
This Mexican Vegan Albondigas in Chipotle-tomato broth recipe has everything you need to feel nourished and well-fed. These Mexican meatballs are made with brown rice, beans, and mushrooms.
The chipotle broth, or caldillo as we say it in Mexico, has tomato and all the things to make it perfect. They are extraordinary; you have to try them.
What are albondigas?
Albondiga means meatball in Spanish. In Mexico, we eat a lot of albondigas (meatballs). There are many types and different recipes. There are meatballs in clear broth, tomato-based broth, meatballs stuffed with cheese, rice, vegetables, and even hard-boiled eggs.
Albondiga Meatball recipe ingredients
- Cooked brown rice. I always like to have some grain in the refrigerator to make any recipe for soup or other dishes faster. I made these vegan albondigas with brown rice, but white rice or quinoa can also work here.
- Cooked black beans can be used canned or prepared at home.
- Mushrooms: to make these vegan meatballs even faster, use sliced mushrooms.
- Oil and vegetable oil have a neutral flavor. It can be avocado or safflower oil.
- Bread crumbs or panko. I like to use panko (Japanese-style breadcrumbs) more than normal breadcrumbs. Panko has a coarser texture than breadcrumbs and gives meatballs a better bite.
- Garlic powder: it is essential to pay attention and not use garlic salt; it must be garlic powder.
- Salt
- Oregano if you can get dried Mexican oregano, that would be better.
Ingredients for the chipotle-tomato sauce, caldillo
- Tomato. You can use canned tomato, natural tomato, or homemade tomato sauce.
- Onion. Use white, yellow, or even red onion. The important thing is that it is fresh and gives a lot of flavor to our sauce.
- Garlic. Because everything tastes better with garlic.
- Chipotle in adobo. The chipotle chile that comes in cans is very good. You can blend the entire can to make a chipotle paste to use in other recipes, like creamy tomato soup.
- Dried oregano. It’s the same if you get Mexican oregano better.
- Salt
- Cilantro
- Oil: As for the meatballs, use neutral flavored oil.


How do you make vegan albondigas in chipotle broth?
- Put the tablespoon of oil in a hot frying pan and brown the mushrooms for 10-15 minutes. Do not add salt to them; the salt will extract the liquid. When cooled down, put them in the food processor along with the brown rice, beans, breadcrumbs or panko, garlic powder, salt, and oregano. Pulse several times until everything is integrated.
- Shape the meatballs and brown them in oil until they brown on all sides.
How to make the chipotle tomato sauce?
- To make the sauce, or caldillo as we call it in Mexico, put all the ingredients, except the oil, in the blender and blend until everything is perfectly well blended and smooth.
- Add the teaspoon of oil to a pot, heat a little, and add the sauce. Bring to a boil and lower the heat. Simmer for about five or seven minutes. Try and adjust the seasoning if necessary.
- To serve, smother the meatballs with tomato chipotle sauce.
🔥Important tips ・When making the vegan meatballs, don't let the food processor run. It is better that pulse several times and wait until the ingredients are integrated and the mixture stays together when you form the albondiga. • If you let the processor run intead of using the pulse function, you run the risk on making a make a dough without texture or a paste. • A tip on how to know if the caldillo is already is when it begins to change color. The caldillo turns bright red and begins to smell delicious.


How to serve the vegan albondigas
These vegan Mexican meatballs can be served on their own, on a bed of white rice or brown rice, in corn tortilla taco, on pasta, or on zucchini noodles. Anyway, they taste super delicious and are super easy to make.
But for me, the best way is to serve them on a bed of rice so that the tomato sauce with chipotle stays in it. It really is delicious.

Mexican vegan albondigas en chipotle
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1½ cups brown or white rice, cooked
- 1½ cup black beans, cooked and without their liquid
- 8 oz sliced mushrooms, 227 grs
- 1 tablespoon of oil
- 1 cup of breadcrumbs or panko
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon oregano
- oil to brown the meatballs
Instructions
- In a frying pan, put the tablespoon of oil and brown the mushrooms for 10-15 minutes. When cooled, put them in the food processor along with the rice, beans, breadcrumbs, garlic powder, salt, and oregano. Press several times until everything is well integrated.
- Shape the meatballs and brown very well in oil until they are browned on all sides.
- To make the sauce, put all the ingredients, except the oil in the blender and blend until everything is perfectly well blended.
- In a pot put the teaspoon of oil, heat a little and add the sauce. Bring to the first boil and lower the heat. Leave it for about five, seven minutes. Try and adjust if necessary.
- To serve, bathee the meatballs with the chipotle sauce.
Nutrition
information
Nutritional information of this recipe is only an estimate, the accuracy for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
This recipe appeared first in Ale Cooks in 2016.
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