Vegan Mac and Cheese
I will not pay $6 for one bag of vegan cheese.
But I will buy four bags at once when that shit goes on sale.
Vegan Mac and Cheese
12 oz. gluten-free short noodles
3 tbsp. vegan butter
2 tbsp. gluten-free flour
Dash of salt
Dash of pepper
1 cup oatmilk
*1 cup veggie broth
*8+ oz. Vegan cheese, shredded or sliced
Process
*Cook the noodles for 2 minutes less than the package directions (al dente).
*Drain the noodles - but don't rinse them!
In the pot that you cooked the noodles in, melt the butter over a medium heat.
*Add the flour, salt and pepper and mix together. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
*Add the broth and mix together with a whisk. Cook until it thickens; about a minute.
*Add the oatmilk and whisk in. Cook for another 2-3 minutes or until it's lightly bubbling.
Add a large handful of cheese and whisk continuously until it's completely melted. Repeat until you've added and melted all the cheese.
Add the noodles back to the pot and stir to coat. Cook for another minute.
Top with whatever you like - red pepper flakes, everything bagel seasoning, or *cough cough* BBQ jackfruit...
Notes
Veggie broth - I found that fake cheese melts better in a thinner liquid, but I didn't want this to lack creaminess, so I used a mixture of broth and milk.
The Better Than Bouillon Vegetable Base is my all-time favorite. It’s a stock concentrate, so you mix 1 teaspoon of it into 8 ounces of hot water and it dissolves into a delicious broth. It’s cost-effective (the jar says 38 servings and I can get it at Kroger for ~$4), and comes in a glass jar that you can keep and add to the growing collection of empty sauce jars in the back of your cupboard…or is that just me?
8+ oz. Vegan cheese - In case most of the on-sale vegan cheese had already been picked over by the time you got there and there’s only 1 8-oz. bag left, it’s still enough to make this sauce good and cheesy. But, if you got there in time to snag four bags, do it! Feel free to use whichever flavors happened to be on sale - cheddar and pepper jack for a sharp, lightly spicy flavor, mozzarella for creaminess, gouda for a rich smokiness. If it’s a sliced cheese, cut it into strips/squares before adding it to the sauce so that it will melt quickly and evenly.
I will say that I have found a cheese brand that is worth avoiding at almost all costs - Go Veggie. That stuff tastes like cardboard to me, so I’ll spare you the trauma of trying it. I don’t like throwing shade, but when it comes to grocery budgets and wasting money on poor products, I will.
Al dente - Because the noodles will cook for an extra few minutes in the cheese sauce, you don't want them to be completely cooked beforehand. They'd just end up mushy.
Not rinsing noodles - As I pointed out in my Bolognese post, rinsing pasta after boiling makes it lose the starchy goodness that helps sauce stick. And with a thick, gooey sauce like this mac and cheese sauce, you want as much of it to stick as possible.
Adding flour to the butter - This is how you make a roux! A roux is a sauce base made from cooking a fat source and flour together, which make sauces nice and thick.
Broth first - Instead of adding the thin broth and the thicker oatmilk at the same time, I used the broth first to thicken the roux.
Oatmilk second - Just to point out, when you add cream to a roux, it becomes a béchamel! A béchamel is a traditional white sauce, which you can add other things to - like cheeeese.
I want to be that person who makes a vegan mac and cheese from squash and carrots and sweet potatoes and cashews, but I'm just not. This mac and cheese doesn't require more than thinking of how to make typical mac and cheese - but, you know, with vegan stuff.