Weekly DIY: Vegan Cashew “Cheese”
It Can Be Greener!For me, a big part of living green is eating a plant-based diet. My wife decided to go vegan almost 4 years ago, and after I did my fair share of whining and nay-saying, I finally joined her a few months later. We've never looked back.
Well, okay, almost never. Giving up the meat was far easier than I ever expected. Eggs? Never liked those much anyway. Milk? Soymilk made de-dairying a breeze. Even ice cream, you ask? Let me introduce you to Turtle Mountain and Tofutti. All was well in our vegan world, except for one thing: cheese. Even vegans have a recommended daily intake of pizza!
At first, we decided we would cheat with cheese and pretend we were vegans anyway. This became harder and harder to do as we learned more and more about the environmental harm dairy farms can cause. We tried vegan soy cheese alternatives, but found that most brands (but not all) were mouth-numbingly bland, didn't melt, and/or tasted like wet cardboard marinated in that water you pour out of tofu packages. Mmmm.
Clearly, it was time for something new. I first read about cashew "cheese" when I read Eric Marcus' excellent book Vegan: The New Ethics of Eating
Fast forward a few years, and I've now refined my own version of a cashew cheese recipe to the point where I actually prefer it over cow cheese. It's also one of my favorite DIY projects because I get to use my favorite power tool: the food processor.
As with anything you put on your plate, cashew cheese can be made even greener by using ingredients that are grown locally and grown organically.
Vegan Cashew Cheese
Ingredients:
- 2/3 cup cashews (raw is best, roasted is still great, and try flavored cashews too)
- 1/2 cup water (or slightly more)
- 1/4 cup red bell pepper (raw or roasted)
- 1/4 small red onion (if you're cooking for a date, or more otherwise!)
- 1/4 cup yeast flakes
- 2 garlic cloves (see "red onion")
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp Bragg's Liquid Aminos (on the health food isle everywhere, or use lite soy sauce)
- 1 tbsp sesame oil
- 1 tsp sea salt (optional) if the cashews are unsalted
Put everything in a food processor and blend it until it's creamy. If it's too thick, add more water. If it's too watery, add more cashews. It should have a Cream of Wheat-like consistency, or just a bit thicker. For a pizza, spread it thinly over pizza sauce (it's very rich, so a little bit goes a long way), top it off with your favorite vegetables, and pop it in the oven. If the cashew cheese becomes golden-brown more than a few minutes before the pizza crust is done, cover the top of the pizza with foil.
This recipe is plenty for a medium-sized pizza. I like making larger batches and keeping leftovers in the fridge.
Cashew cheese is also great in quesadillas, toasted sandwiches, or just about any other dish that calls for cheese. Lactose intolerant? You're welcome.
Enjoy! If you try the recipe, be sure to let us know how it turns out.
Tags: cashew+cheese, cheese, Food, Home and Garden, pizza, recipe, vegan, vegetarian, Weekly DIY
- Uncategorized
March 30th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
Can’t wait to try it. I’m vegetarian, but love cheese. I want to live in a house made of cheese.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:39 am
have you tried adding anything to thicken it up at all? Arrowroot Powder or something like it?
I’m interested in trying this… I’m vegetarian, but (like Kelli above me) can’t get along without cheese. I eat so much cheese, it’s silly. I buy it in 5 pound blocks.
Thanks for the recipe– this will be fun.
March 31st, 2007 at 6:20 pm
Sounds good! Looking forward to trying it. Will also link from Veggie Chic!
March 31st, 2007 at 8:38 pm
I tried some cornstarch once, but I don't really think it's needed. When it's cooked, a lot of the moisture cooks out of the "cheese". The liquidiness after the food processing step basically just makes it easier to spread it over pizza sauce.
Hope you enjoy it!
March 31st, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Thanks, Jul!
April 6th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
People who “can’t live without cheese” may be addicted to it - literally. When cheese is broken apart by digestion, a compound is created which is similar to opium, the base product for heroin.
Another concern for non-vegan vegetarians, is that they tend to compensate meat with dairy products with a constant suppressed craving for animal products. They are like meat eaters on methadone psychologically, which of course totally takes out the joy of vegetarianism. It’s these vegetarians that end up eating meat again after 15 years with even a feeling of being relieved.
It doesn’t have to be this way. If you totally realize the concept of the right of animals not to be harmed in any way - and I mean emotionally, not intellectually, then you wouldn’t want any of these products and becoming vegan will come very natural. You would still remember the taste of cheese and the enjoyment you had eating it, but the thought of actually eating it again, knowing all the violence and environmental destruction connected to it, would even seem grotesque and it simply wouldn’t go down even if you put it in your mouth.
April 20th, 2007 at 5:14 am
That ‘addicted to cheese’ thing is a kind of science that science in my home can do without, I think. It’s emminently obvious to me that it provokes harm on animals (mere people, though) whereas lactation an egg-layin’ and practicing jujitsu (not harmless, just mostly nonlethal) are tolerable here and there.
A little liquid aminos, yeast flakes, simmerin’ onion, and it’s workable for baking? It’s not like cheese that ‘just works’ (a little remembering the recipie) but that’s easy enough to try!
Uh…got wacky soy pepperoni?
May 4th, 2007 at 6:20 am
I bought a vegetarian recipe book recently and they seemingly subbed cheese for meat. No kidding. That’s why I eat more asian foods now.
I have eaten cheese from small farmhouses though with fewer than 30 cows, not every farm takes the calf away from the mother, and not all farms are ethically unsound. Just most are.
Too much demand for dairy. It’s greedy.
May 22nd, 2007 at 4:17 pm
We tried your cashew cheese, on a pizza… it’s pretty good!
I also make a “Not-yo Cheez” sauce that has fooled omnivores at buffets… I found a basic recipe online, and switched out the pimentoes it called for with jarred roasted red peppers… it also works with chopped green chilis.
Basic recipe is similar to yours, with raw cashews, nutritional yeast, organic corn starch, and the peppers/chilis.
May 31st, 2007 at 5:58 am
Check out Compassionate Cooks’ podcast called Life After Cheese. Actually - check out all their podcast episodes. Life-changing stuff. Noone says it like this host (Coleen) - nobody says it as compassionately, respectfully, unabashedly. Anyway - thought the cheese addicts would be interested.
http://www.compassionatecooks.com
http://feeds.feedburner.com/VegetarianFoodForThought