This Cashew Cheese Sauce is the next best thing. No need to fear missing out on a delicious “cheese” sauce even though you’re eating a plant-based diet. I know it might not taste exactly like cheese, but my hope is that with your changing taste buds, you’ll actually grow to love it.
Check out my Chili Cashew Cheese Dip Recipe (pictured) here that uses this “cheese” sauce as the base for the recipe.
Whole Food Plant Based Cheese Sauce
I know cheese can be addicting. It’s one of the harder things to give up, but what’s great is that you have a substitution with this vegan cashew cheese sauce.
If you’re interested in reading more, read this article on giving up cheese.
And, don’t miss my other plant-based cheese sauce made out of cauliflower. It should do the trick for your cravings. It’s delicious, just like this recipe, served over a hot baked potato.
If you want a substitute for raw cashews you can use white cannellini beans in this recipe instead. I recently made a version that was half cashews, half beans and it was delicious.
Use cashews in a variety of plant-based recipes:
- Baked Apples with Cashew Cream
- Vegan Yogurt Parfait with Berries & Granola
- Moroccan Spiced Vegan Eggnog
- Cauliflower Pasta Alfredo
You will need to soak your raw cashews for a few hours or overnight, especially if you don’t have a high-speed blender. This will help this cashew cheese dip have a smooth texture. Using hot water will help to speed up the softening, too.
Once softened, drain the cashews and add them to your blender followed by the non-dairy milk, nutritional yeast, bell pepper, lemon juice, mustard and salt. Allow your cashew plant based sauce to blend a few minutes until smooth.
You can use store-bought unsweetened non-dairy milk, or make your own Homemade Nut, Seed and Grain-Based Milk.
Serve on top of some roasted vegetables, with some vegan tacos, as a dip or try as a sauce for a veggie pizza! This would be a great plant based recipe to have on hand for your meals.
I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments below for this Cashew Cheese Sauce recipe! If you have a photo, post it on Instagram, tag me using the hashtag in your caption, and I won’t miss it!
Cashew Cheese Sauce
Equipment
- Measuring Cups and Spoons
Ingredients
- 1 cup raw cashews Substitution: 1 can cannelloni beans
- 1 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk Westsoy or Trader Joe's
- ¼ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 whole roasted red or orange pepper, seeded and rough chopped
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 2 tsp yellow mustard
- 1/2 tsp salt or to taste
Instructions
- Soak the raw cashew at least 1 hour or longer up to 24 hours.
- Place the soaked, drained cashews, non-dairy milk, nutritional yeast, bell pepper, lemon juice, mustard, and salt in a blender and blend a few minutes until smooth.
What can I use instead of mustard as I don’t use it.?
Since it’s a small amount of mustard you could leave it out and it probably won’t make much difference. Or, since mustard has some zip and a little tang, you could try a vegan Worcestershire, a mild vinegar like rice vinegar or miso paste. I don’t think the difference in consistence would change much.