Cheese-Free Cheese Sauce 
(with legumes)

I got thinking about what it would be like to love cheese but have to give up both dairy and nuts?

 

The recipe I have here on the DRK website that uses cashews wouldn’t be appropriate then, would it?

 

So I came up with yet another version of the recipe that uses white kidney beans instead of cashews.

 

And it works great! Here it is:

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Ingredients:

• 1 can white kidney beans, drained and rinsed

• ½ cup water

• ½ cup nutritional yeast (you need more than the previous recipe in order to really bring up the cheesy flavor)

• 1 tsp each salt and garlic powder

• ¼ tsp each paprika and turmeric

• 3 Tbsp lemon juice

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Directions:

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In a blender or food processor, puree the beans with ¼ cup of the water until smooth. That’s about half of the water at this point.

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Add nutritional yeast, salt, garlic powder, paprika and turmeric. Puree again until well blended.

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Add the rest of the water and the lemon juice. Blend again until smooth. Adjust the salt as desired.

This recipe makes about 2 cups of sauce.

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You can refrigerate the sauce in a lidded container – a mason jar works great.

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Use it on bread or crackers as a spread, raw vegetables as a dip or on cooked veggies as a sauce.

You can also reheat the sauce to warm it but be careful. Do not microwave as the sauce will thicken and be gummy in texture. Instead, heat a portion in a metal bowl over a pot with steaming water.

Alternatively, use hot water when you make the sauce to serve warm as soon as you make it.