Hi Vegetarian Carnivores! You asked for it and I am delivering! I got requests from Facebook and Instagram to share this amazing recipe with you beautiful people almost immediately after I posted it! So here we go – creamy vegan mac and cheese. This time in a delicious white cheddar style.
Obsessed with mac and cheese
As you all know, I am pretty much obsessed with mac and cheese. Cheese was definitely one of the most difficult things for me to give up in my cut-out-dairy initiative. There is even a dairy version up on this blog that I made a long time ago. But then I realized that this just gave me more creative liberty to make the most delicious vegan version out there yet! So it has been a quest to create MULTIPLE plant based recipes of this incredible comfort food! There are at least 2 other versions up on this blog, and a few more that I have experimented with and haven’t written down yet. But when I tried out this little experiment, I knew it was a winner. And I know you’ll love it too!
Somethings to know
In this recipe there are a couple of things to note. I always hail nutritional yeast as the savior and god of all things cheesy. It really is loaded with great nutrition and my pantry is not complete without it.
HOWEVER, in this cheesy recipe there is no nutritional yeast. Why? Because I created this recipe with the intention of having it be a white cheddar style dish. And nutritonal yeast tends to make everything yellow. I needed this to be different. And guess what? It works! So if you are not the biggest nutritional yeast fan, I have totally got you covered. You’re going to love this one.
Next thing to note is the importance of lemon juice in this recipe. We will be adding half a lemon’s juice at the very end of the cooking process, once everything is taken off the heat. This will take your mac and cheese from “great” to “omg phenomenal!.”
And of coarse, I added a GENEROUS amount of red chili flakes, because you all know I am a spice fiend. So feel free to adjust that amount if you happen to be sane LOL
A quick meal
This recipe took me all of 15 minutes to make. Seriously. One pot (apart from boiling the pasta). And honestly once I finished the ooey gooey sauce, I was twiddling my thumbs waiting for the pasta to finish boiling! It really is that fast. And it stores really well in the fridge, so it is great for meal prep or leftovers for up to 3 days. Just make sure to add a splash of water when reheating in case it dries out a bit in the fridge.
So without further ado, white creamy vegan mac and cheese!
Ingredients (4 servings)
- 1 box short pasta cooked (I like fusili, but any short pasta works)
- 3 tbsp vegan butter or oil if you prefer
- 2 small garlic cloves, minced
- 3-4 tbsp flour, separated
- 2 cups plant milk (I used unflavored soymilk in this one)
- 1/2 cup vegan Parmesan (I love Follow your Heart!)
- 1/2 cup vegan cream cheese (I used Kite Hill)
- 1 1/2 tsp coarse grain mustard
- 1/2 tsp white pepper powder
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 lemon, juiced
- 1 tbsp red chili flakes
- Salt and cracked pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Salt and boil a pot of water for your pasta and cook according to box instructions.
- In a large saucepan, heat butter and saute garlic until fragrant over medium low heat.
- Slowly add in flour, starting with 2 tbsp and slowly adding more until the texture has reached a thick dough-y consistency.
- Turn the heat up to medium high and add in plant milk. Keep stirring and boil until thickened.
- Add in mustard, white pepper, garlic, red chili flakes and stir.
- Taste and add salt and black pepper as needed.
- Add in Parmesan and cream cheese and keep stirring until completely melted.
- Take sauce off the heat and add in lemon juice and mix well.
- Lastly, combine pasta and sauce and mix well!
- Enjoy hot or keep it for meal prep/leftovers!
Results
Like I said guys, I was a little nervous about creating a mac and cheese recipe without nutritional yeast. It has been my staple and a quick google search of plant based mac and cheese will yield 99% nutritional yeast recipes. But I really wanted to create a white cheddar version, because I really do miss that. This recipe KILLED IT! I am so excited and I can’t wait for all of you to try this out and talk to me!
See you soon!
Janani <3 <3
I wouldn’t think that you would really need the nutritional yeast in a white cheddar style mac and cheese. Even us carnivores wouldn’t necessarily put any meat in something like this (except maybe bacon… Hmmmmm…). Really, it would be just as good without any kind of “meat” component. Have you thought of putting in some kind of onions? Either white or green (shallots)? I can’t wait to try cooking this!
You can definitely put in slightly browned shallots! And this recipe does not call for any nutritional yeast- just vegan cream cheese and parmesan!