I was shivering, grumpy and wanted cheese. Hot cheese. And spicy pasta. And fat. And salt. And a Diet Coke, grapefruit juice, coffee and a water. One of those mornings.
So while I'm not super strict about my dairy and egg intake, I also didn't want to screw it all up by going whole hog on fatty mac (somebody please use this as a nickname) and cheese. Plus, I had a huge container of nutritional yeast that I wanted to use, so I Googled the vegan version and I came up with this recipe from VegWeb.com. Do I think this lives up to its "best in the world, seriously" praise? No. Then again, this is my only encounter with the vegan version, and I will say it's not bad. In fact, it's pretty tasty.
Here's the recipe in its entirety:
1 1/2 pounds pasta, preferably macaroni
1 1/2 cups unsweetened nondairy milk
1 1/2 cups nutritional yeast
1 cup canola or vegetable oil
1 cup water
1/3 cup tamari or soy sauce
1/4 (12 ounce) block firm (not silken) tofu
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon paprika
1 tablespoon vegesal or in lack of fancy product, just use salt
1 dollop mustard, optional
I deviated from the original recipe, starting with the pasta. I used small shells, since they've been sitting in my cabinet for about a year or two now. Any pasta that has curves, nooks and crannies is perfect for this dish. I would actually forget about elbow macaroni altogether and opt for something that's going to hold tasty pockets of sauce.
I probably only used about a pound of pasta, but I also forgot to add the water, so I think it all worked out in terms of consistency. I cooked the pasta a few minutes shy of al dente, since this is getting thrown in the oven to bake.
As for the milk, I used an almond/coconut milk blend that was sweet (not sweetened), but I'm curious to know what a full coconut milk sweetness would do to the sauce. Methinks great things.
I threw the ingredients for the cheese sauce into my blender, and it all looked like something you pull out of your ears after a long day at the beach.
Gave it a whirl, found the taste a little...odd. I think next time I'm ditching the soy sauce. I used an extra teaspoon or so of paprika, and skipped the mustard. Taste was still a little off, but I gotta say, it looked downright gorgeous poured over the pasta.
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So gorgeous was it, I couldn't even focus on taking a decent, shadow-less photo. |
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nom nom. |
Also, like the chili, meathead approved!
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* If E, L, J or any other letter of the alphabet I work with is reading this, I swear it's not a regular thing. Valentine's Day weekend behind the bar, man. It'll getcha.