Best Homemade Macaroni and Cheese Recipe. Confession time. Until this recipe, I never liked mac and cheese. I know I should be thrown out of the South for saying that, but wait, this homemade macaroni and cheese recipe changed my mind.
This super creamy and cheesy vegan mac and cheese recipe will take you straight back to childhood! Vegan Mac And Cheese – The Ultimate Vegan Comfort Food Growing up, my mom was usually the one who cooked for us, preparing elaborate and wholesome meals from scratch, with plenty of vegetables. But every now and then, my dad would take over the kitchen. One of my absolute favorite lunches he’d make us was boxed Kraft macaroni & cheese, which I called “cheese soup” because he’d always add extra milk so there was twice as much cheese sauce.
Although I haven’t eaten the Kraft version in years, I still love my mac and cheese with A TON of extra cheese sauce. Serve me a bowl of homemade macaroni drenched in so much creamy cheese sauce that you can’t even tell there’s pasta in the bowl, and you will never hear me complain! Update — Also be sure to try this recipe for! How To Make Vegan Mac And Cheese The vegan macaroni and cheese recipes out there are definitely hit or miss and the bad ones are really bad. I remember back when I first went vegan, trying a recipe that attempted to mimic the cheesy taste by using a combination of nutritional yeast and Dijon mustard.
The recipe claimed to taste JUST LIKE REAL MAC AND CHEESE! Spoiler alert: it didn’t even come close. I’ve also tried some restaurant versions or packaged varieties (not naming names) so far away from tasting anything like mac and cheese that I honestly don’t know how they ever made it onto shelves. With this simple vegan mac and cheese recipe today, I’m not going to tell you it tastes exactly like Kraft or Velveeta, but it is absolutely delicious in its own right and completely satisfies even my strongest mac and cheese cravings.
The recipe received a resounding stamp of approval from every non vegan who’s tried it, which is hugely important to note, because if someone who remembers what traditional mac and cheese tastes like says it’s good, you know it must be true! I’m not saying vegans have inferior taste buds (obbbbviously my taste buds are super awesome), but I do admit that sometimes we can get excited about a dish simply because a plant-based version is offered. I can think of quite a few examples of this from over the years, especially with things I’ve ordered at restaurants. (Those vegan cannoli that tasted like someone who’d clearly never been to Italy had simply stuffed vanilla frosting into a cannoli shell were they they best cannoli I’d ever had in my life? But on the other hand, I got to order vegan cannoli on a restaurant menu!!!! So actually yeah, best cannoli ever!) Recipe Notes The cheese sauce can be used with much more than just pasta. If you’re on a keto or low carb diet or simply don’t feel like boiling noodles one night, feel free to use the sauce as a cheese dip or pour it over steamed veggies, rice, or even spaghetti squash.
(My recommended method for cooking spaghetti squash can be found here:.) You can also bulk up the mac and cheese by stirring steamed or roasted veggies in at the end. I especially love adding steamed broccoli. Or give the pasta a protein boost by adding crumbled tempeh or your favorite protein of choice. Pretty much any noodles will work here – I’m partial to tube noodles because they trap more cheese! For the photos, I really wanted the recognizable Kraft pasta shape but couldn’t find it anywhere, so I ended up buying boxed vegan mac and cheese and used my own sauce recipe instead of their packet.
Unlike many other dairy free macaroni and cheese recipes, this one has no butternut squash or cauliflower, although I do have recipes for both of those elsewhere on the blog. To add thickness and creaminess without flour or heavy cream, I turned to cashews this time, which gives the sauce a rich and velvety texture. I’ve also linked a nut-free and soy-free. With mac and cheese, it’s good to have options. Finally, if you’re crazy like me and want to drown your pasta in a gallon of cheese sauce, feel free to make a double batch! Vegan Mac And Cheese Adapted from.
Completely cover the nuts in a bowl with water. Let soak anywhere from 2-6 hours, or refrigerate and soak overnight. Combine all ingredients (including 1/2 cup water, but not including the optional cheese-style shreds), and blend in a blender or with an immersion blender until completely smooth. Transfer to a small pot and heat to your desired temperature, stirring optional cheese shreds in at the end. Taste, and add extra seasonings (onion, salt, nutmeg, pepper) if desired – I like to add another 1/2 tsp salt and a pinch more nutmeg. Serve over cooked pasta, rice, veggies, etc.
Also, Miyoko’s is AMAZING. All of their products are just incredible. I just tried their cream cheese and it is outstanding–their vegan butter is amazing too. They never use plan oil, either, so that is a huge plus to say the least. I’m really looking forward to trying their mozzarella as I’ve heard great things and this company has never failed to amaze me. Chao is extremely good and now there’s another company similar to them that makes all kinds of vegan cheese products and they fortify it with B12 which I find really cool.
I know chao is plan oil free and I believe the new company I referred to is, as well (sorry I don’t remember the name but it’s at whole foods all the time). Then you have nutritional yeast which is just awesome (and so healthy!) you can make so many homemade vegan cheese recipes with it and it is AMAZING on popcorn. The website the vegan 8 or something like that, has the best vegan garlic alfredo sauce recipe ever! I don’t know why their site now says the nutritional yeast is optional because it’s absolutely necessary and they also now say to use more lemon juice as an option but use the lower amount they say because you definitely don’t want it too lemon-y.
Chao vegan cheese is, by far, the best vegan cheese we’ve found (get the creamy original flavor). It comes in a block of slices, but we just treat it like a block, and shred it, when needed. The closest thing I can compare it to is a cross between american cheese and provolone. Does it taste exactly like regular cheese? No, but it is absolutely as close as we’ve found, and my daughter actually LIKES it. No other one we’ve tried even tasted remotely good.
Sometimes it’s hard to find, and it’s expensive (as are most non-dairy foods), but Whole Foods carries it, and recently Walmart started to sell it as well. Walmart has it for the cheapest I have found anywhere. I’m sorry but this did not taste like cheese at all. The only reason I even gave it 2 stars is it is creamy and rich. This is the first recipe from your site that I have ever not liked, and I’ve tried both sweet and savory. I have made vegan cheese recipes many times, with three different recipes as bases (depending on the ingredients in my pantry and what I’m making it for). I have done two different cashew cheese sauces and the one you referred to that uses potato, carrot, and mustard.
All of them tasted better than this. I have never seen any cheese recipe using nutmeg before. Based on the taste of this recipe, I will never use it again.
I had to add garlic powder, paprika, salt, and an ounce of goat cheese to make it taste decent (I’m not vegan, but use a lot of vegan recipes because I’m allergic to cow’s milk, and goat’s milk products get expensive very quickly).