basically vegan mac n cheese
This vegan cheesy pasta isn’t too far off from the electric orange Kraft macaroni and cheese. The recipe is inspired by Cookie and Kate’s recipe, with an addition of carrot to give the sauce more of an electric orange feel.
To be honest, it didn’t really taste like mac and cheese to me. It tasted good, like a creamy, cheesy pasta, but not real cheese mac and cheese. So I’ve decided to call it cheesy pasta instead, to separate it from the high expectations of vegan mac and cheese. I substituted macaroni noodles for a different short pasta to further separate the dish from a traditional mac and cheese.
The base is thick and creamy, without the cream. It’s a blended up mixture of softened shallots, carrots, potatoes, and cashews. The great part of Cookie and Kate’s method is that you don’t have to soak the cashews overnight, and you don’t have to use too many of them — only 2/3 of a cup! If you want to try a more mac and cheese vegan mac and cheese, you should probably find a different recipe that has more cashews and less vegetables as the base.
Ingredients:
- 1 shallot, chopped
- 1 carrot, grated
- 1/2 russet potato, grated
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Pinch red pepper flakes
- 2/3 cup raw cashews
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp lemon juice or vinegar
- Cooked pasta
Directions:
- Cook the onion in some olive oil until translucent, about 5 minutes
- Add carrot, potato, spices, cook for 1 minute
- Add cashews, 1 cup of water, simmer 8 minutes
- Transfer to blender, add nutritional yeast and lemon juice
- Add extra water as needed, blend until smooth
- Pour sauce on top of cook pasta, and serve with salt and pepper, to taste. Enjoy!
