Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Super Creamy Vegan Cheese Sauce Recipe- With Almond Milk or Sunflower Milk

Moussaka with Vegan Cheese Sauce
I love cheese. I really, really do. My heaven will be made out of cheese. Or something like that. Unfortunately, cheese doesn't really agree with my stomach. I can have it in small quantities and not react too badly, so I would do that more often, however, I recently discovered that my baby daughter, Rose, is sensitive when I eat dairy, any dairy, and my eating small amounts of dairy is enough to turn her from sweet and happy baby into super cranky pie who doesn't want to be put down, doesn't sleep well, and is very fussy and miserable. Anneliese was the same way. So I won't, because my desire for cheese and other dairy stuff does not trump that, and I am willing to go without things I love for the sake of someone I love.
But even though I can't have dairy, I still want that cheesy taste. I have tried plenty of dairy free vegan cheese sauces, some made with nutritional yeast, some made with non dairy milks, etc... This one is made with a combination of the two- I've made it with both homemade sunflower milk and homemade almond milk and it is simply divine.
You can use this vegan cheese sauce any way you'd usually use cheese. It works as a white sauce for things like ravioli, you can drizzle it over dairy free pizza in place of cheese, you can use it as a cheese topping for moussaka, lasagna, etc... Today I mixed it with my wild greens stuffed baked potatoes. Or, like my husband, who proclaims this sauce is absolutely delicious... you can just eat it by the spoonful out of the pan.
Does it taste exactly like cheese? No. But it definitely has a cheesy taste and fulfills my cravings for cheese.

Super Creamy Vegan Cheese Sauce Recipe- With Almond Milk or Sunflower Milk

Ingredients:
2 tablespoons oil
1 medium onion
3 cloves garlic
4-5 cups almond milk or sunflower milk
3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes
1/2-1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar or apple cider vinegar or white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
1/4-1/2 cup potato starch, corn starch, or tapioca starch

Instructions:
1. Chop up the onions and garlic. Saute in oil until golden.

2. Add everything else other than the potato starch and whisk well. Use less almond milk/sunflower milk if you want a richer flavor. Start out with milk, then add more if you feel like it.

3. Heat up to boiling, cook for 2-3 minutes, then turn off fire.

4. Blend up the onions and garlic, ideally with a stick blender. It doesn't have to be perfect, you just want fewer chunks and more smooth.

5. Take about a cup of the sauce out of the pan and let it cool off. Mix it with 1/4-1/2 a cup starch until there are no clumps. 1/2 cup starch will make the sauce very thick, 1/4 will make it thin like a cream sauce. Depending on what you want to use it for, decide how thick you want it to be.

6. Add the starchy sauce to the pot and heat up, mixing the whole time, until it is all thickened.

Enjoy!

Do you ever make vegan cheese sauce? What is in yours? What is your favorite way to use it? Does this look like a recipe you'd try?

7 comments:

  1. I recently stopped eating all dairy because it gave my 5 month old terrible eczema and digestion issues! I'm really missing cheese as well, so this was perfect timing for me. Thanks! Can't wait to try it. :)

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  2. I've made the Yeast Cheez recipe from SIMPLY HEAVENLY a few times; it isn't bad. (nutritional yeast, salt, garlic powder, flour, mustard and nondairy margarine). I'll try yours, though. I love nutritional yeast, and using potato starch instead of flour is interesting.

    Just found some sunflower seeds for cheap so actually I'll try the sunflower milk first!

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  3. Where is the moussaka recipe?

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  4. It's not posted yet- I first wanted to get this cheese sauce recipe written up, and then post the moussaka linking to this post.

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  5. on minimalist baker's website they do a lot of creamy sauce type recipes using cashews!!! I haven't tried it myself...but the photos look amazing ;)

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  6. Has anyone tried making this recipe with coconut milk instead of almond or sunflower? What are your thoughts, Penny?

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    Replies
    1. In recipes like this, you can't just sub coconut milk in instead. But you can use this coconut milk based cheese sauce. http://www.pennilessparenting.com/2013/08/homemade-vegan-cheddar-sauce-recipe.html

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