food

Most people in the States (and elsewhere?) seem to see salad as independent from an entrée, but one thing I picked up on, common in Mexican restaurants, was to combine the two, basically sitting the latter on top of the former. To my surprise, the end result was significantly better than either one!

You can of course take this in the 'Taco Bell taco salad' direction, enclosing the whole thing in a giant, fried tortilla, depending upon how healthy or non-healthy you want to make it.

For the entrée, like cilantro - lime ground beef, simply use vegan beef crumbles, shredded Boca sausages / burgers as a substitute for the beef in almost any chili-type recipe. I don't know what the vegan options there are for sour cream, but if you can tolerate some healthy dairy, I'd recommend Greek yogurt. Fresh guacamole, shredded cheese substitute and pico de gallo (very simple to make), round out the toppings.

As for the salad below, it only needs to be be pretty basic, for example using non-cabbage greens, sliced red onions, black olives (Greek olives make a very interesting variation), and sliced cucumbers. If you have time to roast some orange / red bell peppers, that's a big win.

To complete, put chips on the side or even sprinkle on top. Also good to have fresh salsa nearby, and a good hot sauce. The spirit here is to combine things in the bowl, maybe even use the chips as a fork-substitute to eat the whole thing!

EDIT: To the hot entrée-- add nutritional yeast as another cheese sub to boost flavor. You can add MSG as well for similar reason unless you know someone has a sensitivity, which is actually quite rare.