("Dio e Zingaro" by La Municipale Balcanica)
- Hi, I'm Jerry James Stone,
and in today's video,
I'm gonna show you how to make a really simple,
three ingredient, vegan mac and cheese.
Now if you're a mac and cheese lover
and you're craving a really delicious
and rich cheese sauce,
this is not the recipe for you.
But, if you want to eat healthier or you want something vegan,
and you want it to kinda taste like mac and cheese,
stay tuned.
You're gonna see it be made.
We're gonna start off by making pasta.
We're gonna make a whole wheat elbow macaroni.
So when you're making pasta,
thing to remember is that
you want to salt the water.
It's the only opportunity you have to get flavor
into that pasta.
So once you're water is boiling,
go ahead and add the salt.
About a tablespoon for a pound of pasta that you're cooking.
(whooshing)
Okay so our water has come back up to a boil
and now we're gonna add in our whole wheat elbow macaroni.
So a lot of times people will add olive oil to the water
to have the pasta not stick to itself.
Which is great.
It actually does work.
The problem is, is if you do that,
then the sauce won't stick to the pasta either.
So never add anything but salt and water
to your pasta water.
(pasta rustling)
Let's go ahead and stir that, get that going.
And while this pasta's cooking,
we're gonna make our sauce,
which is like I said, 100% vegan.
Super easy.
Okay, like I said,
our pasta is cooking.
The whole wheat pasta is cooking.
We're now gonna make our sauce,
which is just cauliflower based.
And the thing that's great about it
is that when it's cooked and pureed,
it has a nice, rich creamy flavor to it and texture
that it almost is like an alfredo,
like a mac and cheese.
So that's what we're gonna make now.
So I'm gonna go ahead and add a little bit of olive oil.
This isn't required.
You don't need to add olive oil to the pan
'cause we're actually gonna steam it in the pan,
so you could just use the broth that
is actually required.
So we're gonna heat that up.
Then we're gonna add in one head of chopped cauliflower.
Okay, so I'm just gonna
saute this a little bit since I did add the olive oil.
If you're not too concerned about eating vegan,
you could also use butter for this.
We're just gonna get the cauliflower started
with a little bit of heat.
Then we're gonna add in some vegetable broth
and steam it the rest of the way
so it's really nice and tender,
just falls apart.
Just let that get going.
Sauteed it just a little bit.
Now I'm gonna add in some vegetable broth.
Just enough to
completely cover the bottom of the pan.
About like maybe a quarter of an inch.
I'm gonna bring that up to a simmer.
And once it's simmering,
then we're gonna cover it and let it fully steam.
Okay, so the broth is now simmering.
So we're gonna cover the cauliflower.
We're gonna cook it until it's fork tender.
The funny thing about cauliflower is that it's white, right.
You're usually told that you should eat
the vegetables that are really like deep greens,
and really colorful.
But surprisingly,
even though it is purely white,
which I think it's kind of like the ghost of broccoli.
Even though it is purely white,
it actually comes in other colors too right.
There's green, and yellow,
and purple, and brown cauliflower.
So there's other colors too that you can eat.
But the white one is pretty good.
Alright, so the cauliflower is ready to go.
We're gonna transfer it to a food processor
and just fully puree it.
I recommend using a slotted spoon for this
because you want to drain out all the liquid.
But we'll be adding in more liquid as we go.
But just to begin with,
we're gonna puree just the vegetable itself.
Get all of that in there.
And go ahead and just puree that until it's smooth.
(futuristic whooshing)
So here's a little fun tidbit about cauliflower.
It's actually,
it's from the cruciferous family.
It gets that name because the flowers
of the cauliflower plant,
the petals actually,
there's four petals and they form a cross,
like a Greek cross.
That's where that came from.
Kale and broccoli are also part of that family.
(processor whirring)
Okay, so our puree is ready.
Now I'm gonna go and add the puree back to the pan
that we sauteed the cauliflower in.
It's a little on the thick side,
but bear with me.
Now it's a little on the thick side.
And the reason for that is,
we're not gonna strain or rinse our pasta.
We're just gonna scoop it out with a slotted spoon
and add it directly to the pan
and use that to sort of thin out the cauliflower sauce.
If it needs more thinning,
we can use more vegetable broth.
That's how you should always sauce your pasta.
Never, ever rinse it.
Those starches from the water
actually make the sauce a little creamier
and it's really nice.
Just add our pasta.
Few shakes to get the excess water off
and just add it all in there.
And let's just start mixing that into the sauce.
Perfectly easy, really healthy,
and super delicious.
And we'll add that in too.
Just over low heat, mix it all in
'til all of the macaroni is completely covered.
Could use a little thinning,
so I'm gonna add a little bit more broth.
Just a smidge.
There you have it.
Our easy, simple,
three ingredient,
vegan mac and cheese.
And salt and pepper to taste.
Usually broth is pretty salty,
so you probably don't need it.
But if you like your food salty,
salt and pepper it to taste.
That's all there is to it.
So that's all it takes to make this super easy,
vegan mac and cheese.
Just three ingredients, right?
Super healthy,
cauliflower, pasta,
boom, you're done.
If you like to cook like I do,
hey, I release new videos every week.
So, subscribe.
If you like this particular video,
give me a thumbs up.
If there's something that you want to see,
drop a comment below.
I'm always looking for inspiration.
Okay, now to give it a try.
("Dio e Zingaro" by La Municipale Balcanica)