Serves 8
Time: 1 hour || Active time: 30 minutes
I don’t think vegans ever get sick of Mac & Cheese, or, “Cheeze” or whatever. One of the first recipes I ever tried was from one of my all time favorites, the New Farm Cookbook. It was great for me back then because I always had a ton of people over, and you could make it for a crowd at the drop of a hat. So if you were all sitting around watching Evil Dead 2 on repeat, it was only a matter of time before a magical pot of Mac & Cheese would appear and swallow your soul.
That recipe is still the prototype for many a vegan Mac & Cheese recipe: lots of nooch, garlic, onions and, wait, what’s that? Half a cup of margarine?! This was the 80s and so it wasn’t even non-hydrogenated margarine. It was the real deal – a bright yellow log of pure processed fat. Today we have less ungodly ingredients to work with, but still, I can’t shake the feeling that when I eat those types of Mac & Cheese, I’m eating melted margarine.
So I’ve been toying with different ingredients for the past few years and I’ll probably continue to mess around with it. It’s all about developing flavor and creaminess with ingredients that are still really accessible and really delicious, but also way less processed, and, well really real.
To keep things from being one note, I wanted to build flavor with a few simple methods and ingredients. Like all great Mac & Cheese recipes, this one begins with a roux. Flour is cooked in olive oil, lending a toasty flavor and giving the finished sauce extra body and creaminess. If you’ve never made a roux before then this will be a great skill to add to your repertoire! And speaking of creaminess, cashews are given their standard vegan treatment: a long soak in water and then a horrifying (for them) trip in the food processor, to be pureed until they’re silky smooth.
So I’ve been playing with various ratios and ingredients, and it always comes out good and creamy, but I wanted something different, tangier, more interesting. Cheese is aged, giving it flavor and nuance. There’s always mustard (an ingredient even in the New Farm recipe), miso, lemon…but I hit upon an ingredient that really gave me the depth I was looking for…sauerkraut! Since the average home cook (myself included) isn’t really set up for aging stuff, I wanted something that’s already fermented, and sauerkraut really works.
This mac is my favorite yet! (But that still doesn’t stop me from adding some Frank’s Red Hot.) And of course I don’t totally break with tradition, I used a little turmeric and a touch of nutritional yeast for that telltale yellow that tells you you’re eating “cheeze” not “cheese.”
Recipe notes:
~You really need to blend the beejeezus out of the cashews and sauerkraut. Although it won’t be completely creamy until after it’s cooked, it should still be relatively smooth, with absolutely no chunks, when it comes out of the food processor. I think a Vitamix type thing would work here, too, but I don’t have one myself.
~Make sure that the roux is cooked and toasty before streaming in the veggie broth. It really makes a difference in the final flavor, so get your roux a really beautiful gravy color.
~You can use any smallish pasta. I love to use chiocciole because it can hold plenty of sauce, and I just find the shape pleasing. Small shells or traditional macaroni are both great choices, too.
~To soak cashews, just place them in a bowl and submerge with water. Soak for at least an hour, preferably two, or up to overnight.
~And lastly, the type of veggie broth you use makes a huge difference. If I use my own homemade broth, I make sure it’s super assertive. If you use the type of broth that comes from a powder or concentrate, that is totally cool, just make it a bit stronger than you usually do.
1 lb small pasta like shells, macaroni or chiocciole
1 1/2 cups cashews, soaked (see recipe note)
4 cups broth, divided
4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 small onion, diced
2 cups sauerkraut
1/3 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon tumeric
Several dashes fresh black pepper
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast (optional)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
First boil salted water for the pasta. Cook pasta and drain. In the meantime, prepare the rest of the recipe.
Place the soaked cashews and 2 cups of the vegetable broth in a food processor and blend until smooth, scraping the sides of the food processor with a spatula occasionally to make sure you get everything. This could take 5 minutes.
In the meantime, preheat a large pan (preferably cast iron) over medium heat. Saute the onions and garlic and a pinch of salt in a tablespoon of the oil, until onions are softened.
Drain the sauerkraut in a sieve, pushing it into the sieve to remove as much moisture as possible. Add to the pan just to heat through, a minute or two.
Transfer sauerkraut mixture to the food processor with the cashew mixture. Once again, puree until relatively smooth. There will be some texture, just make sure it’s not chunky.
Wipe out the pan that you sauteed the onions in and preheat it over medium heat once again. Add 3 tablespoons of oil, along with the flour. It should become a gooey clump. You’re now making a roux! Add a little bit more olive oil if necessary. Toast the roux for about 15 minutes, until it smells toasty and turns a medium brown. Stir practically the whole time so that it cooks evenly.
Now stream in remaining 2 cups of broth, whisking constantly so that it doesn’t clump. Whisk until thick and smooth, about 2 minutes.
Stream in the cashew sauerkraut mixture, and whisk until well incorporated. Add the tumeric, black pepper, nutritional yeast if using, salt and fresh lemon juice. Heat through and stir occasionally, allowing the mixture to thicken.
Preheat oven to 350 F and lightly grease an 11 x 13 casserole with olive oil.
Add the cooked pasta back to the pasta pot and pour in the sauce. Taste for salt and pepper. Mix to coat, then transfer to the casserole dish. Cover casserole with tin foil and bake for 20 minutes. Remove tin foil and bake an additional 5 minutes. Serve hot!
oh my, this sauce is so good! Only had a small can of kraut, but it took so well to the penne and roasted green chilis!
I made this tonight without the sauerkraut (my dad’s stomach can’t handle it) and it was so good! This recipe rules.
Mac & Shews is always good, lately we’ve taken to sprinkling chipotle.
NEW BREAKTHROUGH: we made Mac & Shews last night and saved 2 cups of the Cashew Sauce.
We cooked down a pound of fresh spinach tonight, mixed it with the leftover sauce, and stuffed this as a filling in cannelloni, baked with a spicy tomato sauce. It was amazing! A wonderful all purpose creamy cashew sauce!
Finally made this. My food processor is garbage so I couldn’t get the sauce very smooth but the flavors are delightful. It was rich and creamy (mine was a bit stringy from the sauerkraut). Don’t fest the sauerkraut. The stinky bitter flavor is easily masked by the other flavors so don’t fear.
This is a great recipe! Thanks for sharing.
Once I get my new food processor I will try this again for sure.
I made this tonight for my family and they really liked it. They couldn’t guess the secret ingredient. We are not vegan but I love making tasty food that is good for you. Thanks Isa for being such an awesome chef and using real ingredients to make real food!
I was very suspicious of the sauerkraut, and would NEVER have even taken the time to try this recipe if it wasn’t coming from such a trusted source 🙂 I’ve made it twice now and it is absolutely delish!! Rich and creamy, but not too heavy – and the flavour is just perfect. I usually reserve fake mac and cheeses for vegan friends, but this one is a hit with any omni crowd. I’ve passed this recipe along to two grateful omnis, in fact!
Isa – I’ve never posted on your site, but I am one of the silent masses who loves and appreciates all your amazing recipes, and buys all your books hot off the presses. keep up the great work!!
I just made this as the vegan/dairy-free option for a local fundraising mac & cheese dinner. It was a big hit! Word even started to spread that the vegan option was better than main mac being served. I left out the sauerkraut since I didn’t have any on hand and just added a little miso paste and extra lemon juice for the tangy, aged taste. Thanks!
Could you suggest what amount of a gluten-free flour mix one might use in this recipe?
Specifically, I use Better Batter as my flour.
These gluten-free flours have a high starch content and thicken like crazy.
If you don’t have a suggested amount, that’s fine… obviously.
I’ll just experiment and post my results later.
I just thought I’d ask first. This looks delectable though! I can’t wait to make it.
Made this today and it was FABoo – best yet! The addition of sauerkraut is ingenious! Thank you for sharing this and your other delightful recipes and insights.
Sauerkrat!! Genius! I’m going to try replacing the miso in other cheese recipes with sauerkrat! Brilliant!
This s better than many other vegan mac and cheese recipes, and since nooch can be pricey, it’s a good thing that the sauce isn’t 80% nooch. And we all love the nooch, folks, but it can be frustrating when a lot of vegan mac and cheese recipes basically taste the same. I don’t really want recipes to be able to make non-vegan friends think they’re eating non-vegan food, but I do want recipes that reflect how far vegan food has come, and this kind of innovation does exactly that.
For the people who are iffy about the sauerkraut: if you taste the blended sauerkraut mixture before cooking, you can taste a bit of the sauerkraut flavour (though it’s mostly the tanginess of it, rather than the specific flavour of the sauerkraut), but once the dish is cooked, unless someone told you it was sauerkraut, you wouldn’t expect it at all.
The final sauce would probably also go even better in a potato bake, and with some mustard in it.
Looks soo delish! I am not a sauerkraut lover myself but I get your intentions on using it. Subbing in cauliflower here, already smells fantastic (my iPhone is now sticky)
THIS WAS AMAZNG.
Thank you a bunch for sharing this with all folks you really recognise what you are talking approximately! Bookmarked. Kindly additionally consult with my site =). We could have a link trade arrangement between us! ninja master prep professional http://www.99polls.com/profile_2194394
Sauerkraut and cashews? Sounds werid, are you sure final flavour is “cheesy”?
I can live without meat (well, I hate the taste, so I find being old enough to decide about it a nice thing! and openly declaring as vegetarian is easier than eating this gross thing sometimes), and I don’t like eggs (it’s gross when raw, so why cook and eat something gross? and I didn’t bake a lot, so I can learn vegan recipies. And my habit of grabbing a yogurt or milk dessert for every brekfast or snack, whas more from habit and convinience, than taste (so bananas work as well… and I don’t need a spoon for them!) But cheese is hard as hell. No camembert for the rest of my life? No cheese on my pizza? No toast? No mozzarella, no caprese salad? Even no cheese-flavoured popcorn? OMG, I’m gonna cry!
But I’m not sure, if I’m desperate enough, to try cashews and sauerkraut in one dish. You swear it tastes cheesy, not sour and you don’t find the smell od cabbage in it?
you’re a genius! thanks for bringing umami into vegan pasta!! loved it!
What do you do with the onions once sauteed? Added to sauce? Or as a garnish?
This is the BEST vegan mac and cheese I’ve had so far. Like someone else above mentions, I used vegan kimchi (just the simple store bought jar from Whole Foods) instead of sauerkraut. I always liked a little bite to my mac and cheese anyway (think pepper jack flavor) and it turned out AMAZING. So don’t be afraid to make that substitute if you like the spice.
I currently can’t find raw cashews anywhere(thanksgiving season, ugh), but I really liked this recipe when I made it back in September for my family and friends (who all liked it and ask for it). I was wondering if I would be able to sort of combine this recipe and the sunflower mac one? Or would the consistency of the sunflower seed’s sauce be too different for the sauerkraut to work as well as it does with the cashews?
I’m a little late to this party, but I was jonesing for some comfort food, as well as needing to use up some leftover collard/kale/what have you greens, so I thought this recipe and the greens would make a great meal. So far, it smells heavenly. I am sure it will taste fantastic, and I do plan to make this recipe again.
People, ADD THE GERMAN KIMCHEE. The tangyness added so much flavor. It doesn’t taste like saurkraut at all, it’s a wonderful secret ingredient.
Unfortunately, my family is not a fan of cashew cheese (must be a vegan/health food thing). I loved it. Definitely gonna make a batch of cheese to freeze for myself, then pull out when I want an easy dish.
It’s the bomb, easy to make and delicious. I used whole wheat penne and I was very happy. The timing is important so try to have everything out and ready before you start. I used roasted cashews from Safeway but next time I want to try raw. This is a must try!!!
Isa! Do you have a gluten free flour recommendation to try with this? Also, do you think it would still be as good if I used half the oil, working with a client right now who is trying to cut back on oil as much as possible. Thanks!
Isa, I love this recipe and I love you!
Lauren: go for it without oil, I just did tonight and it still tasted marvelous! I did oil the baking dish though. I just toasted the flour in an unoiled pan, then mixed it up with the 2 remaining cups of veg broth and brought them to a boil together, and otherwise followed the recipe minus the roux.
I think you could just use a gluten free flour blend, no problem. Also I’ve tried gluten free noodles, and the quinoa/corn blend they sell at whole foods was AWESOME, I think better than wheat noodles, although big wheat shells are pretty darn good!
I made this tonight and yummy.
We’ve been making this for 3 years – the best mac and cheeezzz recipe ever!!! Made a double batch tonight, and somehow it came out the best batch yet! Thank you again Isa!!!
Can I sub sunflower seeds for the cashews in this recipe?
Yum – had to taste it to believe! I’m not much into macaroni and cheese, but I will definitely be using this sauce with steamed broccoli and with nachos (the only dish that I really miss from my pre-vegan days)
I so want to start making vegan cheese but I loathe the taste of cashews. Help!
I just made this and would just like to say thank you for posting the recipe! I am an awful cook and this is the first vegan meal I have made completely from scratch and it was so easy. Mac n cheese has always been my favourite and its insane how much this tastes like cheese! Thank you!!!
Making this for the 5th time! I LOVE this recipe. The store nearby didn’t have plain cashews so I’m using a mix of roasted cashews, almonds, pecans and brazil nuts! It smells delish.
SO.. FREAKING… YES. INSANELY GOOD!!! My white trash tip is that we just used our blender from the 80’s instead of a food processor and I used a giant wad of paper towels to drain the sauerkraut. So anyone can make this.