This vegan cheese sauce is made with no nuts and is deliciously cheesy, creamy, and with a hint of spice making it the perfect cheese sauce for nachos, chips, or any other meal you want to add a bit of a cheesy taste to!
Whenever non-vegan people find out I’m vegan, the most common response I get is but how do you live without cheese?!
The answer is: pretty easily, actually.
I will admit though, of all the amazing vegan products currently available in the shops, vegan cheese is still a very hit and miss market. Some are amazing, while others just leave a weird after-taste in your mouth.
I’ve dabbled with vegan cheese sauces in the past, mainly trying a cashew-based sauce which is great – but always fails the test when I try to convince non-vegans to try it.
So when I saw these recipes using a base of potatoes and carrots floating around, I had to try it.
I added nutritional yeast for a cheesy taste, and jalapenos to give my cheese sauce the perfect ‘kick’.
I convinced my Dad, who is about 80% vegetarian and 20% meat-eater, to try the sauce without telling him what was in it, and he gave it a big thumbs up, which makes it well and truly non-vegan approved in my book!
Making a nut-free vegan cheese sauce
This vegan cheese sauce is made from a base of boiled potatoes and carrots. I know, kind of crazy, right?!
Then, I added cooked minced garlic, nutritional yeast, jalapenos and jalapeno juice, plant-based milk, seasoning, and a little tapioca flour to thicken it up.
Blend everything together and voila! A gorgeously creamy, cheesy sauce that’s perfect for using as a dip, or pouring over a main meal for a deliciously spicy, cheesy sauce.
This sauce could go great, for example, with my vegan chili sin carne recipe.
Vegan Cheese Sauce (Nut Free!)
A creamy, cheesy, slightly spicy vegan cheese sauce containing no nuts! Made from potatoes and carrots, this cheese sauce is actually healthy too!
Ingredients
- 4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
- 3 medium carrots, peeled and cubed
- 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 5 jalapeno slices plus 1 tbsp of the water from the jar
- 1 tsp oil
- 1 tsp minced garlic
- 100ml plant based milk
- 1 tbsp tapioca flour (sub for corn flour)
- salt and pepper
Instructions
- Boil your carrots and potatoes in a saucepan until soft (1~15 minutes), then drain and set aside to cool
- In the same saucepan, heat your oil and add the garlic, saute until fragrant and golden
- Add all the ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth
- Taste the sauce and adjust seasoning and spice as necessary
- Enjoy straight away, or refrigerate and simply re-heat and pour over anything you want!
Notes
This sauce will keep for around 4 days in the fridge, and is great for pouring over anything you want to make cheesy, but is also amazing as a spicy, cheesy dip.
Nutrition Information:
Yield: 4 Serving Size: 1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 223Total Fat: 2gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 2gCholesterol: 2mgSodium: 128mgCarbohydrates: 45gFiber: 6gSugar: 4gProtein: 8g
Nutritional information is not always 100% correct.
*Recipe adapted from Alisa Fleming’s nut-free cheese sauce in Go Dairy Free, which actually omits the potatoes and uses more oil and starch.
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Coleen
Friday 25th of November 2022
We made this as a dip for Thanksgiving apps. I must have used big potatoes, because it did taste potato-ey. Next time I will use one less potato. We also about doubled the jalapenos because we wanted more a nacho dip than a cheese dip, YUM! Thanks for the post!