Raw Vegan Cheese Sauce

When it comes to good vegan cheese, cashews work amazingly well to create creamy dairy alternatives. Technically, cashews are not nuts, but they’re often classified as such. They are also similar to legumes and seeds, making them unique and really hard to put in a category. But they don’t need a label to be extremely delicious and nourishing.

In this recipe, the mustard acts as an emulsifier of the oil so they help to thicken the sauce. It also helps to give a cheesy taste. As do the pine nuts, surprisingly. If you want a completely raw meal, this sauce is really nice stirred into ‘zoodles’ (zucchini spiralized into noodles).

Recipe yield
3 servings
Total time
10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 very small shallot
  • 1 small garlic clove
  • ½ cup (or 70 g) cashews*
  • ½ cup (or 65 g) pine nuts
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • ½ tsp mustard powder
  • Up to ¼ cup (or 15 g) nutritional yeast flakes
  • Salt and pepper
  • Fresh basil, finely chopped

Instructions

  1. Place the shallot, garlic, cashews, pinenuts, olive oil, and mustard powder into a blender, then add enough water to just cover. Blend until completely smooth.
  2. Just before serving, stir in the nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, and basil.
  3. If you’re serving this with pasta, once the pasta is cooked, drain it and return it to the warm cooking pan. Then stir the sauce through it to warm it gently.
  • It’s very easy to overdo onion and garlic in raw foods, so start with a small amount and increase to your tastes.
  • If you don’t have a high-powered blender, soak the cashews for at least 20 minutes, then drain before using.
  • The nutritional yeast is important here, as it gives the main ‘cheese’ flavor to the sauce. If you haven’t developed a liking for ‘nooch’ yet, this sauce is a good introduction to it.
  • To give it a beautiful yellow color, add a pinch of ground turmeric.
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