Sunday 14 March 2010

nacho cheese dip

I made a nacho cheese dip for the recent gluten-free cheese picnic. The nacho cheese dip was very tasty, and I made it again on Friday, because I had the genius idea that I was going to put it in pizza pin wheels to take to roller derby on Saturday.

This recipe is super simple, and very versatile. I've modified it a little bit from the original recipe, so I reproduce it below, with pictures! Please note that I have followed the original recipe exactly before, and it works super fine.



nacho cheese dip, originally from schmooed food.

ingredients
one and a half cups of water
one third of a cup of raw cashews
four or five cherry peppers (or pimentos, I found this in the jar section of my IGA)
1 approximate cup of savoury yeast flakes
1 tablespoon cornflour (make sure this is gf!)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
half teaspoon salt
half teaspoon onion powder
half teaspoon garlic powder
lots of cumin, four or five shakes

method
Take the stems off the peppers, but keep the seeds in. This adds a nice bite! You don't need to measure out everything in advance, but with this recipe I like to, to make sure I have everything I'm supposed to have.

ingredients for the vegan nacho cheese dip

Then blend it all together! I like to blend the cashews first, to ensure that they're smooth, before adding the rest all at once.

After blending, dump the whole mixture into a small saucepan and stir constantly over medium heat for about five minutes. I like to use a fork for this, but a wooden spoon would be okay also.

pot of vegan nacho cheese dip on the stove

After simmering, it should have thickened a bit. Remove from the heat and leave to cool, and it will thicken a bit more! If you find that it is too thick, then add a bit more water during blending or simmering stages. I, however, wanted it thick more like a spread so that I could use it for:

toasted sandwich pizza pinwheels

Vegan toasted cheese sandwiches, and pizza pinwheels! This was my first vegan cheese toasted sandwich attempt, and it was awesome! The cheese went perfectly - so perfectly in fact that I am thinking about making another lot of it this afternoon to keep in the fridge for emergency sandwiches during the week!

7 comments:

Cindy said...

This was so good! I can definitely see it as a toasted sandwich winner. (Funnily enough, I made Vegan Brunch cheesy sauce today for the very same purpose.) But I think when I make it, it'll be topping nachos first. :-)

steph said...

Funnily enough, I have not yet used it for nachos! But next time I make nachos I am definitely making this sauce as well!

Johanna GGG said...

I loved this dip and will squirrel away this recipe for sometime when I have time but I have two questions - was it pastry or pizza dough you used for the pinwheels and were the peppers very hot/spicy?

steph said...

johanna, I used puff pastry for the pinwheels (chill them for fifteen twenty minutes after rolling, makes them easier to cut). the peppers weren't spicy at all - there is a little bite there, with the five peppers, that I think wouldn't be noticeable with three. Or if you took out the seeds. :o)

Hannah said...

Yep, bookmarked! So obsessed with nutritional yeast recipes at the moment... and I'm determined to make this for my parents and by golly, they're going to like it! :P

Anonymous said...

this was SOOO good !! nacho cheese!

Anonymous said...

I'm contemplating the nacho cheese dip seeing as how you guys talked about it so much. Also, I need to do something with all my savoury yeast flakes. Do you think it would be good on pizza? How runny is it? Mayonaise-y?

Christine