Vegan and Gluten Free
Serendipity Jane
Original Recipe: Jane Fox
Stretchy Vegan Cheese Sauce looks and tastes like real cheese! You’d never suspect that it’s made with potatoes and carrots!
My Inspiration
Cheese still tempts me! I’ve always loved cheese, and finding perfect plant based cheese substitutes for different recipes is an ongoing part of my journey into plant based and gluten free eating. The first time I had a vegan cheese dip, I couldn’t believe that it wasn’t the real deal. The only thing that gave it away was the lack of “stretch.” You know,… what happens when you pull the cheese apart and the cheese holds on to the other side for dear life! That’s stretch.
Amazing taste, texture and “stretch” were my goals in developing my recipe for Stretchy Vegan Cheese Sauce. I knew tapioca was the key to getting a stretch and I first I tried pairing it with a base of sunflower seeds. It tasted great, but the texture was grainy. Then I tried coconut milk, but the taste of coconut was too prominent and the texture had almost a slimy mouth feel. On the third try, I hit a home run using a combination that Chef Mark Anthony pioneered. Unbelievably, Potatoes and carrots are the base! I switched it up by using canned Coconut milk for smoothness and richness, and tapioca starch to give my sauce some stretch. Bingo! Blog worthy Stretchy Vegan Cheese Sauce!
Ingredients
Yukon Gold Potatoes have a very smooth refined texture, and so they are the perfect choice to make this smooth creamy sauce. Carrots are added for color, although they do provide vitamins, including Vitamin A. If you want a lighter color or a white cheese, replace all or some of the carrots with potato.
Nutritional Yeast contains essential B vitamins that are difficult to get in a plant based diet, but they also are the source of the “cheesy” flavor in the sauce.
Tapioca Flour and Tapioca Starch are the same thing. Along with the cooking water, they provide starch that gives the sauce that give the beautiful stretchiness of real cheese.
An important element to the flavor of real cheese is the “tang” that is achieved, through the process of fermentation. There are some vegan cheeses on the market, and recipes out there, that actually ferment the plant based milk, and they are delicious! But I have an easy shortcut: Ume Plum Vinegar and Dry Mustard. Ume Plum Vinegar, a Japanese condiment, is naturally fermented, giving a tang and saltiness that works like magic, to replicate the “tang” that we are looking for. It is sometimes hard to find, and when I first heard about it, I went to about five stores before finally ordering it on Amazon. Then one day, I saw it in Walmart! If you must, you can substitute lemon juice or gluten free red wine vinegar, but the taste is really worth the effort to find the Ume Plum Vinegar.
Additional flavor is achieved with the addition of Vegan Chicken Bouillon powder, garlic powder, maple syrup and salt.
The Process
- Clean, rinse and peel the potatoes and carrots.
- Cut the potatoes and carrots into small pieces to speed up cooking.
- In a large pot, boil the vegetables until they are soft enough to smash with a fork.
- Drain the vegetables, making sure to retain about 1½ cups of the starchy cooking water.
- Put the vegetables, starchy cooking water and the remaining ingredients in the blender and process on the puree setting.
- Process until the sauce is velvety smooth. In my Ninja blender it takes about 10 minutes, but it will be much faster in a high speed blender.
- Pour the smooth, thin sauce from the blender in to a sauce pan, and over medium heat, bring the sauce to a boil, continually stirring.
- The sauce will begin to thicken and you’ll know it’s done when it comes off the spoon in a “sheet” like that shown in the photo.
- Pour the sauce in a serving dish and use it to pour over vegetables, potatoes nachos. You can keep Stretchy Vegan Cheese Sauce on hand and use it in other dishes like Queso dip or Mac N’ Cheese!
Enjoy!
Printable Recipe
Stretchy Vegan Cheese Sauce
Equipment
- large pot
- colander or strainer
- Blender
- medium sized saucepan
Ingredients
- 2 cups Yukon Gold Potatoes, cubed about 4 medium potatoes
- 3/4 cup Carrots, sliced
- 6 Tablespoons Nutritional Yeast
- 4 Tablespoons Olive Oil
- 1 can Coconut Milk, full fat 14 oz.
- 1½ cups reserved cooking water from Potatoes and Carrots
- 5 Tablespoons Tapioca flour or tapioca starch
- 1 Tablespoon Ume Plum Vinegar (substitute with Lemon juice or gluten free red wine vinegar if you can't find)
- 1 Teaspoon Powdered Vegan Chicken Bullion or other Vegan Chicken broth mix
- 1 Tablespoon Garlic Powder
- 2 Teaspoons dry mustard
- 1 Teaspoon maple syrup
- 1 Teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Clean, rinse, and peel the potatoes and carrots.
- Cut the potatoes into small pieces about 1 x 2" approx.
- Slice the carrots.
- In a large pot, boil the potato and carrot pieces together until they are tender enough to smash with a fork.
- Drain the potatoes and carrots, retaining 1½ cups of the starchy boiling water.
- Add the potatoes, carrots, 1½ cups of boiling water, and all of the rest of the ingredients in to the blender.
- Blend on the puree setting until the mixture is very very smooth.
- Pour the mixture into a medium sized saucepan.
- Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce heat, stirring constantly.
- When the mixture has thickened and pours from the spoon in a sheet (see image above), remove from heat.
- Pour into a serving dish and Enjoy!
Wow!
I’ve tried them all and yours is by far the very best. Taste, texture, common ingredients–perfect!
Thank you so much for sharing this exceptional cheese sauce of my dreams! 😋
Thank you Suzanne! Your encouragement means more to me than you know!