's Caramelized Onion Butter seasoning. It has zero calories but adds a huge amount of flavor to this dish. This seasoning is not vegan, though. So, choose the best option for your circumstances.
- Firm Tofu - use medium firm tofu or soft tofu, if you prefer a softer egg texture. I would not recommend using super firm or extra firm for this, since it's very dry and tough in texture.
- Flour tortillas - instead of flour tortillas, you can eat this with corn tortillas or serve it by itself with avocado and salsa
- WFPBNO - make this whole food plant based no oil by omitting vegan butter and using the combo of nutritional yeast + onion powder or onion salt suggested above.
- SOS-free - make this SOS-free by omitting the black salt, sea salt, and vegan butter/onion salt. Use the nutritional yeast + onion powder option mentioned above.
🔪 Instructions
Step-by-step photos of how to make these vegan potato and "egg" breakfast tacos.
- Preheat a large, wide non-stick skillet over medium-high heat for 60 seconds. Then, add potatoes and spread them out across the bottom of the pan. Don't stir for at least 3 minutes. (this helps the potatoes form a crust)
- Meanwhile, start cooking or warming your tortillas. Put them inside a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft. Sprinkle sea salt, black pepper, and ground cumin on top of the potatoes.
- Flip the potatoes to mix the seasonings in. Leave them to cook another 3 minutes, without stirring them.
- Add diced onions.
- Stir the onions together with the potatoes.
- Leave them to cook another 3 minutes, without stirring them.
- Once the potatoes are heated through and the onion is mostly cooked, move the potatoes to the outer edge of the pan, to create a well in the middle where the tofu will go.
- Add your block of drained tofu to the center of the pan.
- Then, season the block of tofu with the remaining seasonings (vegan butter or alternative from Notes section, turmeric, garlic, and black salt)
- Using a wooden spoon or spatula, break apart the tofu into small pieces.
- Once the seasonings are mixed into the tofu, stir it to combine the tofu with the potatoes and onion.
- Let it cook 5-7 minutes, stirring a few times. Taste and adjust seasoning, as needed. Serve with warmed tortillas and hot sauce or salsa.
Expert tips
- Cut the potatoes into thin wedges, like for skillet potatoes, (see above photos) so they heat quickly and have plenty of surface area for browning in the pan
- Make a batch of this and then batch prep breakfast burritos for your breakfasts that week. Or, have it ready to reheat in the morning for a breakfast bowl.
🥡 Make ahead and storage tips
Store the prepared taco filling separately from the tortillas in the fridge, and reheat when ready to eat. You can also prepare burritos and store them in the refrigerator. Reheat in the microwave for 1 minute on each side. Good for up to 5 days.
These ingredients do not stand up well to freezing.
🗺 Cultural influences
I've been working to perfect this recipe for a long time. Born and raised in Houston, Texas, potato and egg breakfast tacos are a seriously nostalgic food for me.
Growing up, we would often get breakfast tacos from various taco trucks and TexMex restaurants like Taco Cabana. When we were fortunate, our Mexican aunts would make homemade potato and egg breakfast tacos for us.
Besides papas con huevo, popular breakfast taco fillings are papas a la Mexicana (spicy potatoes), huevos a la Mexicana (spicy eggs), nopales (cactus), and frijoles y queso (beans and cheese), just to name a few.
This recipe is inspired by my mixed ethnic background and heritage as a native of Houston, Texas and by the strong cultural influences of my friends and family from Mexico. See About for more information on my cultural influences and how I attribute recipes.
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📖 Recipe
Potato and "Egg" Vegan Breakfast Tacos (from a Texan)
Equipment
Ingredients
- 3 large russet potatoes pre-steamed or pre-cooked, about 840g, sliced into small pieces
- ½ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon black pepper
- ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 sweet yellow onion diced, about 250g
- 1 pound firm tofu drained, 16oz or 450g
- 2 teaspooons vegan butter optional, see Notes!
- ⅛ teaspoon ground turmeric
- ¼ teaspoon granulated garlic
- ⅛ teaspoon black salt kala namak
- 8-12 tortillas flour or corn tortillas
- hot sauce and/or salsa
Instructions
- Preheat a large, wide non-stick skillet over medium-high heat for 60 seconds. Then, add potatoes and spread them out across the bottom of the pan. Don't stir for at least 3 minutes. (this helps the potatoes form a crust)3 large russet potatoes
- Meanwhile, start cooking or warming your tortillas. Put them inside a clean kitchen towel to keep them warm and soft.8-12 tortillas
- Sprinkle sea salt, black pepper, and ground cumin on top of the potatoes. Flip the potatoes to mix the seasonings in. Leave them to cook another 3 minutes, without stirring them.½ teaspoon sea salt, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon ground cumin
- Add diced onions and stir them together with the potatoes. Leave them to cook another 3 minutes, without stirring them.1 sweet yellow onion
- Once the potatoes are heated through and the onion is mostly cooked, move the potatoes to the outer edge of the pan, to create a well in the middle where the tofu will go.
- Add your block of drained tofu to the center of the pan. Then, season the block of tofu with the remaining seasonings (vegan butter or alternative from Notes section, turmeric, garlic and black salt)1 pound firm tofu, 2 teaspooons vegan butter, ⅛ teaspoon ground turmeric, ¼ teaspoon granulated garlic, ⅛ teaspoon black salt
- Using a wooden spoon or spatula, break apart the tofu into small pieces. Once the seasonings are mixed into the tofu, stir it to combine the tofu with the potatoes and onion. Let it cook 5-7 minutes, stirring a few times.
- Taste and adjust seasoning, as needed. Serve with warmed tortillas and hot sauce or salsa.hot sauce and/or salsa
Abi Cowell says