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Vegan Black Pepper Mac and Cheese with a light potato carrot cheese sauce. Free of dairy, egg, corn, nuts. Can be made soy-free and gluten-free with gf pasta. 30 minute meal. Add cashews to make a thicker creamier sauce. Vegan Mac and Cheese Recipe.
More Mac n cheese! Cannot have enough mac recipes right.
Veggie cheese is all over the web recently. So I made some my way. No prep needed, no mashed potatoes needed. Cook the potatoes and veggies you want to use for 15-18 minutes. Blend, boil with pasta, done. Easy and simple.
And black pepper oh my. I don’t know why I haven’t added this much pepper to my mac before. It tastes amazing! more pepper= more fun.
This is a light sauce. For a creamier sauce, add sesame or pumpkin seeds or cashews. Use whole grain pasta or gf pasta to preference. Add more veggies in the cheese sauce or add with broccoli and use less pasta. Variations are endless. The veggie cheese sauce is one of those sauces that either one loves or doesn’t (as seen on the interweb on the many variations of the sauce) just like the butternut sauce mac :).
This missing scroll bar is annoying. Has anyone’s wordpress editor scroll bar disappeared with the WP 4.2 upgrade?
More Macs and Pasta recipes from the blog.
- Masala Mac and Cheese Vegan Recipe
- Cauliflower Alfredo, Spinach, artichoke Lasagna
- Pumpkin Sage Pasta with Pumpkin Cream Sauce and Crispy Sage
- Instant Mac and cheese mix in a jar
- Nacho Mac and cheese Casserole
Video:
Vegan Black Pepper Mac and Cheese with Potato Carrot Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- 2 1/4 cups water
- 1 medium potato, about 1 cup or use 3/4 cup mashed potatoes
- 1/3 cup chopped carrots
- 4 garlic cloves , or 1 tsp garlic powder
- 2 tbsp chopped onion , or use 1/2 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 green chili, optional
- 1/2 medium tomato, chopped
- 1/2 to 1 tsp prepared mustard
- 2 tsp soy sauce , or liquid aminos
- 3 to 4 tbsp nutritional yeast
- 2 to 3 tsp lemon juice
- 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil, omit to make oil free
- 1/3 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp sriracha, optional
- 3/4 tsp or more salt
- 1/4 tsp white pepper
- 3/4 to 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper, divided
- 6 to 8 oz elbows pasta, cooked to preference
- 1 cup broccoli chopped small
Instructions
- In a skillet, add water, potato, carrots, garlic, onion, chili and tomato. Cover and cook over medium-high heat for 17 to 19 minutes or until the potato is very tender and breaks easily. (add 2 Tbsp cashews for creamier sauce). Cool slightly.
- Meanwhile, cook the pasta to aldente. (in parallel with the above step if you like).
- Add the potato carrot mixture to a blender with the rest of the ingredients. Blend until smooth. taste and adjust salt and spice.
- Transfer to the pan over medium heat. Add salt, white pepper, 1/3 tsp black pepper. Mix in. Bring to a boil. Carefully taste and adjust salt, cheesiness (add more nutritional yeast if needed).
- Add the cooked pasta and broccoli or other veggies. Mix in. Cover and cook for 3 to 4 minutes or until the sauce comes to a good boil and thickens.
- Let it sit for 5 minutes. Mix in the rest of the freshly ground black pepper (1/2 to 2/3 tsp). Sprinkle more pepper if you wish and serve/
Video
Notes
If you like your broccoli and veggies a bit cooked, add them to the pasta pot, 5 minutes before the pasta will be taken off heat. Drain both and keep aside. Dont like carrots? Use zucchini Nutritional values based on one serving
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
This is the third recipe for a vegan cheese sauce I’ve tried, and even though I misread the amount of lemon juice, it was still a triumph! I used it for nachos last night, used it as a dip for tortilla chips this afternoon, then made broccoli and cheese stuffed baked potatoes for dinner.
Awesome!
Dear Richa,
First I am not a vegan, but I recently saw your 30 Easy Vegan Dinners page and so many of the recipes looked fabulous that I purchased your book.
The black pepper mac & cheese is the first recipe I made. I invited my friend who is lactose intolerant to enjoy a meal with me. He hadn’t had mac & cheese in years. We both enjoyed it immensely. Used the cashews and siracha and it had a lovely creaminess and bite to it.
As a person who can actually eat traditional mac & cheese, this is a recipe I will make again and again.
So excited to explore more tasty recipes!!!
Thats amazing! Thank you for getting the book!! thats the goal for the blog, that the food should taste really good as food. 🙂
Hi, how can I keep the sauce in the fridge?
Thank you
After blending the sauce, you can refrigerate it for upto 4 days.
I have made MANY of your scrumptous recipes but I do have a question. Are the serving sizes accurate?
Generally they are based on the recipe served as is. For this recipe served as a meal, it will serve 2 or 3 people depending on their appetite. With sides, it might serve 4 or 5. You can adjust the serving sizes in your calculation based on your serving sizes. I think it would be just a number change in the serving size option.
Surely it would be far more accurate to use grams instead of cups for solid food items? Measuring something like carrots, or potatoes, which vary in size, and you can chop to different sizes would make for an inaccurate measurement as they are not liquid fill; different amounts will fit the receptacle depending on how small you chop them, and in which order the pieces are placed into it?
Grams are absolute when it comes to solid foods; cups are not.
I just made this for dinner and it was awesome! I didn’t use cashews and I omitted the oil and cooked the broccoli with the pasta. My husband isn’t a vegan, but even he loved it. Thanks for sharing this recipe, I’ll definitely be making it again 🙂