Liquid Gold: Plant-Based Cheese Sauce

This vegan Velveeta-ish cheese sauce is divine. It’s perfect for pairing with pasta, layering in lasagna, spicing up nachos or tacos, or just sneaking a spoonful straight out of the jar. It’s the comfort food you thought you gave up when you went to a plant-based diet.

If you want to move to a healthier version of mac and cheese, this is your secret weapon. We’ve never met a 6-year-old that can say no to this stuff. Having a jar (or half a jar, if it’s been a stressful morning) of this sauce in the fridge can be a parent’s best friend.

There’s nothing like smothering a bed of corn chips in this rich and creamy cheese sauce to make the perfect taco salad. However you choose to use it, you won’t be wrong.

We’ve tried so many other cheese sauces. There’s always something that misses the mark. Too thin, not smooth enough, wrong color, too healthy tasting. The secret ingredient that makes all the difference? Coconut milk! Coconut milk is the perfect liquid to pair with the cashew base for the creamiest cheese sauce ever.

Here’s What You’ll Need

Ingredients:

• 13.5 oz. can of coconut milk
• 1 C. raw cashews
• 1. C. water
• 2.5 tsp. real salt (Sea salt or Himalayan work too)
• Juice from half of a lemon (about 2 tsp.)
• 1/2 of a fresh red bell pepper (or 1/4 c. pimentos)
• 1/2 C. nutritional yeast flakes
• 1/4 C. corn starch

Easy Cheesy

What we love just as much as eating this cheese sauce is the fact that it’s a super simple blender recipe. Just combine everything and blend on high. After a few minutes, your sauce thickens. Once you hear the magic sound, you’re done! No messy cleanup, no stirring . . . nada. We found the Vitamix 5200 handles like a champ.

If you have a standard-issue blender, make sure to blend your sauce on high for 3–4 minutes. Then you’ll need to transfer it to a saucepan to thicken on your stove top. Make sure to stir constantly with a whisk to avoid burning.

That’s it! All done. Now all you have to do is exercise enough restraint to keep from scalding your tongue on the molten liquid gold goodness. (Speaking from experience.)

Enjoy hot or cold. We keep ours in a glass canning jar and store it in the fridge. It will keep for up to a week, but it rarely lasts that long!