Vegan Cheese Sauce for Nachos
Nachos and cheese are the most heavenly combination on earth one can think of. It’s the perfect snack for anytime hunger (or without hunger too for that matter). You don’t really need to be hungry to enjoy nachos and cheese, do you? And if this combination can be turned into 100% vegan – cherry on the cake! For, lots of foodies are turning to veganism these days but that should in no way keep them away from their anytime favourite snack.
This is why we bring here the vegan nacho cheese recipe for all vegans so that they can relish the dish absolutely guilty-free. Here goes.
Easy Vegan Nacho Cheese Recipe
Vegan Cashew Cheese Sauce for Nachos
Ingredients
- 2 cup Raw cashews
- 3 tbsp Lemon juice
- 4 cup Water
- 1/2 cup
Nutritional Yeast (check vegan status) - 1/2 tsp Smoked paprika
Powders
- 1 tsp Garlic powder
- 1/2 tbsp Chilli powder
- 1 pinch Salt
- 1 tsp Sriracha (Optional)
Instructions
- Soak the cashew nuts in a bowl, either for just a few hours before preparation or overnight, as per your convenience. If you’re soaking them for just a little while, boil water in a teapot or on the stove top and pour it over the cashews until fully covered. Set aside for 10 minutes and drain out the water.
- Now add cashews, lemon juice, water, vegan nacho cheese, nutritional yeast, smoked paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, chilli powder, and salt in a blender and blend all the ingredients well.
- Take a medium-sized saucepan and add the cheese sauce obtained from the blender. Warm the mixture on medium heat, whisking continuously. When the sauce starts bubbling up and thickening, add some more water to get your desired consistency for the sauce.
- Add salt to taste and Sriracha too at this stage (in case you’re using). The cheese sauce would generally thicken up if allowed to sit for a while either outside or in the refrigerator. You can warm it again on the stovetop and also add more water as needed to achieve thinning.
Nutrition
So, what’s the issue with the original recipe? Well, it’s yummy-licious but not suitable for vegans. Why? Because it contains cheese which is a dairy product, i.e., non-vegan.
This is how simply you can get your gluten-free vegan nacho cheese sauce recipe. The presence of cashews gives it a thick consistency and also a rich, creamy texture because of which it’s very difficult to make out that there’s no cheese in the recipe. If you would like to add some cheese recipe than there is vegan cheese available in this article that you can pour warm into this recipe.
What’s more, when you’re short on time or don’t have easy access to cheese, go for this healthy nacho cheese meal. It’s not just perfect for the health-conscious being free of dairy, gluten, and contains nutritional yeast which promotes Vitamin B12 (as stated here) in your body. Also, it is simple to prepare in minutes (provided you have soaked cashews in store at the time).
Also Read: Vegan Cottage Cheese Recipe
How to Make Cheese Sauce Without Cashews?
We understand that nuts aren’t all that healthy (cashews are particularly rich in fat content) and so you wouldn’t want to keep dipping your nachos in it over and over again. Besides, they’re unbelievably costly too which means you need to use them with caution. Well, the good news is you can actually make the same melt-in-the-mouth, creamy and cheesy tangy sauce without using any or too many cashews.
All you need to do is substitute the nuts with healthy vegetables (potatoes and carrots primarily) and add them to the blender at the blending stage. This would give the thick texture. As for the orange color, you can use spices instead of artificial colorants which are only chemicals.
And there you have – your homemade vegan cheese sauce recipe to perfectly complement a pack of nachos or tortilla chips! You can also prepare tortillas at home with this tortilla recipe here. Do try it out today and share with us on how you liked the recipe.
