Vegan Mac and Cheese

I am so behind on my blog. Isn't that what every blogger says? I have had about 5 million blog post ideas in the last month and the only thing I have done is tweet about stuff on Twitter.

Without further ado I bring you, my attempt at the Vegan Mac and Cheez from Oh She Glows! Her website and recipe here.

First off, the ingredients list. Her recipe calls for garlic and onion powder. We used the real thing (what we used in parenthesis) but I think ultimately powder will work better to blend into the cheese sauce. Since I like chunky salsa, pasta sauces, etc I didn't mind the texture at all (as a matter of fact we added mushrooms) but I think a more uniform flavor would also come out of using the powder as well.
We also used olive oil to saute the mushrooms onions and garlic, and left out the Earth Balance. I think it would add to the creamier, buttery flavor but we don't use butter in this house so I have changed that to straight up oil for sauteing.

Ingredients:
    •    1.5 cup unsweetened, unflavoured almond milk (or more as needed to thin out)
    •    12 tbsp nutritional yeast (LOVE this stuff!)
    •    olive oil
    •    2 tbsp all purpose flour (or other flour)
    •    4 tsp Dijon mustard
    •    1/2 tsp garlic powder (or 4 cloves)
    •    1/2 tsp onion powder (or one onion)
    •    salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions:

1. In a skillet or pot, heat oil, onion, garlic.
2. In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the flour and milk until all clumps are gone. Add dijon mustard.
3. Add mushrooms and saute until softened. 
4. Add milk & flour mixture and nutritional yeast to pot and whisk well. Reduce heat to low-medium.
5. Add salt and pepper  (and your garlic/onion powder if that is what you are using using) to taste and whisk frequently until the sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. If it’s still too thin you can add more flour to achieve the thickness you desire.

We are really pleased with the way it turned out: creamy texture, that lovely cheesy quality of the nutritional yeast, and we were still carbing it up with the pasta shells but nutritional yeast has lots of protein (9 grams in 3 rounded tablespoons) so I feel awesome about that!

Next time I'm going to roast some shiitakes (tastes like bacon!) and use that instead of the sauteed mushrooms. Vegan bacon mac and cheese!

And voila, the finished product: