Chef Jocelyn Ramirez's Plant-Based Tamales with Jackfruit and Red Chile Have So Much Flavor

Welcome to The Pioneer Woman Cookbook Club! This month, we're featuring plant-based chef, cookbook author, and founder of Todo Verde, Jocelyn Ramirez. You've got to check out her new book, La Vida Verde: Plant-Based Mexican Cooking with Authentic Flavor. Read on to hear about how Jocelyn is advocating for healthy food in her community and beyond, and then snag a recipe for her delicious plant-based tamales!

Jocelyn Ramirez never expected to become a chef. That is, until the former teacher realized that her plant-based cooking could help not only her family, but also her entire community.

As the East Los Angeles native grew up, she started to notice how much of an impact the lack of accessible good food played on the well-being and health of her loved ones and her neighbors.

"The only thing I could turn to at the time to find any solution was to change the way we were eating," she says.

In 2015, Jocelyn started Todo Verde, a food business she runs with other women of color to make plant-based culturally relevant dishes accessible to Los Angeles's Eastside community. Her first venture toward this mission was selling smoothies and aguas frescas at farmers markets using local produce, incorporating flavors from her Mexican and South American roots.

"I was really trying to integrate all these superfoods that have been a part of our cultures for generations," she explains about using traditional ingredients like chia seeds, amaranth, and cacao. "All these things are now being sold as more of a luxury item, rather than an everyday staple for people of color who have had them as part of their culture for a long, long time."

Creating plant-based dishes that are a reflection her own and her community’s backgrounds and traditions has been a starting point for Jocelyn to have important conversations with others about food equality. She wants these healthy switches to be seen as less of a diet and more of a movement.

"It’s not just about the food itself. It’s about the stories and the history, how we adapt and change traditions," she says.

After the publication of her cookbook, La Vida Verde, she started receiving videos and pictures from families who were cooking together using her recipes. For Jocelyn, who adapted many of the recipes from her late abuelita, it inspires her to have her family's food and stories out there for others to read. "There's an audience hungry for this type of content," she says. "They want to support it because there's a sense of 'I can truly connect to this.'"

To get a taste of Jocelyn's flavorful recipes, you'll find steps to make her Tamal Negro con Yaca en Chile Rojo (or Black Tamales with Jackfruit and Red Chile) included below. If you’ve never cooked with jackfruit before, fear not—Jocelyn walks you through exactly how to shred and flavor the fruit like a pro. Just make sure you buy young green jackfruit—it'll be too sweet if you buy it fresh.