Nature’s Plate Plant-Based Meal Prep: Vegan Enchiladas with Cheese | Annette Baker & Marianne Lacko

5 DELICIOUS DINNER RECIPES to support your weight loss:
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We (Annette Baker and Marianne Lacko) are sisters and the co-founders/owners of Nature’s Plate – a whole food, plant-based meal prep company in Dallas. We’ve been interested in health and wellness since our early 20s. We had both been vegan for 10+ years and founded Nature’s Plate based on our belief that the standard American diet is the biggest cause of our current health crisis and that a diet based on whole, plant foods can help most people avoid pharmaceutical solutions and chronic disease including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and many forms of cancer.
We specialize in creating whole food, plant-based meals that are nutritious and delicious. We make it easy to not only eat vegan, but to eat healthy and nourish your body. We make almost everything from scratch in our Dallas kitchen and are completely locally owned and operated.
Our bakery items are unique even in the vegan world – we have a wide variety of whole grain, gluten free cookies and other goodies with no added oil. And no one feels like they are sacrificing taste when they eat them.

We are both avid runners – as we moved our diets more towards whole food, plant-based (not just vegan), we were able to recover more quickly from our workouts. This was huge for us as we were both in our forties by this point. Annette even qualified for the Boston Marathon fueled by a WFPB diet!

We had been meal prepping for ourselves and each other (we always traded food to keep it interesting) for a number of years. Some people at my office would participate periodically. A friend at work told me she wanted to participate but she didn’t want to cook — she wanted to pay me. I had just had my daughter, so I said no, but I told Annette. She thought it sounded intriguing. That is really how it all started.

Several people at my office started “ordering.” Annette cooked all the food on Sundays, and I hauled it all to work on Mondays. As interest grew, we continued to educate ourselves about nutrition and commercial cooking. Nature’s Plate became an official business in 2012…expanding beyond friends, family, and co-workers at the beginning of 2014. With a lot of help from our husbands and children, we opened our own kitchen and the first storefront in August 2015. The second storefront at Preston/Forest opened in May 2018, followed by the Plano storefront in January of 2019. (The pandemic put a damper on our retail business, and we have since closed two storefronts to focus on delivery, which is not our primary channel.).

Nature’s Plate has been a Food for Life Education Alliance partner since 2020. Annette also holds a Plant-Based Certification from T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies.
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YouTube – Naturesplate

Enchiladas w/ Cheese Sauce: 6 servings

CHEESE SAUCE

1/2 cup raw cashews – soaked for 4+ hours if not using high speed blender
1 1/4 cups water
3/4 cups nutritional yeast
1/3 cup diced red bell pepper
1 small gold potato, boiled or microwaved until soft
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon salt or Herbamare
1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
3/4 teaspoons cumin
3/4 teaspoons chili powder
1/2 teaspoons onion powder
2-6 sliced pickled jalapenos (depending on preferred heat level)

DIRECTIONS
Blend all ingredients in high speed blender until smooth.
ENCHILADA FILLING
4 cups minced (can use food processor) mushrooms (11 ounces)
1 cup diced onion
1 – 2 teaspoons olive oil (optional – water saute if not used)
1 1/2 cups cooked quinoa (1/2 cup uncooked)
1 3/4 cups cooked green or brown lentils (1/2 cup dry, cooked in boiling water for 25 minutes)

Spice Mix:

1 1/2 teaspoons salt or herbamare
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 1/2 teaspoons paprika
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon oregano
2 teaspoons nutritional yeast

1/4 cup water
12 corn tortillas
DIRECTIONS
Make Cheese Sauce first (recipe below).
Saute onion and mushroom in small amount of water (start w/ 1 Tbs) until mushrooms have released liquid and dried out.
Add all other ingredients including water. Stir and mash thoroughly.
Cook several minutes to dry out.
Roll equal amount of mixture (about 1/4 cup) into each warmed corn tortilla and place in 9 x 13 pan.
Cover with Cheese Sauce.
Cook uncovered at 350 for 10 minutes.

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