Black Bean Sweet Potato Tacos
Posted Aug 19, 2020, Updated Apr 12, 2024
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These black bean sweet potato tacos are the best vegetarian tacos ever. Sweet potatoes and vegetables are perfectly spiced and roasted, then tossed with a honey, lime cilantro mixture for the most flavorful and delicious tacos. Taco night isn’t complete without this sweet potato taco recipe!
Taco night isn’t complete in my house without these black bean sweet potato tacos – I make them at least twice a month (along with this salsa, Mexican rice, guacamole, and refried beans)!
In this recipe, sweet potatoes and vegetables are spiced and roasted to perfection. Then everything is tossed in a delicious cilantro-lime mixture and roasted again for a depth of flavor that is out-of-this-world delicious.
These vegetarian tacos are the perfect way to diversify taco night, especially for the plant lovers in your life. They are healthy, easy to make and are the most delicious taco filling you’ll ever make (along with ground beef tacos and crockpot chicken tacos).
Tacos are my go-to meal whenever we entertain, because they satisfy all sorts of dietary needs. That’s why I love these sweet potato tacos, I can easily serve herbivores and carnivores and make everyone happy, with the same meal – paired with all of our Mexican recipes!
Sweet Potato Tacos: Ingredients and Substitutions
These vegetarian tacos are fairly versatile! Here are a few potential substitutions!
- Olive oil. Any neutral oil works well in this recipe! My top two recommendations are olive oil and avocado oil.
- Spices. If you’d like to add a little heat (I am a spice wimp), toss in some chili powder. If you’re not a fan of one of the spices, you can easily customize them to your liking by increasing what you love and decreasing what you don’t. However, I find this spice blend perfect.
- Bell peppers. I use a total of 3 small bell peppers. Choose your favorite color (red, green, yellow orange, purple), or if you aren’t a fan, you can substitute a different vegetable. I sometimes use this as a “clean the produce drawer” recipe and toss in whatever I have on hand.
- Black beans. Any bean would work well in this recipe, however black beans are my favorite. Chickpeas are another great choice.
- Honey. If you’d like to make this recipe vegan you can substitute maple syrup for the honey, but the taste will be a touch different. Other vegan sweeteners include agave, date syrup, and brown rice syrup!
How to Make Sweet Potato Tacos
This sweet potato black bean tacos recipe might sound complicated, but it really isn’t! We’ll walk through the process step-by-step, and don’t forget to watch the video!
Begin my mixing the spices together in a small bowl, then set the mixture aside to use later.
Then, toss the sweet potatoes in olive oil and the spice mixture and roast them in the oven until they just begin to brown and become soft. The sweet potatoes take longer to roast than the rest of the vegetables, so it’s important that you pre-cook them. There are two ways to do this,
- Follow the recipe and roast them for about 20 minutes before adding the peppers to the pan to be cooked.
- Microwave the cubed sweet potatoes on high for 5-6 minutes, then roast for 5-10 minutes in the oven tossed with the olive oil and spices.
Either way as long as you wait to add the peppers until the sweet potatoes are slightly browned, all the vegetables will finish cooking at the same time.
Next, add the bell peppers (or any other veggies you’d like to add) and roast again until the vegetables are soft and browned. This is when I add onion!
Make the Sauce
While the vegetables are roasting, whisk together the honey, cilantro and lime juice.
Add the black beans, corn and sauce to the roasted vegetables and stir to be sure everything is evenly combined. Adding the sauce at the end ensures that your tacos will be crispy and not soggy!
Add Sauce & Finish Cooking
Finally, roast the sweet potato and black bean tacos again, stirring once, to ensure the sauce is absorbed and the vegetables are roasted. Then serve!
Serving Suggestions:
These sweet potato tacos make a great filling for tortillas or a topping for a taco salad! I recommend serving with all your favorite Mexican Recipes! Here are some of our favorites:
- Easy Homemade Salsa is made in 5 minutes in the blender and it’s so fresh and delicious.
- What’s taco night without the best guacamole?
- Cilantro lime rice and Mexican rice are great sides. Along with this Mexican corn salad!
- These refried black beans take only 10 minutes to make and are so much better than canned!
- Make these ground beef tacos with homemade taco seasoning!
- To add a little meat to your taco night, try this crockpot chicken tacos recipe!
- Chicken enchiladas are one of my family’s favorite meals, and guacamole is a must!
- This is the best nachos recipe ever – with two layers of cheese!
- You have to try this chicken fajitas recipe.
Store
Store any leftover black bean sweet potato tacos in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week. This recipe makes a large amount of taco filling, so I love eating the leftovers for lunches throughout the week.
Reheat
To restore the crispiness, reheat the sweet potato tacos in the oven at 350 degrees F for about 10-15 minutes (be sure to check often). They can also be warmed in the microwave, and they will still be delicious but won’t be crispy.
Sweet Potato Tacos Recipe FAQs
Nope. I prefer the sweet potatoes with the skin on for flavor, texture and nutrition. However you can peel them if you’d like to,
Yes! Substitute maple syrup for honey and they are vegan.
This filling lasts in the fridge for 5-7 days.
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Black Bean Sweet Potato Tacos Recipe
Ingredients
Sweet Potato, Black Bean & Vegetable Filling
- 1 ½ pounds sweet potatoes (about 6 cups), cut into ½” cubes
- 4 Tablespoons olive oil (divided)
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- ½ teaspoon onion powder
- ¼ teaspoon ground coriander
- 1 teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon pepper
- 1 ½ cups green pepper (2 medium peppers), cut into 1" pieces
- 1 cup red pepper (1 medium pepper), cut into 1” pieces
- 14.5 ounces black beans (rinsed and drained)
- ½ cup frozen yellow corn (thawed and drained)
Honey, Cilantro Lime Sauce
- 3 Tablespoons honey
- 3 Tablespoons lime juice
- 3 Tablespoons fresh cilantro chopped
For Serving
- Corn or flour tortillas
- guacamole, salsa, sour cream, cheese, etc.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Generously grease a large baking sheet.
- Mix spices together in a small bowl, set aside.
- Put sweet potatoes in a large bowl and add 3 TBS olive oil. Stir until potatoes are evenly coated.
- Sprinkle spices on sweet potatoes and stir until the sweet potatoes are evenly coated with the spice mixture.
- Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until they just start to brown, stirring halfway through.
- While sweet potatoes are baking, add peppers to the large bowl that the sweet potatoes were mixed in. Add 1 TBS olive oil and a little extra salt and pepper. Stir until evenly coated.
- After 20 minutes, or once sweet potatoes are slightly browned, remove the pan from oven and add peppers. Stir until combined.
- Return to oven for 20 more minutes, stirring halfway through.
- While pan is in the oven, mix honey, lime juice and cilantro together in a small bowl and stir to combine.
- Once sweet potatoes and peppers are looking nice and roasted, add corn and black beans and stir to combine.
- Drizzle honey lime cilantro sauce over all the veggies on the pan and stir until everything is evenly mixed/coated.
- Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes, stirring halfway through. Until corn is slightly browned and the sauce has stuck to the veggies!
- Remove from oven and serve immediately in tortillas or over salad greens, topped with your favorite taco toppings (guacamole, salsa, etc).
Video
Notes
- Olive oil. Any neutral oil works well in this recipe! My top two recommendations are olive oil and avocado oil.
- Spices. If you’d like to add a little heat (I am a spice wimp), toss in some chili powder. If you’re not a fan of one of the spices, you can easily customize them to your liking by increasing what you love and decreasing what you don’t. However, I find this spice blend perfect.
- Bell peppers. I use a total of 3 small bell peppers. Choose your favorite color (red, green, yellow orange, purple), or if you aren’t a fan, you can substitute a different vegetable. I sometimes use this as a “clean the produce drawer” recipe and toss in whatever I have on hand.
- Black beans. Any bean would work well in this recipe, however black beans are my favorite. Chickpeas are another great choice.
- Honey. If you’d like to make this recipe vegan you can substitute maple syrup for the honey, but the taste will be a touch different. Other vegan sweeteners include agave, date syrup, and brown rice syrup!
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Great recipe! I roasted my veggies in my air fryer but I don’t have a large fryer so ended up combining all ingredients in the oven when I added corn and black beans. This recipe makes a lot! You weren’t kidding! But delicious! Thanks for sharing!
This is pretty identical to https://www.cookingclassy.com/honey-lime-sweet-potato-black-bean-and-corn-tacos/ which was published in 2013 and I believe she should be given credit.
Hey Fellow Cook! I have been making this recipe for a long time! If you notice the ingredients, method and ratios are different! I love CC and did give her inspiration credit in the notes (best way I could think to word it) because her recipe was definitely posted first! I think I actually saw it on Food 52 also! Nothing new under the sun when it comes to recipes! But I always would rather err on giving credit than not!
Oh, I’m definitely trying this! I’m gonna add some lime crema sauce and of course avocado!!!
I have SO many sweet potatoes in my house right now so this recipe came at the PERFECT time! Definitely adding this to my meal plan this week!
I love that you added in peppers and corn! So much veggie goodness.
These look so good! We eat roasted sweet potatoes all of the time, but I had never thought to add them to tacos. I love it!
I’m not really a HUGE meat gal either, so I love veggie packed stirfries, but I’ve never done ‘just veggie’ tacos. This is a great idea!
These are soooo me! Mexican food–and vegetarian! Thank you!
We’re kind of on the same page today Laura! 🙂 I love the sweet potato black bean combination and this needs to be dinner at my house very soon!
I’m always down for taco night! And love that they can basically be made on one big sheet pan. Easy peasy! Happy New Year, friend!