Jackfruit Tacos Pibil (Cochinita Pibil Vegan)

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Cochinita Pibil was my culinary discovery of last year. 🇲🇽 After moving house, I suddenly found myself living near a fantastic Mexican restaurant and slowly began to work my way through the menu. Cochinita Pibil was one of the restaurant’s recommendations and the first bite was an explosion of flavour: intense, slightly sour, with a very subtle spiciness. 🥰

I was blown away, but there was one problem: as the name suggests, the tacos contain pork 🐷 but I try to eat as little meat as possible. The pork didn’t really add to the flavor - the dish is clearly driven by the fantastic achiote sauce.

After some research and chatting with a Mexican friend (hola, M. 👋) it was clear that going meatless was also an option. Jackfruit seemed to be the best vegetarian alternative because of its meat-like consistency. Incidentally, this also makes the recipe vegan.

Jackfruit is now available in many supermarkets, for example in brine as a canned product. I have tried both freeze-dried jackfruit and canned jackfruit and can recommend the canned variety: Although I soaked the freeze-dried jackfruit in water for a relatively long time, they remained a little chewy after frying, whereas the canned jackfruit had just the right consistency. I also found recipes from Mexican food bloggers that use oyster mushrooms instead of jackfruit - so if your local supermarket doesn’t have jackfruit yet, this might be an easier alternative.

The key ingredient in the sauce is achiote powder, which has a spicy-sour taste and an intense red color. I found it in a small Mexican grocery store, but you may have to order it online. But don’t worry: these tacos are so delicious that it’s worth it - you’ll want to make them again and again!

Traditionally, the tacos are served simply with pickled red onions. Of course you can also add other ingredients, but I wouldn’t overdo it so that the flavour of the achiote sauce comes through.

The recipe for the tacos with achiote sauce is based on the recipe from Kiwi Limón, who use mushrooms instead (YouTube, Website). The recipe for the pickled red onions is from Lil Vienna.

Recipe #

Jackfruit Tacos Pibil (Cochinita Pibil vegan)

30 minutes

2 portions

Ingredients #

Onion pickles

• 1 small red onion (approx. 120 g)
• 8 g sugar
• 4 g salt
• 60 g apple or white wine vinegar
• 120 g water

Jackfruit Pibil

• 300 g jackfruit in brine (drained weight, incl. brine approx. 565 g)
• 1 small red onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• about 50 g vegetable stock
• 100-125 g orange juice
• 1 cube of achiote powder (about 25 g)
• optional: 1-2 dried guajillo chilies
• 1 teaspoon of oregano
• 1 teaspoon of thyme
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 tablespoons oil for frying
• 6-8 corn tortillas
• 1 squeeze of lemon juice

Directions #

1. First prepare the onion pickles - ideally a few hours in advance, but preferably 1-2 days: peel the onion, halve lengthwise and cut into fine stripes/rings. In a small saucepan, heat the sugar and salt in the vinegar and water until dissolved. (Do not boil!) Place the onions in a clean mason jar and pour the vinegar/water mixture over them. Close the lid and leave to cool, then store in the fridge. (They will taste even better if left to stand overnight and the colour will be more intense.)
2. Drain the jackfruit and cut into pieces about 1cm long.
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan and brown the jackfruit cubes. Reduce the heat to medium and continue to fry for about 5-10 minutes.
4. Peel and chop the onion and garlic. Place in a blender with the orange juice, vegetable stock, chilli peppers, achiote powder, thyme, oregano, salt and pepper (to ensure the garlic and onion are finely chopped it may be a good idea to start with a little less liquid and then add the remaining juice and stock and blend).
5. Add the achiote sauce to the jackfruit cubes and simmer over a medium heat until reduced, about 10-15 minutes. Stir regularly to prevent the jackfruit cubes from sticking together.
6. Arrange in tacos and serve with pickled onions and a squeeze of fresh lemon juice.

Carbon Footprint #

In total, two portions of Jackfruit Tacos Pibil have an estimated carbon footprint of 899 g.

This ranks it number 9 out of 56 recipes published on the blog so far in terms of estimated carbon footprint.

This means that it belongs to the quarter of recipes that have the lowest climate impact (i.e. top 25%). 🥰

Looking at the individual ingredients, it is particularly noticeable that the processed ingredients such as oil, vinegar, stock or tortillas tend to require more CO₂ equivalents per kg than unprocessed ingredients such as onions. Overall, the recipe has a very good CO₂ balance per gram of ingredient weight, thanks in part to very climate-friendly ingredients such as onions or, well, water.

The onions have a significantly lower estimated carbon footprint than the jackfruit (about 200 g CO₂ equivalent for 1 kg onion vs. about 900 g CO₂ equivalent for 1 kg jackfruit) - however, this is not necessarily because jackfruit has to be imported: If domestic mushrooms were used instead of imported jackfruit, the overall estimated carbon footprint for the recipe would be higher overall (about +120 g) because mushrooms have a slightly worse overall climate footprint (about 1300-1400 g CO₂ equivalents for 1 kg of mushrooms).

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