Vegan Mac n Cheese & Steamed Broccoli

Day 59

So, I am a huge mac n cheese fan, but I saw this vegan recipe and was super curious, mainly because the blogger was so darn excited about it and I had to find out why.

Vegan Mac n Cheese & Steamed Broccoli

Vegan Mac n Cheese

Actual recipe here

Ingredients

10 ounces dried macaroni (or about 2⅔ cups) I used whole wheat elbow mac
1 cup peeled/diced yellow potatoes (or russets) I used new potatoes
¼ cup peeled/diced carrots
⅓ cup chopped onion
¾ cup water (preferably use liquid from pot of boiled veggies)
½ cup raw cashews
¼ cup coconut milk
2 tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
1 tbsp lemon juice
¾ to 1 tsp salt (or more to taste)
¼ tsp garlic powder
1 pinch cayenne pepper (optional) I skipped it
1 pinch paprika

Directions

So, since this is my first time making this, I went by the recipe. Altogether it took about an hour and a half of prep time, but some of that was clean-up. If I made it again I would use less pasta so there is a bit more sauce per pasta ratio. It really does taste suspiciously like macaroni and cheese though.

Chopped potatoes, carrots and onions

Raw cashews, soaking

Nutritional yeast

Vegan mac n cheese ingredients

Basically, all ingredients, except the pasta and breadcrumbs go into the blender to be pureed into a sauce. Cooked veggies, coconut milk, cashews, nutritional yeast, lemon, water and seasonings.

I guess what gives it the "cheese" flavor is the nutritional yeast, combined with the lemon and salt, and the carrot is responsible for the color.

Vegan mac n cheese without breadcrumbs

Breadcrumb Topping

Stale sub roll

This looks better than it tastes. It's not bad, just bland. And not cheesy-tasting. 

Vegan mac n cheese

Steamed Broccoli

Broccoli is probably my favorite dark green. I like all brassicas though (cabbage, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, etc). I steam it for about 4 or 5 minutes, until it's bright green and barely fork-tender. We don't like mushy broccoli. It was super good!

Washed broccoli

Steamed broccoli

Vegan mac n cheese & steamed broccoli

Reviews/Comments

Laura, "Do you like it? Good, I'm glad you like it."

Erin: 5
Laura: 5 (broccoli brought the rating up)