Most of what we know about Mexican food in Chicago — or anywhere else, for that matter — usually involves a lot of meat and cheese. Whether it’s chicken tinga tacos, enchiladas stuffed with beef, or nachos topped with sour cream and cheese, meat seems to figure consistently in Mexican cooking.
However, a lot of indigenous Mexican food is actually plant-based, which means there’s plenty of delicious options when it comes to vegan Mexican food in Chicago, and elsewhere around the country.
If you’ve been searching for excellent vegan Mexican food in your Chicago neighborhood, don’t worry, help is here. In this post, we’ll help you explore all things vegan and Mexican, so you know your options here at Healthy Substance — your friendly neighborhood vegan Mexican restaurant.
Healthy beverages
At Healthy Substance, we serve refreshingly good smoothies, juices, and fruit water.
For smoothies, you can select from a variety of fresh fruit concoctions blended with almond or coconut milk. You can have some extras, too, or add-ons to put more nutrition in your drink. There’s acai, chia, cacao nibs, hemp or flax seeds, matcha, turmeric, pecan, spirulina, and so much more.
Our energizing juices sweetened with agave (optional) are packed with antioxidants from different healthy ingredients like kiwi, orange, avocado, carrot, celery, parsley, ginger, cucumber, and more. You can also have your fill of our basic orange or carrot juice, or fresh fruit water with orange, horchata, lime, chia, and pineapple. If you want to keep the original fruit fiber, you can have a delightful fruit cup instead.
Proper vegan Mexican food
So, where do we start? We’ve got most of your Mexican favorites simmering, boiling, steaming, or simply being prepped in our kitchen.
There’s three types of breakfast burritos you can enjoy anytime. We also serve honest-to-goodness comfort food chilaquiles; six types of appetizing tamales; vegan soup and pizza, chips, nachos, and tacos; yummy gorditas; filling flautas; and a variety of vegan sandwiches.
Take note that everything we serve is vegan yet you won’t even know the difference — in fact, it may even taste better than what you’re used to. We use vegan cheese, vegan eggs, vegan meat variations, vegan sour cream, and so on — you know the drill — to make sure that anyone who enjoys vegan food now and then, or on a full-time basis, has access to authentic vegan fare.
Sweet temptations
No meal is complete without a sweet ending, so we’ve made sure to give your sweet tooth a couple of tasty vegan alternatives. There’s apple pie tart, brownies, pumpkin muffin, three kinds of cake (banana, chocolate, and carrot), cookies, rice pudding, five types of Danish pastries, and healthy granola bars — perfect for your mad dash in and out of the subway.
The best of vegan Mexican fare at Healthy Substance
Now that plant-based eating is on the main menu, Mexican restaurant offerings are poised to revisit the cuisine’s indigenous roots. And this is a timely development because we all know about the health and environmental benefits provided by a predominantly vegetarian or plant-based diet. A vegan diet not only means people get to consume richer, nutrient-dense foods for overall wellness but also provides access to sustainable food sources that require less energy, land, and water to produce.
So, if you’re ever in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood, or simply in search of the best vegan Mexican food in Chicago, make sure to look us up.
Healthy Substance is the only fully vegan Mexican restaurant in the state, and made it to Yelp’s list called “America’s Top 100 Places to Eat.” It must mean something, right?
See you soon!