But if for some reason you’re sharing, these jackfruit tacos are a saucy, lick-your-fingers addition to the weeknight roster for the vegans and non-vegans in your life. They’re ready in fewer than 30 minutes, and couldn’t be simpler to pull together—it’s more assembling than cooking, really.
What Is Jackfruit?
If you’re not familiar with jackfruit, it’s a large fruit that’s thought to be indigenous to India. Today, it grows in tropical regions, such as Southeast Asia and Brazil. It can be purchased frozen in its ripe, sweet form and used in dessert recipes or smoothies, or you can find it in its young green unripe form, packaged in cans. Both are edible, but they’re not interchangeable per se. For today’s recipe, we’re focusing on unripe canned jackfruit. Young green unripe jackfruit has the texture of a stringy, pulled meat but doesn’t actually taste anything like meat on its own; in fact, it tastes more like artichokes! But much like tofu, jackfruit takes on the flavor of whatever sauce, marinade or spices you’re cooking it with, making it an incredibly versatile meat substitute and an obvious choice for vegetarian tacos, sandwiches, salads, and wraps.
Where To Buy Jackfruit
How To Prepare Your Jackfruit
Be sure to buy canned unripe, green or young jackfruit for this recipe. (Ripe jackfruit is sweeter and has a different texture; it won’t work in this recipe.) After removing it from the can, give the pieces of jackfruit a good rinse to remove that briny, salty flavor. Next, shred your jackfruit before starting to cook. Take the larger canned chunks and simply use your fingers or a fork to shred them, much like you would pulled pork or chicken, or canned tuna, which it loosely resembles. If you’ve got little bits of the core on some of the chunks, don’t worry about those. You can leave them as they are or give them a quick chop with a kitchen knife. They’re edible as well. And you won’t even notice them once you cook the fruit down.
Ways To Use Leftover Pulled Jackfruit
If you end up having leftover jackfruit filling, it’s great folded into a breakfast burrito, salad, or wrap. But if your crew is anything like mine, leftovers won’t be likely with these quick, new family favorites!
More Meat-Free Mains To Try!
Cauliflower Chickpea Curry Roasted Poblano Corn Chowder Pesto Pasta With Spinach and Avocado Eggplant Parmesan Easy Tuscan Bean Soup
Canned jackfruit doesn’t have to be cooked, per se. But it’s nice to heat this recipe up for the taco filling. You can re-heat any leftover jackfruit by sautéeing it over medium heat for 4 to 6 minutes. You can also reheat it in the microwave for a minute or so straight from the fridge, or a couple of additional minutes, if frozen. Leftover jackfruit is the perfect addition to any meatless, vegan or vegetarian meal.
10 to 12 (6-inch) corn tortillas 1 ripe avocado, thinly sliced 4 radishes, thinly sliced 1/3 cup cilantro leaves, roughly chopped 1/3 cup red cabbage, shredded 1/3 cup corn kernels, canned, frozen and defrosted, or fresh from the cob 1/4 cup sour cream, optional 1 lime, cut into wedges
Stir to evenly distribute the spices and cook for another 4 to 5 minutes, or until the jackfruit is browned and slightly crisped around the edges. Fold in the orange zest.
