Homemade Vegan Cheese Recipe – Healthy Nacho Cheese – Nut-Free, Soy-Free, and Oil-Free

Making your own plant-based cheese isn’t that hard, well, depending on the kind of cheese you want to create of course. There are some plant-based cheeses that have elaborate recipes and need days of preparation (like the hard cheeses), but simple creations like nacho cheese don’t take up much time, are easy to make, and they taste amazing.

Have you ever tried homemade vegan fondue? Click here for the recipe

This recipe is courtesy from Nutriciously. Made with veggies and a great spice mix, this is a wonderful spice dip for those evenings with friends. It’s even nut -, soy -, and oil free, which eliminates any allergy issues; and although it is low on calories, it still provides a rich, creamy taste. Bonus: it’s also easy on the wallet 🙂 You can serve it with nachos, tacos, potatoes, pasta, and anything else you like to add it to.

It’s also a great way to get your kids to eat more veggies, since this recipe includes potatoes, onions, and carrots. Who said that veggies cannot be versatile?

So, let’s first look at this recipe by Nutriciously. Below, I will add another variation of this recipe.

For more info about this recipe, feel free to check out Nutriciously’s website

Ingredients

• 1 medium potato, peeled
• 2 carrots
• 1 white onion, peeled
• 1 cup low sodium vegetable broth (240 ml)
• ¼ cup almond milk, unsweetened (60 ml)
• 1 tbsp nutritional yeast
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• 1 tsp paprika
• ¼ tsp salt
• Cayenne pepper, to taste
• Optional: pickled jalapeños or salsa

Instructions

1. Heat a medium-sized saucepan over medium heat, then wash and cut your potato, onion and carrots into small cubes. Cover with vegetable broth, put on the lid and bring to a boil.
2. Turn down the heat and let everything simmer until very tender for about 15 minutes.
3. Once cooked, transfer the veggies together with the cooking water to a blender and add the rest of the ingredients for your vegan nacho cheese.
4. Blend until smooth and adjust with spices to your liking, then serve with homemade oil-free tortilla chips, roasted veggies, lasagna or vegan pasta dishes.
5. Any leftovers can be stored in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week and even frozen for a few months.

Notes

• To create a richer vegan nacho cheese, add some nuts or nut butter to the blender.
• For a deeper flavor, add a spritz of tamari or soy sauce! You can also add chipotle powder, mustard, hot sauce or smoked paprika.

It’s super easy to make this, and potatoes and nutritional yeast add a nice cheesy flavor. In fact, you can also make cheese from just potatoes; I will share that recipe in an upcoming post. I have had potato cheese several times and it is one of my favorite flavors.

Below comes another delicious queso recipe. It`s also easy to make and I love this one! Whenever I make it, it is gone within the first day 😉

The following recipe contains nuts, but is soy free and oil free.

Ingredients

• 1/4 – 1/2 sliced jalapeño (depends on how spicy you want it – I sometimes replace the jalapeño with piquin or poblano chilie)
• 1 cup water
• 2 tablespoons lime juice
• 2/3 cup raw almonds
• 1 1/4 cup onion powder
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon turmeric
• 1 teaspoon black pepper (optional)

Instructions

• Place all ingredients (except for the pepper) in a blender and blend until the mixture is well combined.
• Garnish with the black pepper
• Enjoy

Why Make Vegan Cheese?

Vegan cheeses are plant-based and contain no dairy, making them healthier and cruelty-free.

Cruelty-Free

As photo and video evidence have proven, the dairy industry is among the cruelest of the animal food industry. The normal lifespan of a cow is 20 years, but in the food industry she is usually killed at the age of 6, and often also much younger than that, at the age of 3 …

Cows are sentient beings with intelligence and there is photo evidence of cows crying tears before being butchered in the slaughterhouse. Dairy cows also end up in the slaughterhouse as soon as they stop producing milk, and with the constant abuse to their bodies, their milk production stops at a young age.

What abuse am I talking about? For a cow to produce milk, she needs to have a calf. Us women also only produce breast milk when we have babies. It is the same for cows and other mammals. So, the cow is forcibly impregnated, over and over and over again. This is done by ramming a metal tube that contains bull sperm down their vaginas, which is a painful procedure, as you can imagine.

Then, the cow gets pregnant. The gestation period is between 297 to 287 days, depending on the sex and breed of the calf. Like all mothers, cows bond with their babies, but as soon as the calves are born they are ripped away from their mothers, never to be seen again. The cow cries over her lost baby for days … The milk that was naturally intended for her calf is now milked for human consumption.

After the cow runs out of milk, she is impregnated again. Once more she goes through the cycle of carrying her baby in her womb, giving birth, having her calf stolen from her, and mourning its loss. This goes on for years …

Watch this (non-graphic) heartbreaking video of a mother cow chasing her calf as it (and other calves) are driven away to their slaughter …

The cows are milked mechanically, and the constant rubbing of the metal against their teats causes bruising, leading to udder infections and mastitis. Besides the pain they suffer, pus from their infected teats often ends up in milk. According to the USDA, the amount of pus that finds itself into milk that is sold in American stores is minimal, about one drop of pus per cup.

When the cow can’t produce any more milk, after a life of loss and misery she is led to her slaughter …

What happens to the calves? They are either kept in solitary crates where they are fattened up for a few months, to be sold as veal; or they are discarded like trash, to die of hunger while crying for their mother …

This is the dairy industry …

Note: I decided to include non-graphic photos in this article, but in reality, any real photos from the dairy industry demonstrate the horror and are heartbreaking and tear-provoking …

Health

While pus is not bad in itself – after all, it is the body’s natural defense system – it isn’t something anyone would like in their mouths, even if it’s just one drop. Nonetheless, ingesting pus isn’t a risk to your health; it is just a little disgusting, right?

Although I have come across several blogs spouting the so called benefits of drinking milk and denying the health risks, a link between breast-, ovarian-, and prostate cancer and dairy has been scientifically proven.

According to Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, milk and other dairy products like cheese are also a high source of saturated fat which clog the arteries, contributing to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimers.

Milk products contain cholesterol, and typical cheeses are 70% fat … The high fat content and hormones have been linked to cancer.

Research also shows that milk doesn’t do much for bone health as commercials would like you to believe. According to an analysis published by the British Medical Journal, studies fail to show any connection between dairy intake and broken bones. The researchers studied the diets, exercises, and stress fracture rates of adolescent girls and came to the conclusion that dairy products and calcium do not prevent bone fractures.

Interestingly enough, another study that was done on more than 96,000 people discovered that each additional glass of milk that was consumed as a teenager would lead to a 9% higher risk of hip fracture in men. After publishing the results of this research, none of the authors of the written conclusion presented any conflict of interest.

Can you build bone health on a plant-based diet? Yes, kale, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards; in general, leafy green vegetables have high amounts of calcium. For more info, please see my article about calcium on a vegan diet.

Lactose intolerance isn’t in fact an intolerance. It is a normal process that your body goes through after you are weaned off your mother’s breast milk. Infants and children produce enzymes that break down lactose (in mother’s and cow’s milk), but when we grow up, many of us lose that ability. This is why lactose intolerance is so common.

In Conclusion

I hope you try out the vegan cheese recipes I shared with you today. Although I agree that some plant-based cheeses cannot always replicate the exact cheese flavor due to a lack of casein, I have tasted some substitutes that were pretty amazing. Besides, if it’s better for your health, cruelty-free, and it has good flavor, you got nothing to lose, right? Your health and the animals will thank you 🙂