Vegan Mac and Cheese
This is the last mac and cheese recipe you'll need. It's creamy, cheesy, and made using plant based ingredients!
Course Main Course
Cuisine American
Keyword cheese, vegan
Prep Time - 15 minutes mins
Cook Time - 20 minutes mins
Total Time - 35 minutes mins
Servings - 8
- 1 cup raw cashews (Needs to be raw)
- 1 cup russet potato (large chunks (1 medium potato))
- 1/2 cup carrot (large chunks (1 medium carrot))
- 1/4 cup yellow onion (Chopped (a smaller sized onion))
- 4-6 cloves garlic (Rough chopped)
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 1/2 cups non-dairy milk (Unsweetened oat milk is my preference)
- 2 tablespoons corn starch
- 2 tablespoons white miso paste (Not red, might be called "mellow")
- 1 teaspoon paprika (Smoked is my preference)
- 1/4-1/2 teaspoon salt (Can be omitted)
- 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
- 16 ounces elbow noodles (Or a different shape)
In a medium sized pot, combine the cashews, potato, carrot, onion, garlic, and enough water to cover by 2". Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 20 minutes. Drain but don't rinse.
Transfer the cooked ingredients to a blender and add the remaining ingredients. Blend until smooth. Add more liquid as needed. It should be thick but pourable.
While the sauce ingredients are cooking, boil your noodles in salted water until they are al dente. Check the noodle box for cooking times. Drain the noodles, don't rinse, and combine the noodles and sauce in either of your used cooking pots. While stirring, heat until bubbling. Remove from heat and let rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.
Add in roasted jalapeno or even canned jalapeno for queso dip, but remember to heat the sauce to thicken it.
In the blog post I talk about browning the onion and garlic but I omitted it from the recipe because it does add extra time and dishes. However, I recommend it, but the cheese sauce doesn't need need it to be delicious. Plus, it's hard to brown onion without burning and I want everyone to have success on their first try!
Don't skip the white miso, because that's the ingredient that gives that cheesy, umami flavor. Nutritional yeast gets close, but the miso really makes this the best.