Serves 4
Time: 30 minutes (not including sunflower seed soaking time)
The most important people in my life are my recipe testers. Luckily, my sister and mom are included in their numbers, so all of my bases are covered.
Recipe testers are why my cookbooks work. Before a recipe gets to you, it has already been tested by a bunch of people, all over the world. They all have different levels of experience, from beginner cooks to lifelong kitchophiles. Some live in rural areas and harvest their own kale, while others lug huge bushels home from the farmer’s market on the subway. And there’s a happy medium in between.
But not only do testers test my recipes, they also give me inspiration. I can ask if there’s anything I’m missing, anything they’re craving, or just any ingredients they need to use up. It’s a great way to get ideas!
And over the years, I’ve learned many of their quirks, likes, loves and allergies. One of my most favoritest testers who has been there with me from the very beginning is Jess Sconed. I can’t say enough about her amazingness! I mean, not just as a recipe tester but as a friend and as a person. She is always creating something, always making the vegan community a better, more awesome, and more fun place. She started Vegan Iron Chef and is one of the organizers of Vida Vegan Con. She has like 20 blogs, but you might know her from Get Sconed, where she’s been blogging for ever. This recipe, created in her honor, is totally fitting because she’s a lot like a sunflower. One with dyed black pigtails and purple nail polish, but a sunflower all the same! Just a glowing ray of tofu light.
I know how she feels about raw onions and cilantro (not too good), and so I often come up with recipes keeping that in mind. And recently Jess has developed a tree nut allergy! I can’t imagine a worse fate right now, what with the cashew craze and my out of control almond butter lust. Knowing how much she loves vegan macs, I wanted to experiment with a sauce that I knew Jess would love, using ingredients that would be good for her, too. And so I pulled out the sunflower seeds.
I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Was this going to taste very 70s health-foody? I mean, it’s sunflower seeds. Our grandparents put them on their oatmeal. Would they even blend well? Cashews slurp up water and get tender and ready to puree. Sunflower kernels seem so hard and unwelcoming. I had my doubts, to be sure.
But all those doubt washed away as I poured the perfectly creamy sauce over the little macaronis in a positively cheddary orange waterfall. Sunflower seeds have a mellow nutty quality that fit right into a cheezy sauce. The backdrop of garlic and onion, with a hint of vegetable sweetness from carrots, and the rich toastiness from the sunflowers had me at the first creamy forkful. Bottom line: I really dug it! And from now on, I’ll have a canister of sunflower seeds standing proudly beside the cashews in my cupboard. Thanks for the inspiration, Jess!
I love to serve my mac with some steamed kale, so here was my plate.
The mac is under there somewhere! Steamed broccoli would be a good choice, as well. PS If you’d like to see all the testing that Jess did for Veganomicon, you can check out her post here.
8 oz macaroni pasta (I used whole wheat, use brown rice pasta to make it gluten-free)
1 cup unroasted sunflower seed kernels, soaked (see directions)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup thinly sliced carrots
1 small onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons organic cornstarch
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Sweet paprika for sprinkling
Place sunflower seeds in a bowl and submerge in water. Let soak for about 2 hours and up to overnight. Drain well.
Boil a pot of salted water for your pasta.
Preheat a sauce pot over medium heat. Saute carrots and onions in oil with a pinch of salt for about 10 minutes, until onions are translucent and carrots are slightly softened. Add garlic and saute for 30 seconds or so, then remove from heat.
Place the carrots and onions in a blender or food processor. Add vegetable broth, corn starch, nutritional yeast, tomato paste and sunflower seeds. Blend until very smooth. This could take up to 5 minutes depending on the power of your machine, so give your blender motor a break every minute or so and test the sauce for smoothness. It should be very smooth, with only a slight graininess.
If your water is boiling, prepare the pasta according to package directions.
In the meantime, transfer the sauce back to the sauce pot. Turn the heat up to medium and let cook, stirring very often, until thickened. This should take about 15 minutes. Add the lemon juice and taste for salt and seasoning.
The pasta should be done while the sauce is thickening, so drain and place back in the pot you cooked it in. Set aside.
When sauce is thick, pour most of it over the pasta, reserving some to pour over individual servings. Mix it up, and serve with extra sauce and paprika for sprinkling.
I’m not a vegan (or even a vegetarian) and I love me some mac’n’cheese. However, I don’t really eat it that often because of how unhealthy it is. The thought of eating that much cheese in one sitting is disgusting to me, even as an omnivore. I tried this recipe for the first time, and was blown away. This is my new go-to! You rock, Isa!
And Emily – I find that mustard powder (used in smaller amounts than NY) can add a cheesy flavor, when combined with roasted red peppers and lemon juice. Hope that helps! Maybe try a few teaspoons and a pepper, and go from there?
I discovered this recipe about 6 weeks ago and have made it twice so far. It’s Dee-licious. Thank you for an easy and delicious recipe that does take care of that mac and cheese craving. I’m making the Garlicky Thyme Tempeh now. I can’t wait to see how that turns out.
I made this last night & it was really good. The recipe made ALOT!!!! I was able to freeze two containers of the leftover cheezey sauce, I hope it freezes well!! If not, I’ll just half the recipe next time.
Thanks Isa
This was amazing! I added in some smoked sea salt and just a dash of Cayenne pepper. Thanks for the recipe.
This had a surprising depth of flavor with a nice sweetness from the carrots and onions. My sauce also bubbled like a volcano when simmering, but I just stirred continuously with a sauce whisk.
The recipe makes a ton of sauce so I had it the first time with steamed broccoli and the second time with carmelized onions and mushrooms. Rave reviews from my boyfriend both times.
This was lush! A new favourite, oh-so-easy to make and tasty on everything. Thank you!
Is the yeast just for thickening? Really looking forward to trying this. Our grocery store (Wegmans) makes a phenomenal penne corn pasta that I think it will play well with the tomato, carrots and sunflowers.
I made this using the food processor and it was grainy. Tasted great though. Would the blender produce a creamier texture?
I followed the recipe exactly and while it was very fun to try, it wasn’t what I was looking for. I am looking for something really flavorful, smooth, creamy, and a vegan version of an old favorite of mine. At least now I know that a nut-based mac is probably not going to work. This is an interesting recipe none the less and I would make it again. The quest for the best vegan mac recipe continues…
My whole Family LOVED this. Thanks!
Yumm, I added extra tomato paste and some of my basil to this recipe and it tastes awesome on homemade pizza! I was started having some allergy problems with soy so I was overjoyed when I found this.
This is wonderful… I’ve just discovered my toddler is allergic to cashews and pistachios… but I’m allergic to nutritional yeast, so I’ll have to figure out a way to work that out, but it looks amazing!
Always looking for cashewless recipes. 😀
wow, thank you, this recipe sounds not only appealing in taste but simple to make. looking forward to putting this together! would love to know how to do a white sauce too from Jael’s comment below.
Just made this with a non vegan friend. We paired it with some tender boiled broccoli. It was good! Tomorrow I’m making garlic mashed turnip and rutabagas so I’m looking forward to topping them with my leftover sunflower “cheese”!
I made this and it turned out a disgusting brown color…. where did I go wrong? Any ideas?
I made this with cauliflower tonight. It doesn’t taste cheesy to me at all, but it is a really delicious creamy sauce that I’ll make again. Sunflower seeds are much cheaper than cashews, so I’m going to be using them much more now.
This may be a stupid question, but are we supposed to use a cup of soaked sunflower seeds or a cup that was measured dry and then soaked. I made this last night and it was super green and seedy tasting. I soaked a cup of orrganic raw seeds then blended the whole lot. It was super tasty but a weird color. Thanks!
Hmm. Were the seeds shelled? I’ve heard that when you bake sunflower seeds they turn stuff green, but this definitely isn’t the case here so I’m honestly not sure!
My silly ass used pumpkin seeds not sunflower seeds… result=green sauce, still tasted great though…oops!
How many servings does this recipe make?
what can be used in place of the yeast???
awesome, soooooooooo excited to try this recipe as i was recently diagnosed with treenut + peanut allergies. cashews are in so many creamy vegan sauces that i am pysched that this one uses sunflower seeds!
i bought plain ol’ shelled sunflower seeds. however, i did see salted, roasted sunflower seeds. would those have worked, or not so much due to the extra salt????
p.s. uh, obviously i can’t read. the directions say unroasted!
This is excellent. I used a teeny bit more lemon juice (by accident) and it was still great…I think it reduced the “powdery” flavor that nooch has (although I love it).
made this a couple of nights ago, it was great. we added a generous sprinkling of annie’s worchestershire sauce + rooster hot sauce and it was the bomb. i kid you not. back in april i also developed an allergy to all nuts so i am most appreciate of this cheeze that is not cashew based!
The sauce tastes like beer, nuts, and slightly floral (I have no idea where that’s coming from). We’re not making this again.
I just tried this recipe. It’s been in my recipe box for awhile now but I never had all the ingredients conveniently available–and today I did, so I gave it a try. So good!! I added a little extra salt, oregano, and pepper, but I’m in love. I’ve been transitioning to a vegan diet for a few weeks now and this definitely satisfies my craving for cheese. Thanks so much!
This was delicious!!!!! A success even with my very crappy food processor and only just maybe 2hrs of soaking time
I was thinking of combining one of the mac n shews sauce ideas with this one. I was gonna add the sourkraut from the other recipe to this one. Would that be good, or gross?
Amazing. This dish is SO freakin’ good, my nine-year-old son had three huge bowls and my husband had a few too! I love this sauce, so creamy and rich. Thank you. I don’t know how I would feed my family without you!
Can you freeze the cheese sauce?
FYI, I’ve been making this sauce for a while and it freezes beautifully!
Our family had this for dinner last night. I served it as a cheesy sauce over cauliflower and my partner and 3 year old daughter loved it. They requested that I use the left over sauce, it made tons, for a traditional mac and cheese recipe for dinner tonight. The only change I made to the recipe was to add more nutritional yeast (about a 1/4 cup more) near the end of cooking. Delicious!
Cool! Happy you all enjoyed it.
Just made this, it doesn’t taste like cheese but is really good. I wouldn’t try telling someone it was mac and cheese way too different a taste, but maybe just say you’re making a pasta dish, and non-vegans should enjoy it. I just think if you got them expecting mac and cheese they would be sorely disappointed.
This was really good, and adults and kids all loved it at our house. I think I accidentally used roasted sunflower seeds, though. Still good, but not as yellow as in your photos.
Eating a big bowl of this mac right now as I type 🙂 Its VERY good… I added a tbsp of paprika with my salt and lemon juice during the last 15 min of cooking the sauce. I ended up with alot of extra sauce, so it was enough for a whole 16 oz bag of brown rice pasta. Also a great kid-friendly recipe; my 2 year-old daughter loved it!
This looks amazing!! I always crave mac and cheese, but most vegan recipes call for cashews, to which I am allergic. Thanks!
Serves four? HAHAHAHA. You obviously haven’t seen how much of this I can eat.
This was really good! I cooked 8oz of macaroni, like the directions said, and ended up with LOTS of extra sauce…which is good because now I can add it to everything! LOL I found the sauce was a little bit lacking in flavor, but a few seasonings would fix that. The sauce was great otherwise, the color was perfect, and it was nice and thick and creamy and smooth. I did use about 1/4 cup sunflower seeds and the rest cashews, maybe the seeds add more flavor? Anyway it was yumm-o! Thanks for the recipe! 🙂
Sounds delish! I’m going to prepare this for a very picky eater (picture 7 year old taste buds). Would this be any more of “the real thing” if I baked it a bit in the end with a bread crumb topping? Or might that ruin it in any way?