It makes a great appetizer when served with chips, or it can be served over baked sweet potatoes or veggies, and you can serve it over anything else you want to smother in cheese.
Vegan Cheese Sauce with No Nuts
Most vegan cheese sauces that I’ve made in my life, like the one for my oh-so-popular Vegan Mac n’ Cheese recipe, use a base of blended cashews to create a similar creamy texture to dairy-based cheese sauces. The cashews add creaminess and have a very mild flavor, making them perfect for a creamy vegan sauce, but they’re not ideal for people who need to cut back or avoid eating nuts, in general. That’s why this nut-free vegan cheese sauce is so brilliant. The recipe comes from my friend, Alisa, from GoDairyFree.org. If you’re not familiar with Alisa, she has written what I would consider a dairy free “bible” called Go Dairy Free. It’s a huge book, filled with practical tips for those who need to cut dairy out of their lives, and she recently released an updated version filled with more recipes than ever before!
(Just an FYI– the recipes in this book are not all gluten-free or vegan. The focus on this book is strictly on cutting out dairy, so there are all kinds of recipes included.) Instead of using nuts, this recipe gets its texture from a blend of softly cooked carrots and gets its authentically “stretchy” texture from the use of arrowroot or tapioca starch.
I tweaked the recipe to use the ingredients I had on hand, and I think it turned out totally delicious when served with my favorite organic corn chips, and even over baked sweet potato “nachos.” (It’s even a properly combined meal, since this cheese sauce is in the starch category.) I hope you’ll enjoy this vegan cheese sauce, too!
Recipe Notes:
This recipe is adapted from Alisa’s original recipe in Go Dairy Free, which doesn’t call for a potato. To make her recipe as written, omit the potato, use 6 tablespoons of a mild-flavored oil, like grape seed, and increase the starch to 4 tablespoons total. You may also want to use a little more water to thin the sauce out as needed. The starch makes it very stretchy! If you want more of a Mexican-style flare, stir in a small amount of salsa or chopped jalapenos. (I love pickled jalapenos with my nachos, so serving this cheese sauce with jalapenos makes it extra-authentic for me!) There are two other vegan cheese sauce recipes on my site if you’re looking for a substitution, so check them out! Here are my cashew-based queso and my sweet potato queso recipes.
Thanks to Alisa for sending me her book and letting me share this recipe with you! I hope you’ll enjoy it soon. — Reader Feedback: What other dairy-free recipes do you wish you had? Let me know if you have recipe requests!
