Vegan Cashew Cheese Sauce

Ingredients

For the vegan cashew cheese sauce:

• 1½ cups raw cashews*
• 2 garlic cloves
• ¼ cup nutritional yeast
• 1 cup unsweetened almond milk, plus more to thin if necessary
• 1 jalapeño, chopped (feel free to deseed or leave out if sensitive to spice)
• ½ teaspoon ground turmeric
• ½ teaspoon paprika
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

Step 1

*To make the cashew cheese sauce: soak the cashews in 4 cups of water for at least 2 hours; otherwise I’ve found that you can easily speed up the process by adding the raw cashews to a pot with water and placing over high heat. Bring water to a boil, then immediately turn off the heat; let the cashews sit for 30-45 minutes in the warm water, then drain.

Step 2

Once the cashews have finished soaking you’ll be ready to make the sauce: add drained cashews, garlic, nutritional yeast, almond milk, jalapeno, turmeric, paprika, onion powder, dijon mustard, salt and black pepper to a high powered blender. Blend until a thick sauce comes together. If you want a thinner sauce, add a bit more almond milk. Taste and adjust seasonings as necessary. Enjoy! Serves 6-8, depending on how you use it.

Recipe Notes

If you’re making this for kids, I suggest taking out the seeds of the jalapeno or leaving out the jalapeño completely.

Recipe Notes

If you’re making this for kids, I suggest taking out the seeds of the jalapeño or leaving out the jalapeno completely.

Nutrition

Servings: 8 servings
Serving size: 1 serving (based on 8)
Calories: 151kcal
Fat: 10.9g
Saturated fat: 1.5g
Carbohydrates: 7.8g
Fiber: 3g
Sugar: 1.7g
Protein: 5.5g