Mac N' Cheese, for Lazy People, Sans Pre-Made Cheese
pasta 1/2 cup vegan margarine (e.g., Earth Balance brand) 1/2 cup nondairy milk 1/2 cup nutritional yeast salt, to taste black pepper, to taste chili powder, to taste onion powder, to taste frozen peas, to taste (if you want to get really wacky)
Before you get too carried away with measuring- those are all ballpark amounts. I never actually measure, so don't put too much stock in the numbers I use. Anyhow, this is a recipe I developed based on a desire to make a cheese sauce for mac n' cheese from scratch, without actually bothering to mix over heat. 1. Get your pasta boiling. 2. Put you buttery substitute in a bowl, and stick it in the microwave long enough for it to get slightly melty. Fifteen seconds or so should be good. It doesn't need to be totally liquid, but enough that it isn't just a solid blob. 3. Add milk and nutritional yeast. Mix 'er up. You want the consistency to be somewhat thick, but not total sludge. Add the other spices, to taste. 4. If you want to add peas to it, dump them in with the pasta about a minute before the pasta is done. Strain it, then dump in your cheesy sauce mix. Stir it all together. Any remaining solid butter sub should get melty at this point. 6. Taste it. If it isn't flavorful enough, it is totally acceptable to panic, and start adding more of all of the ingredients. The first time I made this, I didn't have nearly enough sauce, but making more on-the-spot worked well enough. Source of recipe: This recipe is a hodge-podge of other recipes, and heavily influenced by what spices I happened to have on-hand.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
the sweet and tangyness of bbq cuts that yucky yeasty taste quite nice actually. my favorite brand is Sweet Baby Ray's, but this time I used Kraft, and it was actually a light forumla. It's more vinegary than Sweet Baby Rays, but it still does the trick. For the bbq addition I stuck to the author's measurements for the most part, but after needing to make more cheese sauce, I just threw some amounts together.
After mixing the sauce and before adding it to the pasta, I dumped some pease and diced tomatoes on the shells. I'm a huge fan of tomatoes and mac and cheese.
One last alteration to the recipe I did was I threw everything in a small crockpot and let it go for a while before digging in. It really helped cook all the flavors together and keep everything warm.
I made this tonight and it was sooo good. I will definately be making it again.
Just tried this. It is so good and super easy. I added some bbq seasoning that I had and through in some sliced olives. I will definitely be trying this again.
This is my FAVOURITE mac and cheese recipe of all time, hands down. It is so quick, easy, satisfying and DELICIOUS. I have made it exactly the way the author says, it was great. I also just made this in a different way, by baking it (I wasn't feeling quite as lazy as usual) in an attempt to get that crispy, cheesy-ness that you get with baked "real" mac and cheese. It kind of worked, but I think if I had put a mixture of breadcrumbs mixed with my "butter" and some coarse sea salt (to simulate the crispy, fatty, salty-ness of baked cheese) it would have come out more the way I had pictured.
I find this recipe is great using coconut milk as the "milk", and extra virgin coconut oil as the "butter". I use canned coconut milk, as I find it more affordable and has less weird crap added than the kind that comes in cartons, like Coconut Dream. The thing with canned coconut milk is it is quite thick and VERY rich, so unless you liked to use whipping cream instead of "real" milk in your "real" mac and cheese, you'll need to water it down to your liking. I like a 1:3 ratio coconut milk to water.
My favourite spices to use are chilli powder, fresh cracked black pepper and sea salt. In the photo it looks so brown on top because of some chilli powder I sprinkled there. Also, I added some cooked red lentils to make the sauce thicker and have more nutrients and protein, and it is AMAZING. Mmmmmmm soo good (i've been eating it while I type this). :)
**The coconut products do NOT make it taste like coconut at all! So no worries about your mac and cheese tasting like a pina colada ;)
This kind of nooch/ Eb/ soyorwhatever 'milk' sauce is also excellent on potatoes! Superyum. I never measure, just throw it all together til it's delicious... it always works, too. :-)
Finally mac and cheese that's as easy as the kraft junk. I added some shredded vegan cheese to the sauce and it was great!
This is exactly how I like my cheesy noodles. Sometimes I just add a little margarine and nutritional yeast to plain noodles and mix it around in my bowl for extra laziness.
But don't make this and expect Kraft mac and cheese, people. This is something completely different. But super awesome.