I have a go-to vegan “cheez” sauce recipe that I can make in about 2 minutes that is loosely based off of a recipe from Alecia Silverstone’s The Kind Diet. It’s basically a couple of tablespoons of non-dairy milk, about double that amount of nutritional yeast, a dash of tamari soy sauce, and a dash of dry mustard. Whisk it up and put it on anything; I usually use it in wraps, on sandwiches, in salads, and just to dunk chips in.
When I was making real-deal (non-vegan) mac & cheese a few weeks ago, it started with making a roux of flour and butter, adding milk and cheese, then putting it on macaroni before baking it. I thought to myself, “Why can’t I use all vegan ingredients for this?”
So I did last week, and it worked out great! You can definitely tell it doesn’t taste the same as regular home-made cheese sauce, but my boyfriend couldn’t tell that it was vegan, so it must not have been too far off!
Vegan “Cheez” Sauce
Makes about 1 cup of sauce.
- 1 cup non-dairy milk of choice (I used unsweetened almond)
- 2 tbsp vegan butter (I used Earth Balance Soy-Free)
- 1/4 cup flour
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tsp dry mustard
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp garlic powder
- dash of sea salt
Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Slowly whisk in flour and half of the milk. Bring to a boil and continue to whisk until the roux gets solid enough that it starts to pull away from the sides of the pot. It will look something like this:
Lower the heat to medium-low and whisk in remaining ingredients. Let simmer until it reaches your desired consistency.
Use with macaroni, as a dip, on tacos, or anywhere else you’d normally use cheese sauce!
I mixed about half of this sauce with four servings of mostly-cooked macaroni, put each in individual ramekins, drizzled some more of the sauce on top of each, and baked at 350 degrees F for 15 minutes. It made a fantastic dinner and went great with a spinach salad!
I’ll post another delicious recipe soon that uses this sauce in another way…!
