This Vegan Mac and Cheese is super “cheesy”, creamy and delicious. You’d never even guess it has zero cheese whatsoever!
PinMore and more these days, I see parents raising their kids to eat a vegan diet. That means no meat, dairy, eggs, honey or any other food derived from animal products. For many kids, that might translate to no fun. A life with no mac and cheese could be a very sad place, but luckily a vegan mom I know taught me years ago how to make this “cheesy”, full-flavored pasta dish which my kids still adore.
PinInstead of cheese made from cow’s milk, the recipe calls for nutritional yeast, a flakey powder rich in B vitamins that tastes just like cheese. The ingredients might seem unusual if you’re not used to them, but trust me, vegan or not, this recipe is delicious. I’d be surprised if your little one’s can tell the difference from the real thing!
PinLiving with two vegetarians in the family, we try more and more to eat plant based as much as we can. I’m always excited when I can come up with a new vegetarian or vegan recipe that everyone loves. Lately we’ve been making Veggie Bolognese Sauce, Cauliflower Steaks, Wild Mushroom Pasta and Vegetarian Skillet Lasagna to name a few of our favorites. But there are tons more on weelicious!
PinThis recipe takes barely any time to whip up once you’ve soaked the cashews you use to make the vegan cheese sauce. All you do is put all the ingredients in a blender and then pour over your cooked pasta. It’s super simple and a great recipe to get kids involved in making. My littlest loves pressing the button on the blender to whiz up the sauce!
PinWill you be trying out this Vegan Mac and Cheese? Let me know what you think if you do!
Vegan Mac & Cheese
Ingredients
- 1 pound pasta
- 1 1/2 cups raw cashews
- 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 1/4 cup almond, oat, soy or other plant based milk of choice
- 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
Instructions
- Place cashews in a medium bowl and cover with water to soak for 45 minutes up to overnight. Drain the water off the cashews before using.
- Cook pasta according to package directions.
- While the pasta is cooking, place the cashews, nutritional yeast, garlic powder, plant based milk, turmeric and salt in a blender and blend on high for 30 seconds or until creamy.
- Drain the water off the pasta and return the pasta to the pot. Pour the sauce over the pasta and stir to coat. Place the pasta over low heat stirring for 1-2 minutes or until the sauce is heated through.
My kids used to love to make a simplified vesrion of this by using refrigerator biscuits. Little pieces of biscuit were pinched off, rolled in sugar & cinnamon and put in a bundt pan. Then melted butter was poured over the top. A little easier for little people, but this one looks delicious!I love your blog.Susan
Can;t wait to try this since it seems easier to make, plus less salty and oily, than my go-to vegan mac & cheese recipe. Thanks!
This was AWESOME! Didn’t have dijon so I used regular. My Dairy free son loved it!!!! Thank you
I was craving mac & cheese so I searched for a recipe and made this on a whim. THIS IS SO DELICIOUS. Thank you for changing my vegan world. I will share this with everyone.
I combined the listed ingredients for the cheez sauce, however, it came out like a consistency of a bouillon paste. So I put the heat back on low and stirred in a tablespoon of turmeric and 1/2 cup of unsweetened almond milk and it came out really well. I browsed the internet for a vegan mac&chz recipe that listed ingredients I already had in my pantry so I didn’t have to go to the store. This one happened to call for everything I already had. I’ve only cooked pre-made cheese powder and never from scratch, I would like to try a baked recipe maybe with some bread crumbs and peas or something. I’ll post the verdict if I get around to making it.
thanks for the easy recipe! it’s definitely an acquired taste…but i guess i acquired it since i ate more than half of it in one sitting : ) i made one change though: 1/2 C seemed like way too much earth balance (that’s what i used) for me so i used half that amount and it worked out great.
[…] weelicious keeps it simple with margarine, nutritional yeast, Braggs or soy sauce, Dijon mustard, and garlic […]
I know someone has asked this question before, but I don’t think it got answered – should I be using Nutritional yeast flakes or something different? I’m still new to the world of nutritional yeast and I’m not sure what to be looking for…
I tried this and I was a bit skeptical b/c of the mustard and soy sauce. I tried it and sad to say, I didn’t care for it at all.