This Vegan Sun Dried Tomato Mac n Cheez recipe is an exclusive from Megan Sadd’s cookbook 30-Minute Vegan Dinners: 75 Fast Plant-Based Meals You’re Going To Crave! Click here to find out where you can purchase a copy of the book.
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Megan Sadd is the recipe developer and photographer behind Carrots & Flowers, a vegan food blog and one of the top plant-based video channels on Facebook. Formerly a TV and development producer, she launched Carrots & Flowers in 2015 to help transitioning vegans make the switch. She loves creating fast, easy vegan meals that strike the perfect balance of nourishing and comforting. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, daughter, and three rescue cats, where she’s probably sitting in traffic, admiring cloud formations, and thinking about vegan cheese.
Ingredients
- ⅔ cup 100 g raw cashews
- 2 cups 200 g small pasta shells
- Pinch of salt
- ¼ cup 15 g sun-dried tomatoes, loosely packed
- ¼ cup 30 g tapioca flour
- 3 tbsp 25 g nutritional yeast
- 6 –7 small basil leaves
- 2 cloves garlic
- 1¼ tsp 8 g sea salt
- 1 tsp smoked paprika
- ⅛ tsp red pepper flakes
- For Serving
- Salt and cracked pepper
- ¼ cup 40 g shelled hemp seeds, divided (optional, for added texture and nutrition)
Instructions
- Fill a small saucepan with 3 cups (708 ml) of water and a large saucepan with 8 cups (2 L) of water and put them both over high heat. Add the cashews to the small saucepan. It’s okay if the water is not boiling yet. Boil the cashews for 10 minutes until softened.
- When the large pot of water is boiling, add the pasta shells and a pinch of salt to the pot. Boil according to package instructions, but a bit longer than al dente, and then drain.
- When the cashews have 2 minutes left to boil, add the sun-dried tomatoes to the saucepan. Drain after 2 minutes and reserve the water.
- Add the cashews and sun-dried tomatoes to a high-powered blender with 2 cups (480 ml) of the reserved water. Add the flour, yeast, basil, garlic, salt, paprika and red pepper flakes and blend on high until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Place the pasta pan back over medium-high heat. Pour the cheez from the blender into the pan. Stir for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping the bottom and sides of the pan, until the sauce begins to thicken into a gooey cheez.
- Add the pasta to the cheez sauce and keep stirring until the sauce becomes very thick and gooey, about 2 or 3 more minutes. Serve immediately with a sprinkle of salt, pepper and 1 tablespoon (10 g) of hemp seeds on each portion.
Notes
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