Pasta with vegan cheese sauce

I’ve been using the same vegan cheese recipe for at least four or five years now. It’s very quick and easy to make, and I love using it in burritos and with tortilla chips. But I’ve never really enjoyed it with pasta – it’s much too thick and the flavor seems just an odd pairing with pasta. I’m always curious about finding a new creamy vegan cheese sauce to use with pasta, so when I saw Amber’s comment (hi Amber!) the other day about one of her favorite recipes on my Teese Cheese Review I knew I had to experiment.

One of the things that caught my attention first was the fact that it contains potatoes and carrots. All of the other ingredients I’ve seen in vegan cheese recipes, but never anything like vegetables. Of course, I realized right away that this could be a fantastic recipe for those of you who follow a gluten-free diet. My other recipe that I’ve relied on for years uses white flour to thicken it, but in this recipe potatoes help to thicken this up a little bit, but only just enough to be a creamy sauce.

Vegan Cheese Sauce
This is based on the VegYum Mac & Cheeze recipe posted on VeganYumYum

• 1 package vegan and/or gluten-free pasta
• 1 cup potatoes, peeled and finely chopped
• 1/4 cup carrots, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 cup water
• 1/3 cup raw cashews
• 1 tablespoon miso (can omit if gluten-free, or use a clearly labeled gluten-free miso)
• 1 tablespoon tahini
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice or 1 teaspoon white wine vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard
• 1/3 cup vegan butter (and gluten-free if necessary)
• 1/3 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• Black pepper to taste

Prepare your pasta according to package directions.

Chop your potatoes and carrots and cover them with 1 cup water (or a little more if needed), bring to a boil, then cover and turn down to low heat and allow to simmer for about 15 or 20 minutes, or until they are tender.

Cooking potatoes and carrots

Meanwhile, in a blender, proceed to add your remaining ingredients: cashews, miso, tahini, lemon juice, mustard, vegan butter, nutritional yeast, salt and black pepper.

Putting ingredients for vegan cheese sauce in blender

Once the potatoes and carrots are done cooking, add both the vegetables and their water to the blender.

Adding the cooked potatoes and carrots

Cover and blend until very smooth, about five minutes. You want to be sure that it’s not grainy, so you may want to check about halfway through or after the five minutes is up to see how smooth it is.

Vegan cheese sauce

It should be warm enough to go ahead and serve with your pasta, but if not, you can heat it up on the stove for a few minutes while constantly stirring. Then serve!

Pasta with vegan cheese sauce

This turned out pretty well, although it was a little bit of an unusual flavor and seemed to be a little salty. I may experiment in the future and reduce the amount of tahini and salt, or increase the potatoes a little bit. I also think it might be a little more balanced if peas or another vegetable were mixed into the sauce.

What is your favorite vegan cheese sauce – or have you found one yet?

Learn more about Vegan MoFo.

I’m not a big fan of winters here in the North East. Unless it snows, it seems kind of pointless to me to have it dip down well below freezing every day, and the process of bundling up is time-consuming. So you can well imagine that I’m so glad that Spring is here. We still get a few chilly days now and then, which means that hot soups are still in season.

One of my favorite soups to make is a hearty vegetable miso soup. Miso, as you may already know, is a fermented soybean paste and can be used in a variety of dishes.

However, it’s probably most well known as a base to Asian soups. I first started making my own miso soup a few years ago, and am probably not making it in an authentic Asian style, but the recipe that follows is delicious and is my own (although I’m sure I’m not the first to throw this particular set of ingredients together).

First things first, though. There are a few things to keep in mind when making this.

• Use whatever vegetables you want, but make sure that most or all are fresh.
• Don’t overcook the soup – you want the vegetables to have some life left to them.
• Don’t add salt if you don’t have to; miso has plenty of natural sodium already.

• Taste test the broth after you’ve added miso. If it’s not a strong enough flavor for your palate, add more.

Miso Soup

• 8 cups water
• 2 large carrots, peeled and sliced
• 1 package white button mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups bok choy or toy choi, chopped
• 2 cups spinach, fresh
• 1 cup snow peas, trimmed
• 1/2 cup scallions, chopped
• 1 package medium firm or extra firm tofu, cubed
• 3 to 5 tablespoons miso

Bring the water to boil in a large pan.

As you’re waiting for your water to boil, prepare all of your remaining ingredients.

You can add the carrots to the water before it boils or just after, and cook for about five minutes.

Add the mushrooms, bok choy, and snow peas and cook for about a minute more, then turn off the stove and take the pan off of the high heat. Add in the remaining ingredients except for the miso, and stir.

Now, add in the miso one tablespoon at a time and stir until it is completely dissolved.

Taste test the broth, and if you feel that the miso needs to be a stronger flavor add another tablespoon and taste test again.

Continue this process until you are satisfied with the taste. I added a total of about five tablespoons which I feel was plenty.

I admit that I overcooked the soup you’re seeing in these pictures, and I wish that I had held back. The snow peas were too tender, and the bok choy could have been more firm. It’s a lesson that I should practice what I preach – less is more. There are some soups that require a good stew – like vegetable soup with lots of root vegetables: potatoes, carrots, turnips, but the flavor is best in this soup if you go for undercooking rather than shooting for making sure everything is well done.

Do you use miso in your cooking? What’s your favorite way of using it?