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There are a lot of great sliced vegan cheese options in the grocery stores nowadays (especially at Whole Foods or specialty stores) BUT I will say that I have yet to find a great vegan mozzarella option. Sliced, shredded or stretchy. Miyokos does make a fairly good product that melts very well in a lasagna, for example, but my real goal here was to make something at home that not only tasted great BUT also melted well. My indicator of success was whether it would melt on top of something (like a pizza) and I finally nailed it!
This cheese is good enough to serve on its own with just some good bread, but of course, my goal was to make fresh vegan mozzarella style cheese at home for vegan pizzas, lasagnas, pasta bakes, etc! The keys here? Boiled cashews and tapioca flour (and some seasoning to give it flavor).
Tapioca flour was not something I had in my pantry before I started testing this recipe. What is it? Well first of all its a gluten free flour and it has qualities that make things thicken and become long and stringy in texture. This is what turns the cashew and water base into a stringy, pulled “mozzarella” like “cheese”!
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup raw cashews
- 1 cup water preferably filtered
- 2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon tapioca flour
- 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon nutritional yeast
- 1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
Instructions
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Add cashews to a small pot and add just enough water to cover them. Bring to a boil and let simmer for 10 minutes. Drain the water and add cashews to a blender.
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Add water, tapioca flour, nutritional yeast, apple cider vinegar, salt and garlic powder to the blender. Blend on high for about 30 seconds or until cashews are ground up completely. Your mixture will be very watery... don't worry this is normal!
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Pour out the mixture into your small pot and heat on medium. Stir continuously, preferably with a rubber spatula, for about 2-3 minutes or until it just comes together as a solid, stretchy mixture.
Turn the heat off and remove your "cheese" and place into an air tight container to store for later use, enjoy right away with some bread/on crostini's, or use as part of another recipe like pizza or lasagna!
What do you think?