Upon searching for vegan mac and cheese recipes, I found countless recipes all claiming to be the BEST vegan mac and cheese EVER. What I’ve realized is that the perfect mac and cheese is different for almost everyone, and you can’t really call any of the recipes the BEST EVER as it’s completely subjective. Some people like to put vegetables in their mac and cheese; some people like to bake it. To me, mac and cheese only has two ingredients, for the most part: macaroni and cheese. It’s not macaroni, cheese, and a bunch of other stuff. Not to me, anyway.
My approach was to combine 3 different cheeses. It’s a technique used in countless non-vegan dishes, but I haven’t seen it used that much in vegan dishes. I think it worked out amazingly, but like I said, it might not be to your liking. I used the Teese creamy cheddar vegan sauce, Daiya cheddar style shreds, and a nutritional yeast cheese sauce. Each kind of cheese adds something the other may be lacking.
Three-Cheese Vegan Mac & Cheese
- 1 lb elbow macaroni (approximate… use more or less depending on how cheesy you want the end product to be)
- 1 package Teese creamy cheddar sauce
- 2 cups soy milk
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 4 tablespoons nutritional yeast
- ¼ teaspoon garlic and herb seasoning
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch
- ¼ cup raw sunflower seeds
- Daiya cheddar shreds
- Paprika to taste
Cook the pasta according to package directions, but subtract a couple of minutes. If you cook the pasta all the way, it’ll get too soft during the baking.
In a blender, add the raw sunflower seeds and some of the soymilk. Blend until the sunflower seeds and are pureed. Add the rest of the soymilk, some salt and pepper, nutritional yeast, garlic and herb seasoning, and cornstarch. Blend until combined.
In a saucepan, add the mostly-cooked pasta and the Teese creamy cheddar sauce. Stir until the Teese is melted. Add the nutritional yeast sauce and stir to combine, cooking on med-low until the sauce thickens just a bit.
Transfer the contents of the saucepan to a casserole dish. I use an old Pyrex dish with a glass lid. If you don’t have one with a lid, you’ll probably want to cover the dish with aluminum foil.
It’ll look something like this:
Sprinkle some Daiya shreds (however much you want, really – I probably used about ¼ of the package), paprika and some pepper (and salt if you want, depending on how much you added to the nutritional yeast sauce) on top.
Now it’ll look something like this:
Bake at 350 degrees for about a half hour. Stir to combine, serve and enjoy!
I don’t have any good photos of the finished product, but you can imagine what it probably looks like.
