Sometimes you just need a good cheese sauce. One to top on your burgers, fries, soft pretzels, nachos, veggies and literally anything your heart desires. There's two key components to mastering the perfect vegan cheese sauce:
- The taste- it's got to taste close to a traditional nacho cheese. We don't want to taste cashews or anything else that's going to stray away from that cheesy taste.
- The consistency- If you really want to impress me, it's got to pass the pour test.
🍋Ingredients
- Potatoes- Everyone loves potatoes. They taste delicious. They're filling and they give the sauce a nice nacho cheese-like consistency.
- Carrots- The carrots are what gives the sauce it's beautiful color. Nobody will ever guess its in this cheese sauce.
- Cashews- There's such a small amount of cashews in this sauce that you really can't taste them. The cashews are for the consistency.
- Onion
- Lemon juice
- Almond milk- I like to use homemade almond milk. It has an amazing taste and it is more creamy. Use any non-dairy milk you like the taste of.
- Jalapeños- You can omit this if you don't like the heat. Or add less than the recipe calls for. Like any recipe, you can always taste and add according to your liking! In my opinion, the jalapeños add a nice bit of flavor, along with a little heat!
- Dijon mustard- Any will do but I suggest using a good quality one. It really builds up the flavors in this sauce without leaving any clues that any kind of mustard was ever used.
- Spices- The spices include nutritional yeast, salt, paprika and chipotle chili pepper seasoning. If you like quite a bit of heat, you could even add a pinch of cayenne pepper, although I feel that it has plenty of heat without it.
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This is the chipotle chili pepper seasoning I use
🔪Instructions
Start by dicing up the potatoes, onion and carrots. Add them to a pot along with the cashews and add in the almond milk.
Boil until the potatoes are soft (it helps to dice them in small pieces).
Once the potatoes are soft, transfer the contents in the pot into a high speed blender and add in all the remaining ingredients.
Blend until it is completely smooth and no lumps remain. It takes about a minute on full speed in a vitamix blender.
Serve right away or refrigerate in an airtight container for up to a week.
Delicious Ways to Serve
- Veggies- dip your favorite raw veggies in this cheese sauce or cook them and pour the sauce on top. It's especially delicious with steamed broccoli!
- Chips
- Tacos
- Dairy-free pizza
- Soft pretzels
- Hamburgers and hot dogs
This vegan cheese sauce is so delicious that even my friends who are not dairy free loved it. It's so good you could just eat it by the spoonful... which some of us totally did.
I hope you love it just as much!
Enjoy!
Vegan Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 cups potatoes cubed
- 1 cup carrots chopped
- 1 cup onions chopped
- ½ cup cashews
- 2 ¼ cup almond milk
- 2 tablespoons lemon juice
- 1 tablespoon dijon mustard
- ⅓ cup nutritional yeast
- ½ teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon chipotle chili pepper powder can use regular chili powder but see notes**
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ~2-3 small slices jarred jalapeno slices or to taste**
- 1 tablespoon juice from jalapeno jar
Instructions
- Chop the potatoes, carrots and onion and place them into a pot along with the cashews and almond milk
- Boil until the potatoes are soft
- Pour contents into a high speed blender
- Add remaining ingredients and blend until the consistency is completely smooth. It takes about a minute in a vitamix blender
- Serve immediately or put in an airtight container and refrigerate. Keeps about a week in the refrigerator
Notes
- The jalapeños give a nice flavor, but if you are sensitive to heat, add less jalapeños or omit from recipe!
- If you do not have chipotle chili pepper powder, you can use regular chili powder. I will say, though, the chipotle chili pepper powder gives it a much better flavor. I prefer it over the regular, so that is what I use for this recipe. I definitely suggest purchasing some and using it here! The one I use is linked in the post above.
- If your sauce for some reasons turns out a little runny, you can heat it up over the stove, letting it come to a gentle boil while stirring constantly to prevent scorching on the bottom of the pan.
Nutrition
*Note: Nutrition label is only an estimate. Amounts may vary.
Did you make this recipe? Let me know!