The Ultimate Vegan Cheese Sauce

I've always loved cheese.  It was my favourite comfort food growing up.  We had to be very frugal with food, and pasta and basic béchamel sauce was a staple, usually with tuna, but if there was cheese in the fridge I knew we were in for an amazing mac and cheese or cauliflower doused in delicious cheese sauce.  So it's fair to say that I had an emotional attachment to cheese.  Whenever there was a party, I was all over the cheese and pickle porcupine.  When I started hosting Christmas parties, I'd always have a cheese platter, and I'd relish going to the cheese shops that smelled like feet, because if it doesn't it's not a good cheese shop!

Alas, in my mid-20s, at the height of my cheese addiction, I became suddenly lactose-intolerant.  At first I had wiggle room, but it got progressively worse and now I just can't handle dairy at all.  But as we've established, I was rather attached to cheese and I refused to say goodbye!  Thus began my quest to find a vegan cheese that would work for me.  My first route was to find something already on the market.  I tried various vegan cheeses, everything that was available locally, and I started to order some more expensive nut creamery cheese from the internet.  NOTHING hit the spot for me, even though some came close enough if paired with marmite for toast and cheese.  It was very rare to find a melty vegan cheese, but as long as the flavour profile was right, I would have sacrificed melty in a heartbeat.

After my failure to purchase a satisfying substitute, I started going through as many cheese sauce recipes posted online as I could.  Again, I found them too sweet, too spicy, and just not cheesy enough even when Nooch was involved (that's 'nutritional yeast', for the uninitiated).  It seemed that a lot of recipes added things to make it look like cheese sauce rather than taste like it.  So I started off with sauces that use potato to give the creamy texture, and started eliminating things that threw off the flavour profile, but cheese is a bit of a tricky mistress and she won't submit to you all that easily.

So a bit of research was required.  Why is cheese so good?  What makes cheese so special?  Well, as it turns out, cheese is a natural source of glutamic acid.  This is what gives it that satisfying, savoury umami flavour.  Nooch gives a good base for being cheesy, but is almost nutty in flavour and it's missing that vital hit of glutamic acid which explains why I never found it satisfying enough.

I looked at other things that contained glutamic acid.  At first, I added tamari / soy sauce to give it some umami, and it tasted so much better!  It did make the sauce a less appetising colour, though, and it was still missing something.  Later on, I moved onto white miso paste.  This was a vast improvement, because it gave a sense of fermentation as well as making the sauce look cheesy!  But there was still something missing.

The final key to making a satisfyingly cheesy non-cheese sauce is a bit of acidity.  Naturally fermented cheeses contain lactic acid, which gives the cheese that extra tang.  This was missing from my earlier experiments.  To replace that, a splash of lemon juice or apple cider vinegar is all it takes.  Actually, a bit of both is best so that neither flavour is easily discernible.

At least eight years on from the onset of my intolerance, I have FINALLY got a cheese sauce I can enjoy!!!  My next cheesy project will be to making a solid cheese, but for now, this is ace!  I'm keeping batches of it in the fridge to use with pasta for mac and cheese, or as a dip, and because i leave it so thick, I can even sling it on toast and pretend it's melted cheese.  Enjoy!!

Cheesy deliciousness! 

The Ultimate Vegan Cheese Sauce
Serves 4

Ingredients
2 medium potatoes, peeled & diced
3 tbsp vegan butter /margerine
2 tsp white miso paste
1/4 C nutritional yeast
2 tsp low-sodium vegetable bouillon
1 C non-dairy milk 
1 garlic clove
2 - 3 tsp lemon juice / apple cider vinegar
1 tsp cornflour
1/2 tsp ground mustard
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
Salt and pepper to taste

Optional:
1/4 tsp dried rosemary
1/4 tsp dried thyme

Directions


1. Cover the diced potatoes with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until tender.

2. While the potatoes are cooking, measure out the other ingredients. The boullion should be added dry; don't mix it with water. 

3. Drain potatoes and put them in a blender. If you don't have one, a stick blender will do the trick. 

5. Add the remaining dry ingredients on top, and add a quarter of the non-dairy milk. Blend on high until very smooth.


4. Keep adding the non-dairy milk until you reach your desired consistency. You can always add, but can't take away. For dips you would want less. For pasta sauce you might want to use the full cup.

NOTES:
For an oven bake sauce, I would add an extra half cup as the excess moisture will bake off. The added herbs should definitely be added for this purpose.