The Healthy Cheese Sauce Recipe That Tastes Like The Unhealthy Stuff
Vegan cheese is a game-changer for all those vegetarians who want to become vegan but cannot give up cheese. In addition to tofu cheese, Daiya slices, and cashew cheese, this nutritional yeast based cheese sauce recipe is homemade and does not require fermentation.
My Cheese Sauce Story
The first time I got wind of this “cheese” sauce recipe was about 3 years ago. When I made it, I was skeptical but the first taste I took out of the blender was a moment that I will remember forever. The mysterious cheesiness hit me hard. Against all odds, I could barely taste the potatoes and carrots that made up the bulk of this sauce. From that moment on, I swore to myself that I would never eat fast food and movie theatre cheese sauce ever again. Fast forward 3 years, I have eaten fast food and movie theatre cheese sauce countless times (only because I was living abroad without a blender, promise) but not as many as if I had not known about the recipe. Since the discovery of this genius combination, I have had guilt-free cheese “fries” at home and even eaten this gooey orange stuff with a spoon straight out of the blender. Gross, I know, but not as gross if I had been eating the liquid cheese from fast food restaurants.
The Recipe
From a quick Google search, I discovered many different variations of the recipe that I had originally used. Some of them included the addition of nuts, nut milks, and fermentation. Although I am sure that these recipes are equally or more delicious, I want to share the recipe that was everywhere when vegan cheese sauce first became a thing.
The recipe is just so simple and delicious that there will be no space left for movie theatre cheese sauce in your heart. Cut 2 medium-sized potatoes and 1 small carrot into chucks and boil until they are soft. Take out those veggies and put them into a blender with a bit of boiling water. Add good olive oil, salt, and at least half a cup of nutritional yeast. As you blend these ingredients together, add more water if it is too thick and more nooch until it tastes cheesy enough for the cheese monster inside of you. That’s it!
Best Food Combinations
I used to love cheese fries but since I discovered this recipe, I began to make “cheese fries” at home. Cut potatoes into your favourite fry size and pan fry them in a cast iron skillet with a bit of oil. Cover the skillet with a lid if they are thicker. When they begin to turn translucent, take them out of the pan and pour your cheese sauce all over! This is my guilt-free solution to my cheese fries problem.
Another great dish to make with this cheese sauce is cheesy broccoli. Simply pour the sauce all over steamed broccoli. The added richness and creaminess to the steamed greens means that you will probably eat them faster than usual.
This sauce can also be used for a vegan mac and cheese but personally, I think it makes the dish far too starchy and a bit dry. It may be delicious with a more watery sauce but proceed with caution.
Clean Up
The clean up for this recipe is minimal: you only need to wash a pot and the blender. However, the sauce is sticky and will coat the entire inside of your blender. I don’t like to waste food so I experimented with different ways to get every drop of this cheese sauce out of the blender including sitting in front of Netflix with a spoon in hand eating what’s left inside the blender for the next half hour.
My tip is to make a blended soup right after you make this cheese sauce. After you pour everything out, have some steamed broccoli or pumpkin ready to throw into the container with some hot broth. Once you have blended a soup in the container, the leftover cheese sauce will be combined into the soup. Just think it through beforehand to make sure the cheesy flavour will complement the vegetables in your soup well.
