SLICEABLE DAIRY-FREE CASHEW CHEESE

YOU WILL LOVE THIS DELICIOUS DAIRY-FREE
(Gluten-Free) VEGAN SLICEABLE CASHEW CHEESE!
It’s sliceable and mashable
Perfect for a cheese board
Ideal on crackers
Quick to make
And so easy!

Keep it airtight in the fridge. It can last a week!

Vegan cashew cheese that is sliceable and perfect
for a vegan cheese board! Full flavored, authentic
looking and quick and easy to make too!

Hard, sliceable cashew cheese. It’s here! And I
couldn’t be more excited!  To think it can be so easy
to make a super impressive block of vegan cheese!

HOW TO MAKE CASHEW CHEESE

INGREDIENTS

Prep Time: 10 mins
Yield: 600g (21oz) block of cheese

1 cup (150g) Raw Cashew Nuts
1/3 cup (80ml) Water
5 Tbsp Lemon Juice (Freshly Squeezed)
2 Tbsp Coconut Oil
1/4 cup (60g) Tahini
1/2 Medium Carrot, peeled (30g)
2 and 1/2 tsp Salt*
1/4 tsp Paprika

1 Tbsp Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup Nutritional Yeast
1 tsp Garlic Powder (or flakes)
1 cup (240ml) Water
1 Tbsp Agar Agar Powder (not flakes)*

Optional: 1/8 tsp Cayenne Pepper

INSTRUCTIONS
Add the cashews, 1/3 cup water, lemon juice, coconut oil, tahini,
carrot, salt, paprika, cayenne, dijon mustard, nutritional yeast
and garlic powder to the blender and blend until very smooth.
Leave the mix in the blender and set aside.

Add 1 cup of water and the agar agar powder to a saucepan
and heat, stirring regularly until boiling. Boil it for 1 minute
(time it), stirring regularly

and after 1 minute remove it from the heat and pour it into
the blender on top of the cheese mix. Blend until smooth.

Moving quickly, as it will start setting very fast, pour the
mix out into a round dish sprayed with non-stick spray.
Refrigerate until set.

To remove from the bowl, turn upside
down onto a plate.

NOTES
*It is crucial for the success of this recipe that you use
agar agar powder and not flakes. 

*This might seem like a lot of salt, but it works perfectly
in this recipe.

*I used a regular round bowl, it was 5 inches round and
2 inches deep. I chose it because it was quite straight
up the sides so created a nicer shape for the cheese.
But you can really use any bowl or ramekin, and if your
bowls are smaller, then just use 2 bowls for 2 smaller
blocks of cheese.

*This cheese can be grated.

*I also put a slice on a cracker and put it in the microwave
for 15 seconds and it melted! So yes it does melt! This isn’t
really what I would call the main use for this though, as I think
it tastes better as is, but yes it melts!

*We have also now tried it on pizza! And it was fantastic!
We tried it both grated onto a pizza and sliced. Either way
was great. We put it on with all our other toppings before
going into the oven and it got nice and soft and melty along
with the other toppings. It doesn’t spread or anything, but it’s
very very good!

Most recipes recommend you cook it all ingredients on
the stove with the agar agar, (gelatin powder that makes
it set),  and then pour it out into your dish to set. But this
doesn’t work at all when you use more cashews to make
a thicker, more robust, cheese because it’s too thick to
stir up properly with the agar agar.

And since the agar agar needs to boil for at least a minute
for that agar powder to set up properly I found it a much
better plan to do it separately.

So basically, you make up a batch of cashew cheese sauce
in the blender, but you spice it up more strongly than you
would usually, to the point that if you taste it, you’ll be thinking:
this is too strong!

But then you boil up a cup of water with agar agar powder on
the stove, let that boil for a minute then pour that mix into your
cashew cheese sauce (conveniently still in the blender) blend
it up again and then pour it all out into your dish to set.

The water and agar powder dilute the spiciness of the cheese
and while setting it also dilutes it a bit so you have to start off
strong to end up with perfectly spiced cashew cheese!

And it is simply fabulous! You can slice it into perfect slices and
put them on crackers or bread or wherever you would eat a slice
of cheese.

But you can mash it up too! It’s sliceable and hard enough to cut
perfect slices, but you can also still smash it on a cracker if you
want to.

It’s perfect for a vegan cheese board with some red grapes, jams,
maybe some mixed salted nuts and a selection of crackers
(and maybe some wine too!).

And let me just say, a slice of this on a cracker with some mixed
fruit jam on top was like the best thing ever!  (but any jam would
be awesome)

TO SOAK OR NOT TO SOAK….
This recipe is quick and easy and one of the things that makes
it so quick is that you don’t need to soak the cashews first. You
can just go right in and blend them up.

The reason it’s possible to do this is because you’re making a
sauce to start off with, it’s not a super thick cheese right off the
bat so it’s more easily blendable

But lately I have been questioning the soaking cashews. In my
older recipes I often just did soak them because I thought they
would be easier to blend, but provided your blender is strong
enough I see no reason to soak them first in this recipe.

But on the other hand I am not an expert on your blender. If you
know your blender will have trouble with this, then you can soak
them for one hour in boiling water. Just place the nuts into a bowl,
pour boiling water over the top and then leave them to soak for an
hour, then drain and use as normal.

THE AGAR AGAR
The crucial ingredient in this recipe is the agar agar powder. It is
what makes the cheese set.

There are two types of agar agar, you get the powder version and the
flakes. Use agar agar powder. The agar agar powder is much stronger
than the flakes and is what we used in this recipe.

If you have no other option but to use flakes, then you will have to use
up to 3 times as much of it.

This cheese can also be grated, the firmer it is the easier
it will grate, and the longer it’s in the fridge the firmer it gets,
so if it’s not ideally firm for grating on the first day it will likely
be grate-able by the second day.

Does it melt? I put a slice on a cracker and put it in the
microwave for 15-seconds to see if it melted and it did!
So it does melt.

We also tried it on pizza. And it was very tasty! But let
me be clear, when I say ‘melt’ I do NOT mean that it
spreads like dairy cheese. No it definitely doesn’t. It
softens though and gets melty.

We tried it both grated on pizza and sliced, and either
way was fantastic. Just to be clear we put it on the pizza
before going in the oven, so it melted along with
everything else, and it was really good.

Can I freeze it? Yes you can!

Vegan cashew cheese that is sliceable and perfect for a vegan
cheese board! It’s delicious on crackers and you can slice it
into perfect slices and you can mash it up on a cracker if you
like. Full flavored, authentic looking and quick and easy to make too!

NUTRITION

Serving Size: 4 Slices (approx 1 oz)Calories: 73 Sugar: 0.6g

Sodium: 304mg Fat: 6g Saturated Fat: 1.8g Carbohydrates:
3.8gFiber: 0.7gProtein: 2.1g

MORE DELICIOUS VEGAN CHEESE RECIPES!

We also have a totally divine vegan cream cheese that 
is everything you want spread on your breads and bagels!

Our cashew cheese sauce is perfect drizzled over pizza
or baked potatoes and our vegan parmesan cheese is
wonderful sprinkled over anything and everything!
Our vegan mozzarella is divine on some pizza and our
vegan nacho cheese is divine on… you guessed it, some
vegan nachos!

And then there’s our vegan ricotta which is incredible just
as is, but can also be baked into a vegan lasagna recipe
or some vegan stuffed shells!

So let us know what you think of this sliceable cashew
cheese! And I hope you’ll be making it soon, and when
you do, please rate the recipe and let us know how it
turned out!

Author: Alison Andrews
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