Is it possible to live without cheese? God, I hope not. That, honestly, sounds like pure blasphemy to me, but I’ve been wanting to make some of this vegan cheese that everyone keeps posting about in the hopes that I would taste it and be like, “NOPE - ya’ll are banana pants; this doesn’t taste like cheese!” But I was wrong, folks. It tastes like cheese, and my stomach didn’t feel like I’d been invaded by an alien baby. I call that winning. 

Now…don’t get me wrong. There is nothing that will replace the feeling of drinking a 4 year old Oregon pinot with a 12 month aged manchego. The cheese crystals…the nuttiness…I’m starting to get a little light headed just thinking about it. Cheese isn’t going away in my life any time soon, but with a lactose-intolerant husband who is stubborn and continues to eat cheese all the time, we’ve got to come up with alternatives. This post should really be titled, “An ode to the magical cashew," but I’m not a poet, so I won’t be writing any prose anytime soon. 

So what are the boxes to check when making a good queso?

1. Color - it’s usually this yellowy/orange color with obvious chunks of tomato or jalapeño, or both
2. Texture - smooth and velvety - not grainy
3. Cheese pull - queso doesn’t have the typical cheese pull that a pizza or a macaroni and cheese would have, but you want to feel a bit of that elasticity in the queso dip. 
4. Heat and flavor - definitely need some spice, right? Onions, garlic, chilis and other spices to get that well-rounded level of spice that burns your face and leaves you wanting more.

This queso accomplishes just that. And without dairy! Like, seriously, how do you get the cheese pull? The color? The texture? It doesn’t make sense to my brain. When I opened the lid to my Vitamix last night, you would have thought I’d discovered a new element or something. This will fool your mind into thinking you are enjoying a steaming, spicy bowl of queso dip, and I am ever so glad I didn’t buy tortilla chips at the store yesterday, because we would have eaten all of it. I wouldn’t say that it’s like….Torchy’s level queso dip (for those of you that haven’t visited Texas or Colorado, get yourself there and have some), but for something you make at home, I would looove to make this for a party and see if anyone even realizes they’re not eating cheese. 

The recipe I used is not original, though I did end up changing the spices a little because I didn’t realize that I’d run out of a few things. Here’s a link to the original recipe, and I’ve listed below the ingredients that I used. The only differences in the recipe below are the spices. 

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 cup shredded russet potato
• 1 cup raw cashews
• 2 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon paprika
• 1/2 teaspoon chipotle chili powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (plus more as you taste it)
• 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
• 1 tablespoon sun-dried tomatoes
• 2 teaspoons hot sauce (I used Tapatio, obvi)
• 1 teaspoon white vinegar
• 2/3 cup well-drained, chopped, fire-roasted tomatoes or your favorite chunky salsa
• Optional toppings such as cilantro, more fire-roasted tomatoes, slice jalapeños, sliced radishes, pickled red onion, etc. 

Directions:

Assemble all your ingredients. Chop the onion and garlic. Shred the potato. Measure out the spices into a small bowl, and measure the hot sauce, sun-dried tomatoes, and vinegar into another small bowl. Drain your fire-roasted tomatoes and let them hang out while you assemble everything.

Sauté the onion in the olive oil with a pinch of salt in a saucepan over medium heat until it’s translucent. Add the garlic, the shredded potato, and the spices, and cook until the spices are just starting to stick to the bottom of the pan - about 2 minutes.

Add the raw cashews and the water, and bring to a boil, scraping up all the sticky bits (official cooking term) from the bottom.

Reduce to simmer, and cook the potato all the way through. About 7-10 minutes. 

Pour this mixture into a blender (I used my Vitamix, but I think a food processor would work well, too). Add the nutritional yeast, the hot sauce, vinegar, and sun-dried tomatoes, and blend until the mixture is super smooth. It’ll be thick, and you’ll have to scrape the sides a little bit. If it’s too thick to blend together, you can add more water, 1/4 cup at a time. The original recipe calls for only 1 1/2 cups of water to start, but I added another half cup while blending, and it was still really thick. 

Once it’s smooth, blend on high for a minute or two. This will over-develop the starch in the potato, and really help with the elasticity you want. You know how if you over mix your mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, they get too thick, kinda like wall spackle? That’s not great for your mashed potatoes, but it works awesome in this recipe. 

When done, pour the sauce back into the saucepan, and add the fire-roasted tomatoes. Heat over medium heat, stirring constantly until bubbling and hot, like a normal queso should be. Taste it to make sure you don’t need more salt - I added some at the end, but that’s totally up to you and your tastebuds. 

To serve: I mean...I think Joel and I would have been totally fine standing over the stove with a bag of chips for dinner, but c’mon, we’re not animals. As a dip, pour it into a serving bowl and garnish with those optional toppings I mentioned above. You can also drizzle this over a pile of chips to make nachos, or, in our case, drizzle it over a pile of roasted potatoes and broccoli (OH YEAH). 

Enjoy!! 

PS - as it cools, it will stay smooth, but it gets really thick and kind of paste-like, so make sure to store it in a jar as soon as possible and rinse your blender out right away for faster cleanup.