- Hi, friends!
It's Sam, and today I'm gonna show you
how to make my melty, stretchy,
gooey, vegan nacho cheese!
Oh-wee! Nacho cheese!
I just love it!
What am I even talking about?
Yes, this is my favorite homemade vegan cheese.
But don't be intimidated!
This is a very easy recipe to make,
taking only about 15 minutes from start
to finish.
And you've made yourself a homemade vegan cheese.
How cool is that?
And bonus points!
It's cheaper than store bought,
it tastes better than store bought,
and most of the ingredients, you can keep
in your pantry at all times.
Meaning you can have vegan nacho cheese
on demand.
Yes!
So let's get to making vegan nacho cheese.
Are you ready?
I'm ready.
The first ingredient we'll need is soaked cashews,
and if you have made some vegan recipes
before, you might've seen soaked cashews.
And you're supposed to cover the cashews
in water and soak 'em overnight.
Well, if you know me, I am not a person
who's patient.
And I'm also not the greatest at planning
ahead, so I have an excellent hack
for that.
Are you ready?
It's a secret.
Just boil them for 10 minutes.
That's it!
All you have to do is add the cashews
to a small pot, cover them with water,
boil for about 10 minutes until they are nice
and tender, drain and rinse with water,
and then there you have it.
Soaked cashews.
It's such a quick and easy hack,
and you don't have to be prepared
ahead of time.
So there's the first 10 minutes
of the recipe spent and now for the remaining five minutes
to make the recipe.
Here we go.
So once your cashews are softened,
you're going to need a blender.
Boom!
Add the soaked cashews to the blender like so.
A little bit's left.
Get in there!
Now to the cashews, add water.
Tapioca starch, or it's also called tapioca flour.
Now tapioca starch is key for this recipe.
Using it makes the cheese stretchy,
and if you substitute another starch like corn starch,
potato starch, arrowroot powder, any
of those, they will make a thickened sauce.
But they will never get that stretch.
Tapioca starch is key for the stretchy part
of the cheese.
Nutritional yeast.
Squeeze, lemon!
Cooking sounds with Sam.
Lemon juice.
Salt.
White miso paste.
So miso paste is the same stuff that is used
to make miso soup, but it's basically just
fermented soybean paste.
And so in this recipe, it helps provide a fermented,
aged cheese kind of taste.
It's one of my many hacks that I like
to do.
Paprika.
I'm just using a regular sweet paprika,
but if you want a smoky paprika flavor,
you can do that.
Maple syrup or agave.
Today I'm gonna use agave.
Onion powder.
Garlic powder.
And tumeric.
So we'll now just pop on the lid and blend this
until 100% smooth and creamy.
(blender whirring) Yeah!
Ooh! It's done.
That smells cheesy delicious already.
Oh man, that does smell good.
So let's hop over to the stove
and finish making this cheese.
Grab yourself a pot, pour in our nacho cheese mixture.
You can see that it's very watery.
It's kind of like a milky texture,
and that's just what you would want.
Don't worry.
It'll get cheesy and stretchy and melty
and gooey in this step.
So turn this on.
Now keep stirring it while you're heating it
up and very quickly, you'll start
to notice little clumps form.
And before you know it, more clumps will form.
And more clumps will form, and then it'll just turn
into one, gooey, stretchy, melty mass.
It only takes about three to five minutes
of cooking, and then you have your gooey,
melty, stretchy cheese.
Look how cool that is.
It is so melty, stretchy, gooey, cheesy.
Isn't that amazing?
Look at the cheese strings.
And at this point, you can use it
however you want.
You can put it on a baked potato,
you can put it on some cooked broccoli.
But I'm gonna make it a different way!
Making some nachos!
Yeah!
A mountain of tortilla chips.
Are you ready for it?
Let's do it.
Oh yeah, baby!
Look at that cheese!
I am generous with the cheese!
Now for my nachos to make 'em epic,
some black beans.
Cherry tomatoes, sliced jalapenos.
I like spice.
Beautiful.
Some chunks of avocado.
I mean, look how epic this is getting!
Epic!
Some black, sliced olives.
Of course, you can do
whatever your favorite nacho toppings are.
You don't have to follow my rules.
This is what I'm feeling right now,
and this is also what I have in the fridge.
And chopped cilantro.
Okay.
Do you see this gorgeous platter?
Oh my God, it looks so good!
And now the best part is the taste test.
Let me get a good, cheesy chip
in there.
Ooh!
(upbeat music)
Mmm! Mm!
Mmm, mmm.
That is good.
Wait, I need to do that again.
Oh yeah.
Cheesy.
Mmm! Mmm, mm-hmm.
That is so good.
The cheese is melty, it's stretchy,
gooey, but it's also creamy and full
of flavor.
It's got that kind of sharp tang
of a good cheddar.
Oh, it's so yummy.
Makes for a great plate of nachos,
but you can use this anywhere you want a melty,
stretchy, gooey cheese.
As always, I'll pop the link to the full recipe
down below in the description and one
up here as well.
I actually have two versions of this recipe.
One on my blog and one in my cookbook,
and they are slightly different from each other.
In the book, it's kind of my new improved kind
of different idea.
And this one I'm making today is
from my blog.
They're both delicious.
You'll enjoy both of them, so make
whichever one you prefer.
They have a slight bit of taste difference,
so you can maybe make both.
And see which one you prefer.
I hope you liked this recipe and video.
If you do, let me know by leaving a like.
Leave a comment if you give this recipe a try,
and let me know how it turns out
for you.
I hope you love it as much as I do.
Don't forget to subscribe for a brand,
shiny new, plus free, vegan video every single Wednesday.
And I'll see you next week.
Bon appetegan!
(upbeat music)
It's a bad thing that I have this whole plate
of nachos to myself because I'm gonna eat the whole thing.