Best Vegan Mac and Cheese in the entire world...seriously
1 1/2 pounds pasta, preferably macaroni "Cheese" Sauce:
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
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Boil water in a big pot and cook pasta according to package directions.
2. Add all of the "cheese" sauce ingredients in a blender and process until smooth. Once pasta is cooked, drain and put it in the baking pan (about the size of a brownie pan). Pour the "cheese" sauce over the pasta.
3. Bake until the top of the pasta looks slightly browned and crispy, about 15 minutes.
This is very simple and tastes amazing! If you are cooking for yourself, it will last about 5 days if you eat it for all three meals of the day.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
Really nummy; definitely satisfies the cravings for something dense, creamy, & comfort-foodish. I cut down the pasta to 1 lb dry, oil to 1/4 c, kept 1 c water, kept everything else the same, and mixed the sauce with the dry pasta and baked at 350 (covered), for 45 minutes, and it turned out well. The dry pasta absorbed everything beautifully! Next time I'll add a grated onion, black pepper, cut out the salt, add the juice of one lemon for a tangier taste, *way* more fresh garlic, and see what happens....thanks for another fast recipe that I can eat off of for awhile (if I don't eat the whole pan, first!!!!!)
::) Read all the reviews to get some ideas!! :) Just got done making the Vegan Mac and Cheese, and it turned out awesome!! What I did was I cut the salt down to 1/4 tbls and used low sodium soy sauce!! If you like mac and cheese, and can't or no desire to use dairy, this is the way to get mac and cheese back :)
Good recipe. It was my first cooking experiment using nutritional yeast - I finally tracked some down. I like the flavor a lot, although I'm not going to be fooled into thinking it is cheese. It is cheesy (cheezy?) though. I don't really like the color (brownish-orangish), but, oh well, I'm here to eat!!!! I've also liked my mac n' cheese with relatively more mac and less cheese. That is, having the pasta lightly coated with the cheese rather than dripping with cheese sauce. Therefore, I liked this recipe....it didn't have too much of a cheese sauce consistency.
I reduced the garlic and paprika by about a third because I don't like strongly spiced dishes, and reduced the salt by about half. Next time, I might cut the garlic a bit further. I added the optional mustard.
I made about a third of the recipe, using a loaf pan, which I'm happy I did because even the amount I made will probably be 3-5 servings. Mac N Cheese = not an easy thing to veganize, but this recipe is a nice start.
This is so good. Seriously. My brother, who won't eat anything that didn't at one time have the ability to walk to the table had TWO helpings of this. Awesome.
This certainly morphed into a casserole of sorts for me - with PLENTY of sauce left over! I added cayenne for more kick, as well as fresh green beans, mushrooms, sauteed onion and tons of garlic. Topped with "facon" and veggie parm, and my slowly converting to veganism boyfriend and I loved every bite of it...and good thing since there was a TON of food!
Okay, I must, finally, add my $.02 on this recipe.
First, I've made this twice, following the directions and taking no liberties with substitutions. Both attempts did not result in anything remotely palatable (sorry). :-\ And I'm a good cook.
Second, it was the disappointment from these two experiences, combined with the fact that this recipe is so puzzling popular in some households (I just don't get it, no offense to the author), and reviled by others (I can relate, seriously, and I also am loathe to waste valuable ingredients) that I was inspired to concoct my own vegan Mac and Cheese recipe.
While I encourage folks to make their own decisions, my recommendation, if you're seeking a no-fail, honest-to-goodness, and a much-easier-to-prepare recipe for vegan mac and cheese, you won't be disappointed by MINE! (Shameless self-aggrandizing, I know.) As I mentioned above, I created it after trying this misnomered "Best Vegan Mac and Cheese in the entire world... seriously" recipe twice and being profoundly displeased.
My version is called Flashback Mac and Cheese:
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=16227.0
Give it a try. ;) Discuss.
I made this for me and my boyfriend and although it didn't taste like Mac n' Cheese at all, it was very delish. However, we both agreed that it had a tad too much salt and garlic. So next time I'm going to cut those in half, but other than that its VERY good! I love how it even looks like mac and cheese too, especially if you get you really break the tofu down into smaller bits! It could easily fool a non-veggie. :D And being a poor college student, the leftovers are wonderful! I'll be eating it for lunch for the next couple days.
I tried this recipe three times. I'm sorry, but I thought it was very disgusting. The smell made my husband and I both very sick. We gave it a shot, three whole times, excited about how good everyone claimed it to be, but it was just really gross. :(
We even bought different types of noodles and yeast, hoping that was the problem.. but it wasn't.
Since everyone who doesn't like this recipe seems to have altered it, are you sure you were using NUTRITIONAL yeast and not BREAD yeast?
I did not alter the recipe in ANY way, and I used nutritional yeast, NOT bread yeast. I DO know the difference, I've been cooking a long time.
i have a mac n'cheez recipe and it's about a 100 times better then this. nuterional yeast as a cheese sub isn't all that good. tried it, didn't like it. not that that should really make any differece considering all the positive feed back you've had haha.
RE: the nutritional yeast issue... (hahaha)
SURE wish i would have read thru the ENTIRE comments before making this...lol
a few days ago i made it and was gonna put up a very bad review b/c altho it wasn't totally horrible, i had to make it un-vegan with butter and ranch dressing to make it paletable..(sp?) having said that....i'm going to the store to purchase NUTRITIONAL yeast this time instead of BREWERS yeast (that i'd like to add had nutritional yeast on the label....VERY misleading haha) and i will come back with the review... checked out both ingredients on wikipedia and it states that they have totally diff uses and tastes, hence the reason it came out super brown and very strong 'off' flavor... ;D
Pages