Jackfruit!! Do you know about jackfruit?! You MUST know about jackfruit. It is the perfect 100% whole food meat substitute. The very first time I had it I was truly skeptical that I hadn’t accidentally been served chicken. But it’s simply a fruit (as I described in my first post on it!) that amazingly happens to have the texture of pulled chicken or pork. Craziness.
This makes it the perfect base for many dishes. The obvious one is BBQ pulled “pork”, and while it’s the one that the interwebs are full of, I had to try my hand at it too for my first time playing with jackfruit. And I’m so glad I did! It was so good I made it again 2 days later. Bonus: it’s vegan, low sodium (not always easy with BBQ sauce), and gluten free. If you’re not worried about gluten free you can serve this on a bun and have the perfect Memorial Day sandwich.
So now’s your chance to play! Try out my recipe below, and then experiment yourself! I would love to hear in the comments what other interesting creations you can come up with. I will definitely be continuing to experiment as well. I’ve already tried out this jackfruit “tuna” melt, and it’s incredible. What else have you heard about or tried out yourself?
1, 2, 3 – delicious! :D
Notes: Make sure to look for green jackfruit in brine! Ripe jackfruit in syrup will be sweet and appropriate for dessert, not a savory dish.
Also, to make this low sodium, check the sodium content on the different jackfruit brands. I found one that was low but some are extremely high. The one I found is pictured below the recipe so you know what to look for. :)
Ingredients
- 2 cans green jackfruit in brine
- 1 t onion powder
- 2 t garlic powder
- 1 t allspice
- 1 t chili powder
- 1 1/2 t paprika
- 1 t salt free seasoning (I use Frontier salt free seasoning blend )
- 3/4 C no-salt ketchup
- 1/4 C maple syrup
- 2 t apple cider vinegar
- 2 t liquid smoke
- kale
- avocado
- corn tortillas
Instructions
- Drain the jackfruit and rinse.
- Chop the solid tips off and set aside. Use your fingers to "pull" the stringy part of each piece of fruit and add to a large bowl. Mince the solid pieces you chopped off, and add to the bowl.
- Add all dry spices, and let marinate for about half an hour.
- Add all wet ingredients, and let marinate for another half an hour.
- Heat a medium saute pan over medium heat, and add a few tablespoons of water.
- When the water has very fine bubbles, the pan should be hot enough. Add the jackfruit mixture, and sauté for approximately 10 minutes to allow the sauce to thicken. Make sure not to burn; adjust heat as necessary. Remove from heat.
- Meanwhile heat a large sauté pan over medium/medium-low heat, and do the same thing with heating water to sauté in. While pan is heating, rip the kale leaves off the stems and chop into bite-size pieces. When the 2nd pan is hot, add the kale and sauté for just a minute or two to allow to wilt. Remove from heat.
- Cut avocados open and scoop out the flesh.
- Assemble tacos: heat tortillas briefly if desired, then layer with BBQ mixture and kale. Serve with avocado (and coleslaw if desired!) on the side.
- Enjoy!!
Low sodium jackfruit brand
Made these tonight and they were very good! BUT 2400mg per can of the specific brand you show is NOT low sodium.
These were delicious! And not at all difficult to put together. The flavour and visual likeness is dead-on, and the texture is allllllmost indistinguishable. But it’s been so long since I’ve had pulled pork, maybe I’m misremembering ;)
Hey Esther! Fist time checking out your blog, love it!
We have been dying to get our hands on some Jack Fruit so we can make Jack Fruit Tacos like these…only none of our stores carry it. I think this is a sign we need to make a special trip for some.
I’ll let you know when we finally make some:)
Welcome!!! Thanks for checking out my corner of the world. *Definitely* find some jackfruit… it’s amazing. Have you tried the Asian stores? Oh! Or Amazon?? I just checked and it’s definitely available there. :)