This recipe is adapted from The Complete Vegan cookbook by the Natural Gourmet Institute.

The vegan-cheese sauce for this can be used for any number of recipes. Here, I am using almond milk, you can also make your own oatmilk (which is significantly faster and easier to make), or you can also probably use any store bought nut milk.

If you use almonds you will need to soak them 12-24 hours in advance.

Ingredients

  • 6 cups almond milk (or make your own, see Prepare the Almond Milk)
  • 1 lbs pasta (Macaroni, bowtie, elbow)
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons of oil - vegtable/canolia, but olive oil works fine too
  • 1/4 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup nutritional yeast - add more to taste
  • 1/2 teaspoon paprika
  • Ground nutmeg (optional)
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder - add more to taste
  • 1/3 cup panko bread crumbs

Recipe

Prepare the Almond milk

  • 2 Cups Almonds (Optional, see “Prepare the Almond Milk”)

For the homemade almond milk, the almonds will need to be soaked skinless; thankfully, removing the skin on the almonds is quite easy.

  1. Blanch the almonds in a medium pot of water. Bring a medium pot of water to a rolling boil. Add the almonds and blanch them for no more than 60 seconds. After 60 seconds, drain the almonds in a colander and wash with cool water.

  2. Once the almonds are cool to the touch, take an almond one at a time, and pinch the skin between your pointer finger and thumb, doing so will cause the almond to shoot out of it’s skin. The almonds come out with a lot of force so you’ll want to aim down into a bowl.

  3. Once all the almonds are skinless, set them in a bowl or Tupperware and cover with water for 12-24 hours, adding more water if necessary.

  4. After soaking for 12-24 hours, place the almonds in a blender with 6 cups of water (you may need to blend in batches). Blend well.

  5. Once blended, strain the almond milk through a nut milk bag and/or a fine mesh strainer.

For the Vegan Mac n’Cheese

For the vegan cheese sauce, we’ll make a roux with the nut milk and combine nutritional yeast and garlic powder to get that cheesy taste.

  1. In a sauce pot, heat up the on low to medium heat add the flour and combine, keeping the heat low so you don’t burn the roux. Stir the roux until it is a light blond color.

  2. Then add portions of the almond milk into the roux stirring to incorporate after each addition of milk. Once all the milk is added continue on low heat and stir until sauce has thickened enough so that it coats the back of a wooden spoon.

  3. Once thickened add the salt, pepper, nutritional yeast, paprika and garlic powder. Add addtional gralic powder, nutritional yeast and salt until you get your desired ‘cheese’ flavor. The garlic powder and nutritional yeast really add to ‘cheese’ flavor.

  4. Preheat the oven to 350º. Cook the pasta in boiling water until al-dente. Drain and return to pot and remove from heat. Then, combine the cheese sauce with the pasta and stir to combine and then pour in an oil greeased 9-12 glass baking dish.

  5. In another bowl, combine the panko with 2 tablespoons of oil. Using your hands, mix the oil with the panko. Season the panko with salt and pepper to your liking.

  6. Sprinkle the panko mixture on top of the mac-n-cheese and then cook in the over until the cheese is bubble and the panko is golden brown - about 20 to 25 minutes. (You can use the broiler to get the make the panko golden brown if you’d like, but keep an eye on it as it will burn quick).