Vegan Gouda Mac
Do you like mac & cheese? Do you really like gouda mac & cheese? Do you wish you could make it vegan? Do you live in Chicago or the Chicagoland area? If you answered yes to these questions, you are in luck. This is a non-difficult recipe because I’ll pretty much be walking you through how to make vegan mac & cheese without the box.
Hunt down @cheezeandthankyou and buy her smoked ground mustard vegan gouda. I used that and exclusively that for this recipe. You can use other vegan cheese, but it probably won’t be as good. But if you’re located elsewhere, you are forgiven.
(Gouda) Vegan Mac & Cheese: twangy, funky and dairy-free.
VEGAN GOUDA MAC
prep time: 10 minutes
cook time: 30 minutes
Check out @cheezeandthankyou and see when/where she is setting up shop at different events in and around Chicago.
Now disclaimer for this recipe, I prepared buffalo fried oyster mushrooms as the side, exactly like the ones from the chicken & waffle recipe. If you are interested in preparing that as well, the link to that recipe is at the bottom of this page.
What you’ll need:
vegan smoked gouda (via @cheezeandthankyou ….or a different kind if you’re elsewhere)
cavatappi (other pasta works fine but cavatappi is king)
vegan butter
vegan unsweetened creamer
shallot
olive oil
smoked paprika
green onion
bread crumbs
Get out a pot and put some water in it. Bring it to a boil and toss some salt in there. After your water is boiling, add the appropriate amount of pasta to the water. You know, one part pasta :: two parts water. Stir frequently to make sure it doesn’t get all clumpy and weird. Lower the flame a little bit too.
Take your good knife and dice up half of a shallot. And some green onion too for later. Throw your diced shallot into a pan with olive oil. You can use an onion too if you don’t have a shallot. After the shallot looks caramelized, toss it all into a small bowl for later.
Have your vegan cheese ready. The vegan gouda I used was a brick, so grate it down so it will be easier to stir in. If you have shreds or slices, cut them down and set them into another small bowl. Add a little bit of vegan butter to the bowl and microwave it very briefly. This will help stir it as well.
Delicious hunk of vegan gouda, diced shallots and green onions.
After your pasta is cooked, put it in a strainer to drain it but save a little bit of that precious pasta water for later.
Lower the flame again. In your now-dry pot of pasta, start to stir in your vegan cheese little by little. I’m also going to stop saying the word vegan every time I say the word cheese/butter/etc, because you get it. Start to mix a generous chunk of butter into your pasta. Add about a cup of unsweetened creamer into the mix too. Add that little bit of pasta water. You want your pasta to be very creamy. Keep adding your cheese until you run out and keep on stirring. Now take those shallots you forgot about and work them into the mix as well. STIR!
Preheat your oven to 315°. After your mac & cheese looks appealing and has the appropriate texture, transfer it into some sort of casserole dish. You’re going to keep it in the oven at a low temperature so it doesn’t lose its creaminess. Add a tablespoon or so of bread crumbs and smoked paprika right onto the top of the mac. Toss that baby in the oven for about 15 minutes and finish off with a quick 3 minute broil.
After that, garnish your mac with green onion and you are good to go.
A little crust on top from the bread crumbs + broil combo, but beneath lies sweet, creamy goodness.
Now again, completely optional, I prepared buffalo fried oyster mushrooms as a side exactly the way I did it in the vegan chicken & waffles recipe from a few weeks ago. Click the button below for that.