Vegan Mac and ... Cheese?

Last Monday was a confluence of feel. Those many feels you get when it's the frozen armpit of late February, it's raining, your office is cold and you're a wee bit hungover* from yesterday's Sunday funday.

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. 

So gorgeous was it, I couldn't even focus on taking a decent, shadow-less photo.

Baked it up for about 15 minutes until it was golden brown, gave it a stir, and was left with this über creamy pan of it-will-do-if-you-don't-do-cheese. 

nom nom. 

This dish definitely benefits from letting the flavors settle and mellow a little bit before digging in, but it's great right out of the oven. I still miss the real stuff, but I would make this again in a non-clogged heartbeat given the choice between the two. A few days later, I heated it up and added hot sauce and diced avocado, which melted right into the "cheese" ... heaven. 

Also, like the chili, meathead approved!

More on the frightening varied world of dairy substitutes next time. 


* 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.