My son and I are dairy free, due to a milk protein allergy, so I am in a never ending quest to find a vegan cheese substitute. This recipe claimed to create vegan parmesan cheese. It didn’t. The result is not at all cheese like in either flavor or texture, but it is a yummy savory topping for rice and beans, pasta, or a veggie or fish roast. My husband and I like it, but my kids hate it. More for us I guess.
To make it you blend:
2/3 cup unsalted cashews
2 TBSP nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp turmeric
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I’ve never tried nutritional yeast, but I may have to try this recipe. It sounds simple, I love cashews, but I don’t always want actual cheese
If you’re looking for better recipes, Onion is probably not going to help with making it taste like cheese. Cheese has no onion notes to it. It’s also missing the sour note. You might be able to get just a little bit of some sort of citric acid to add to it. So if you were to mix the seasonings first with a little bit of lemon juice, then mixed it in with the cashews that would work better. Then just let it dry out or put it in the oven to dry a bit. I also generally use almond flour for my “Parmesan cheese” base. I wouldn’t even add any turmeric as it’s just going to add a root-y flavor to it and Parmesan cheese isn’t yellow. I’ve also used pepitas instead of the almond flour and crushed those up for a slightly more bitter taste similar to cheese.
If you need a nacho cheese recipe I have a good one. And if you have access to it, violife cheese is a reeeaaally excellent option.
I’d love your nacho cheese recipe, thanks! I think you are right that lemon would help. Maybe I’ll try adding lemon juice right before using it. The flavor as is is actually quite yummy, it is just not cheese. It reminds me a bit of the cafe yumm sauce that I usually put on bean based dishes. I’ve tried many of the ready made vegan cheeses. I like the follow your heart feta, and their parmesan shreds are okay, but I don’t love their “powdered” parmesan. The violife mozzarella is the best I’ve found for melted “cheese”, but I don’t love how goopy it is, so I usually eat my vegan pizza cold the next day. There’s no perfect substitute, but my body said no more dairy very vehemently, so I make do with the alternatives that exist. Amy’s Kitchen makes a pretty good vegan spinach and cheese ravioli, but it is super pricy. I have no idea what “cheese” they use, but I wish they sold it. I’m always happy to hear new suggestions for options to try. There are certainly far more now than there were in my childhood.
I just went to grab it and they deleted it. I’ve been eyeballing it for awhile and adding my own bits to it like the jalapeno juice and soy sauce. so let me make some and I’ll post the official recipe here soon. This is just a guess for now:
1 1/2 cup Unsweetened oat milk or unsweetened almond milk
1/3 cup nutritional yeast
1 tablespoon corn starch , or potato starch
1 tablespoon tapioca starch
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 dash turmeric
2 tbs jalapeno juice from a hot pickled jalapenos jar
Whisk all ingredients together in a sauce pan. Heat at medium and whisk until it’s boiling. Boil for a minute or so and taste to make sure the bitterness of the soy sauce has dissipated.
The soy sauce sounds really weird but adding salt to make something taste like cheese makes it taste less like cheese. The soy sauce really does the trick once you boil out the bitterness. At some point I want to make it with silken tofu to get better nutrition from it.
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I think I made something very similar (if not the same) a while back and it’s true that, although it’s not like cheese at all, I remember it was pretty darn tasty!
I tried it as a breading on fish today and it was super yummy. Without the expectation of a cheesy flavor, it’s quite good.
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