Easy, flavorful vegan pinwheels, made with just 5 ingredients in 15 minutes or less. Everybody loves this simple, delicious appetizer.
Pinwheels are the perfect party appetizer and also incredibly easy to make. They're not very popular in my country and I discovered them recently, I wish I would try them before!
As I wasn't (and I'm still not) an expert making pinwheels, I preferred to try a simple recipe first, using just a few ingredients (only 5!) and making them cold instead of hot.
My recipe is Italian-inspired. I used cheese, tomatoes, basil, olives and of course flour tortillas, so they taste like pizza and I'm pretty sure everyone is going to love them.
This recipe is pretty flexible, as long as you add the same amount of cream cheese and other ingredients in the same proportion, you can use whatever you want. Adding some spices and herbs like garlic or onion powder, ground black pepper, paprika or dried oregano could be a great idea to make your pinwheels even more flavorful.
looking for more appetizer recipes?
- Mango avocado salsa
- Vegan stuffed avocados
- Baked avocado fries
- Buffalo cauliflower wings
- Vegan spinach and artichoke dip
Did you make this recipe? Please leave a comment below, share it, rate it or tag a picture @simpleveganblog on Instagram and hashtag it #simpleveganblog. We’d love to see what you cook!
Vegan Pinwheels
Ingredients
- ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes
- ½ cup black olives, pitted
- 20 fresh basil leaves
- 8 oz vegan cream cheese, softened, see notes
- 3 large flour tortillas
Instructions
- To rehydrate the sun-dried tomatoes, just soak them in hot water for about 20 minutes or until they’re soft. You can also buy sun-dried tomatoes in olive oil (they're ready to use).
- Drain the sun-dried tomatoes and chop them. Chop the olives and basil as well and add all the filling ingredients to a bowl (sun-dried tomatoes, olives, basil and cream cheese). Then mix until well combined using a fork or a spoon.
- Spread the mixture over the 3 tortillas into an even layer.
- Roll tortillas tightly and slice into 12 pieces (each roll). You should have 36 pinwheels. I prefer to refrigerate the rolls before slicing them for at least 2 hours to harden and also to blend the flavors, but it's totally optional.
- Serve immediately or keep them covered in the fridge for 2 to 3 days.
Notes
- We used store-bought cream cheese, but you can also make our vegan cream cheese recipe (omit the onion powder and dried dill if you want).
- Feel free to use any type of olives, fresh or dried herbs or any ingredient you like.
- We used large tortillas (10 inches or 25 cm), so if you use smaller tortillas, you'll need more.
- If you can't eat gluten, use corn tortillas instead. As they're smaller, you'll need more as well.
Kristen says
Hi there. I’m a bit confused about part of the instructions. Do I stick the three tortillas together then put on the filling and roll it up?. Or is it three seperate tortillas with the filling etc?
Lauren Adasiak Cocilova says
I'm pretty sure it's three separate tortillas, topped and then rolled and sliced. 12 pinwheels from each tortilla = 36 pinwheels total. 🙂
Kristen says
Thank you mate!!!
Lauren says
What kind of store vegan cream cheese do you recommend for this? I seem to only have access to Daiya as far as I can find... Would that work okay?
Iosune says
Hi Lauren! I think it should work, but my favorite brand is Tofutti 🙂
Lauren says
Woof. I did try it with Daiya and it was a disaster. It melted all over the place. 🙁 I will definitely be trying again with Tofutti or Kite Hill. (I did have success making pinwheels with a (vegan, Linda) mayo/sour cream blend seasoned with herbs and fresh spinach, which was very similar to when I used to make pinwheels with dairy cream cheese, so that was nice, but I will definitely try this recipe with a different brand.)
Iosune says
Hi Laure! Hope you enjoy it next time 🙂
Linda During says
Vegan?????? You used CREAM CHEESE????? I'M UNSUBSRIBING!!!!!!!!!!&
JoAnn M Lakes says
Linda, it's vegan cream cheese.
I like how simple it is and I have everything already in the house. I have friends on there way over with no warning. Okay, 15 minutes warning. White wine into the fridge and flour tortillas out of the pantry. This is so easy I can even have a glass of wine while I put it together. Thanks!!!!!
Iosune says
Hi Joann! Thanks a lot for your comment 🙂 Hope you enjoyed them!
Iosune says
Hi Linda! Have you read the recipe? It's VEGAN cream cheese. We're vegans, we only use VEGAN products 🙂