In a dairy free slump? Try this “cheese” sauce, made with whole food ingredients while still being delicious and creamy.
Dairy Free Cheeses Can Be Questionable
If you have ever tried dairy free cheese sauce, you know it can be a little difficult to mimic the creaminess as well as the flavor of cheese.
But sometimes, you just need a little cheese sauce in your life. A friend gave me this recipe years ago and it is good one.
The cashews in the recipe help with the creaminess and the nutritional yeast helps with the cheese flavor.
Vegetables For The Win
I love that this sauce starts with a vegetable base. One more way to get those nutrients into our bodies!
Once the vegetables are cooked, they will be blended with the cashews and nutritional yeast and that’s it.
The cashews can be soaked to help with digestibility as well as creaminess but, if you don’t have time, you can throw them in just as they are.
So Versatile!
Most of the time, I use this for baked potatoes. I roast my potatoes. Cook up some broccoli and then top the potato with the cheese sauce. Yum!!
However, it is also great for lots of others things. Add it to soup to make it more cheesy and/or creamy. Use it as a cheese replacement for nachos. Spread it on toast with egg and ham. Smother noodles with it for a quick macaroni and “cheese”. Get creative.
Sausage, Green Chili Dip
For valentines day, I like to do a fun unique dinner for my husband and kids and this year, I decided to make sourdough pretzel bites and dips.
This cheese sauce by itself was great for pretzel dipping but, to bring it up a notch, I browned some onions, a little sausage and a can of green chilies with a little salt and pepper and then stirred that mixture into this cheese sauce. It was delicious and unique and fun!
If you also need something dairy free to be delicious, unique and fun, give it a try.
Veggie “Cheese” Sauce
½ cup raw cashews
2 cups potatoes, peeled and roughly chopped
1 cup carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 cups onion, roughly chopped
3 cloves garlic, peeled
2 cups water
1 teaspoon paprika
2 ½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup nutritional yeast
Place the cashews in a bowl. Cover them with water. Let them soak for at least 4 hours or up to overnight. When ready to make the sauce, place potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper and water in an instant pot insert. Pressure-cook the vegetables for 5 minutes.
Alternatively, you can boil the veggies on the stove in a pot for about 20 minutes or until they are soft. Once your vegetables are soft, transfer them to a strong blender. I use a Vitamix. Drain the water from the cashews. Add the cashews and nutritional yeast to the blender and blend until smooth.
Hot liquids expand as they blend so give yourself room for that expansion. If your blender is smaller, you can blend in batches and stir everything together in a bowl afterward. Add additional seasoning if desired. Serve warm. This can be reheated, if needed.
Extra sauce can be frozen. I place 1-cup amounts in sandwich size bags labeled with the date and the contents. Freeze them flat so they defrost quickly. Place those small sandwich bags inside a larger freezer bag and freeze for up to 3 months.
