Cheesy Cashew Pasta Sauce

Ingredients

Method

  1. Add all ingredients to blender and blend. If it's too paste-like, add more water until it's all flowing around nicely. If you ever add too much water, it can always be reduced for longer on the heat.
  2. Add to cooked pasta (or lasagne, or top a pizza, or...)
  3. Heat until desired thickness (~20 minutes)

Notes

I tend to do this by eye, so some of the ingredients listed may not be a perfect amount. Experiment to find your preferred amounts.

Cashew milk

The base of this sauce is cashews blended with water to make a sort of thick cashew cream/milk. I've not tried using pre-made supermarket cashew milk before, but you may be able to get it to work roughly the same (I reckon it might end up a bit watery)

I usually soak the cashews and drain before blending. This helps soften them for weaker blenders, but also I've read (no citation) that eating too many cashews can be harmful. Since I use cashews a lot, and it does make blending easier, I err on the side of caution. If you have a strong blender and aren't subsisting on a cashew-based diet, you probably don't need to.

To soak: Either soak in cold water for an hour or two, or boil a kettle and soak for 10 – 20 minutes. Drain if you're worried about cashew toxins.

This base of cashew milk works as a vegan substitute for most cream-based dishes. It's thick by itself, thickens even more with heat, and holds air really well. Keep it in your back pocket.

Garlic powder

It's important that this is garlic powder, not garlic cloves (or garlic granules). There's just something about powdered garlic that has the right combination flavours.

Nutritional yeast

If you've never heard of this, you're right, it does sound gross. But it tastes delicious. It's a yellow, flaky substance you can usually find in the vegan section of the supermarket these days. It has a sort of nutty, cheesy flavour that's good for adding umami to recipes.

It's not actually crucial for this recipe, but it's noticeable when it's missing, so I'd recommend trying to include it.

Optional ingredients

Cashew milk and salt/garlic are really the main drivers of this sauce, and a lot of other ingredients are optional to a greater or lesser extent.

Carrot is highly optional, and I usually don't bother with it because it's kind of fussy to grate a carrot. That said, I do notice the difference when I put it in, so I still include it in the official recipe.

Apple cider vinegar is a bit of an odd one. Mostly it just helps to thicken the sauce, but it also adds a lot of sourness if you like that (I usually do). However, it's not required for thickening, and I sometimes leave it out if I've run out, or forget. Lemon juice also works well here, or miso paste.

Olive oil could really be any nice, cooking oil. I usually use rapeseed these days, because it's cheaper and it's what I have to hand. It's another non-necessary ingredient that I don't always use, but it adds some fat if that's what you're after.

Tahini is pretty crucial. Technically I've done this recipe without and it's still fine, but it's really noticeable when it's missing. If you don't want to buy it in, you can still make this, but I'd probably look to increase some of the other flavours or make sure to include carrot otherwise it ends up a bit flat.

Salt is definitely important here, and this is easy to adjust to your personal preference. I also sometimes use soy sauce as well/instead, which slightly changes the flavour profile.

Mustard powder is pretty important, but also easy to use too much of. Add more than a dab and you've got a big mustard sauce (maybe you'll like that, but it's not what I'm usually aiming for). I've not tried using premade mustard in any quantity so can't advise on whether it works or not.

Heating

This needs heating to thicken up, but how you do that is up to you. I often just throw it in a pot with some already-cooked pasta and warm it gently until it thickens up. An even lazier version is putting it in an oven dish with cooked pasta and heating at ~180C for 20 – 30 minutes.

As noted in the recipe, this also works as a lasagne sauce, and I often use it to make vegan pizza. It tends to thicken well enough at the high temperatures used for homemade pizza (though I tend to make it a bit thicker to ensure it doesn't pool everywhere).

You could also just heat this by itself and top other things (like nachos) with it, or do whatever you want really. The world is your oyster and I'm not your real dad.