These Crispy Pumpkin Tacos will spice up taco Tuesday with their smokey Chipotle Lime Crema. This recipe is vegan, gluten free, and healthy!
Pumpkin Week meets Taco Tuesday in its perfect spicy, crispy, saucy, pumpkin-y way.
We have crunchy coated pumpkin coated in a to-die-for smokey chipotle lime crema with a handful of crispy cabbage and fresh cilantro.
Though pumpkin is usually the life of the sweet party, it can groove with savory and spicy flavors like a champ. The smokey sauce plays up the savory pumpkin notes in a way that will have you eating 4 tacos before you realized what has happened.
These Crispy Pumpkin Tacos are seriously crave-worthy.
And it all starts with some crispy pumpkin. To make the perfect filling for our tacos, we take raw pumpkin, double bread it, and then bake it until the inside is tender and the outside is an even golden brown. The result is a nugget of crispy pumpkin that is so good I ate half of the pan before they even made it to their tortilla shells. Whooops....
Now, please promise me you won't throw these Crispy Pumpkin Tacos in my face OR click the little red X in the corner of your screen when I tell you this one little kind of a big deal thing about these Crispy Pumpkin Tacos. I didn't actually use pumpkin.
Finding a cooking pumpkin, not a carving pumpkin, at the store can be a real challenge! So, instead, I grabbed a bag of pre-cut butternut squash and took it to taco town. If you find a cooking pumpkin and have the biceps needed to hack into the thing, by all means, keep these Crispy Pumpkin Tacos pumpkin-fied! The rest of us will buy the pre-cut butternut and lie to our guests, telling them it's pumpkin. You've gotta pick your battles! 
Crispy Pumpkin Tacos with Chipotle Lime Crema
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entree
- Cuisine: gluten-free, Vegatarian
Description
These Crispy Pumpkin Tacos will spice up taco Tuesday with their smokey Chipotle Lime Crema. This recipe is vegan, gluten free, and healthy!
Ingredients
For the crispy pumpkin:
- 3 cups cubed butternut squash
- ½ cup unsweetened almond milk
- ½ cup gluten free oat flour (or AP if not gluten free)
- 1 cup gluten free breadcrumbs (or regular if not gluten free)
- Salt and pepper
For the chipotle crema:
- ½ cup raw cashews, (soaked overnight, drained and rinsed)
- ½ cup water
- 1-4 chipotle chilies in adobo sauce, (depending on preferred spice level)
- 1 tablespoon honey
- Zest and juice of one lime
- ½ teaspoon salt
For serving:
- Corn tortillas (try this easy homemade recipe!)
- Finely shredded cabbage
- Cilantro
- Lime wedges
- Pepitas
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Spray a baking tray with nonstick cooking oil. Set aside.
- Set up your breading stations. In one bowl, whisk together the almond milk and a pinch of salt and pepper. In a second bowl, stir together the oat flour with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add the breadcrumbs to a third bowl.
- Take 3-4 pieces of pumpkin and dunk them into the almond milk. Shake off any excess liquid and coat them in the oat flour. Shake off the excess and dunk them back into the almond milk. Next, set them into the breadcrumbs and roll them around to coat. Place them on the baking tray. Repeat until all of the pumpkin is breaded. Spray the breaded pumpkin with the nonstick cooking spray to encourage browning. Bake for 15 minutes, flip, and bake for another 15.
- While the pumpkin is cooking, add all of the chipotle crema ingredients into a high speed blender. Blend until smooth.
- Once the pumpkin is finished cooking, serve the tacos with desired toppings.
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