Realistic, Baked, 4-Cheese Vegan Mac & Cheese
This is the ultimate vegan macaroni and cheese! It's made with cheddar, smoked gouda, parmesan, and a cashew-based cheesy sauce. It's topped off with buttery, Italian panko bread crumbs and baked to absolute perfection.
Ingredients
Mac & Cheese
- 3 cups corkscrew pasta + 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 2 cups raw cashews, soaked in water for at least 3 hours, drain, rinse, then measure out the 2 cups
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 tbsp sweet white miso paste
- 3 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp raw apple cider vinegar
- 1 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 3 tbsp vegan butter
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 cups cashew milk, plain, unsweetened
- 1 Daiya Medium Cheddar Style Farmhouse Block, shredded
- 1 Daiya Smoked Gouda Style Farmhouse Block, shredded *See tips below recipe for cheese alternatives
Panko Bread Crumb Topping
- 1 1/2 cups Italian panko breadcrumbs (Read the tip section below the recipe for a homemade Italian panko bread crumb recipe! (Just in case you can't find any vegan store-bought blend!))
- 1/4 cup vegan butter, melted
- One 4 ounce container Follow Your Heart shredded parmesan (Roughly 1 cup)
- 1/4 tsp smoked paprika
Instructions
Mac & Cheese
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Season a large stockpot of water with 1/2 tsp of salt. Bring it up to a boil. Once it is at a rolling boiling add in the pasta. Give it a one time stir to ensure the pasta isn’t stuck together.
- Once it's back up to a rapid boil, set a timer and cook the pasta for 6 minutes.
- Drain and rinse off the pasta with cold water until the pasta is completely cooled down. Set aside.
- In a high-powered blender, add the soaked cashews, nutritional yeast, miso paste, lemon juice, apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper, and blend until extremely smooth. Scrape down the sides of the blender as needed. Set aside.
- Shred your vegan cheese blocks and combine the two to create a blend. Set aside.
- In a large, deep pot, over medium heat, melt the vegan butter.
- Once melted, add in the flour, stir well and continuously, with a wooden spoon, cooking for about 1 1/2 minutes.
- With a whisk, slowly whisk in the cashew milk, about 1/2 a cup at a time. The sauce should be very smooth.
- Once all of the cashew milk has been added, add in that cheese paste we blended from earlier. Whisk together really well until combined.
- Cook the sauce for about 2 minutes or until it begins to bubble.
- Now turn the heat down to medium-low, add 2 1/2 cups of the shredded cheese blend, and whisk it all together. Continue cooking until most of the cheese has melted into the sauce. A little bit of texture is okay.
- Add the cooked pasta in, turn the heat off, and stir very well to coat the pasta evenly in the sauce.
- Add in 1 cup more of the shredded cheese blend and stir well.
- Pour the vegan mac and cheese into an 8x8 inch baking dish of choice, scraping in all of the sauce. With a rubber spatula, flatten the mixture out from corner to corner. *I always place my baking dish on a sheet pan just in case the mac and cheese ooze over.
- Sprinkle evenly on top the last bit of the shredded cheese blend.
Panko Bread Crumb Topping
- In a medium bowl, combine all of the "Panko Bread Crumb Topping" ingredients and mix very well.
- Sprinkle the bread crumb topping evenly onto the mac and cheese, from corner to corner.
How to Bake the Mac & Cheese
- Cover the dish with tin foil and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.
- Pull the baking dish from the oven and peel off the tin foil. Place the dish back in the oven and cook for another 10 minutes.
- Now, set the broiler to high, and broil for 1 to 1 1/2 minutes... just until the top is crispy and medium golden brown.
Tried this recipe?Let me know how it was!