Today is National Nacho Day! I just love a full dressed pile of nachos in front of me! I decided that this would actually be the perfect lunch situation on this tasty Tuesday. To keep with this month’s theme of celebrating National Vegan Month, today’s nachos will be vegan. Now, this was going to be quite a challenge. I could have just piled up some tortilla chips and covered them with some vegan cheese and called it a day. I needed more depth, more flavors. I went on Pinterest to find some inspiration and found quite a few vegan cheese sauce recipes. Nothing really struck me as a go-to recipe. After much trial and error, I came up with a most delicious and more importantly cheesy like cheez sauce.
This recipe calls for two ingredients you wouldn’t expect in a cheese sauce. Potatoes and carrots! In fact, it is the base of the recipe so you can pretty much eat this all day long. What gives the sauce it’s cheesy like flavor is the nutritional yeast. Nutritional is a staple in the vegan diet as it provides additional proteins, minerals, vitamin as well as great taste to foods.
I added smoked paprika and chili powder to give the sauce a little kick. It’s amazing how a carrot, a potato and few seasonings can imitate cheese. I mean it was good! It almost didn’t make it to the chips! It was so perfect for my grandiose pile of nachos.
Vegan Cheez Sauce
Serves 4-5
Ingredients
1 large potato (peeled and cut into chunks)
1 large carrot (peeled and cut into chunks)
6 tbsp nutritional yeast
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp smoked paprika
1/2 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup of reserved water
Directions
1. Place potatoes and carrots in large pot of water. Boil for about 25 minutes or into tender.
2. Remove potatoes and carrots from pot and place in a blender along with 1/4 cup of the water they came out of.
3. Add remaining ingredients.
4. Purée ingredients until smooth and cheese sauce like. If it’s too thick, add more reserved water.
5. Enjoy with tortilla chips!
Shana Was Here 