Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce Without Cashews

This creamy vegan nacho cheese sauce is 100% plant-based, gluten-free, nut-free, and easily prepared in 2 simple steps. The sauce keeps well in the refrigerator for several days, reheats like a dream, and can even be frozen.

Whether you're craving vegan tacos, nachos, a cheesy baked potato, or hearty broccoli cheese soup, say goodbye to processed vegan cheese because this vegan nacho cheese is better tasting and better for you. 👏👏👏

Ingredients Needed to Prepare this Recipe

This delicious plant-based recipe uses carrots and potatoes instead of cashews to create a rich and creamy nut-free vegan cheese sauce you'll want to pour over everything.

• A potato. Starch is an important component to getting the right consistency in a vegan cheese sauce. Sometimes starch is added to vegan cheese sauce in powdered form with a few spoonfuls of tapioca or potato starch. In this recipe, I opted for the whole potato which gives you the starch PLUS the nutrients and fiber in the actual potato.
• Carrots. Carrots add flavor and color to this cheese sauce. You might be afraid, like I was, that the sauce will end up tasting more like carrots than cheese. You might be surprised, like I was, to discover this isn't the case at all.
• Salt. Salt is added to the cooking water for the potato and carrots to flavor them from the inside out. It's unlikely that you'll want to add salt to the cheese sauce itself because soy sauce and tamari add a salty flavor.
• Vegetable oil or melted vegan butter. Melted vegan butter adds a bit more flavor to this cheese sauce, but the difference is minimal, so use whichever you like.
• Non-dairy milk. Use any kind of non-dairy milk you like, just be sure it is unsweetened and unflavored. The only caution here is with using coconut milk which can give the sauce a slight coconut flavor. Not necessarily bad, you just need to know what to expect.
• Soy sauce or tamari. For those of you who are making gluten-free nacho cheese, be sure to use tamari. One thing to note is that tamari adds less salt to this cheese sauce than soy sauce. So if you are using tamari, you might want to add a pinch or two of salt. Just taste it and see what you think.
• Nutritional yeast. This is the "secret sauce" in this nacho cheese sauce. Nutritional Yeast adds a surprising "cheesy" flavor to foods and mimics the umami flavor often derived from parmesan or cheddar cheese. Also, it's good for you! Nutritional yeast is a great source of plant-based protein, fiber, and B vitamins. You can find nutritional yeast in the baking section of most supermarkets, or order it.
• Cornstarch. Because of the starch in the potato, you'll only need a teaspoon of cornstarch to achieve a rich, thick nacho cheese sauce.
• Garlic powder, onion powder, and cayenne. How much you add of each of these flavoring ingredients is 100% up to you. The amounts in the recipe reflect what tastes good to me, but play around to determine what tastes right to you.
• Fresh lemon juice. A bit of fresh lemon juice brightens up the flavors in this nacho cheese sauce and adds a bit of acidity that is surprisingly important to the smoothness and mouthfeel of the sauce.
• Tomato paste. Tomato paste adds some additional umami to this cheese sauce and brightens up the color.
• Chili powder and/ or a couple of pickled jalapeños. These are optional ingredients for any of you who want to add a bit more heat and chili flavor to your nacho cheese sauce.

Step-by-Step Photos and Instructions

Making this vegan nacho cheese sauce is a super easy two-step process:

#1. Peel a couple of potatoes and carrots and chop them into bite-size pieces that are all roughly the same size so the cook at the same rate.

Let the veggies simmer in salted water until tender. It's important to add enough salt to the water to make it taste salty. The salt will flavor the veggies while they cook.

#2. Add the cooked veggies and all the other nacho cheese ingredients to a blender and puree until smooth.

Give the nacho cheese a taste and add more salt, garlic powder, onion powder, cayenne if you like. You can also add some chili powder and a few pickled jalapeños if you want to dial up the heat and nacho cheese flavor.

That's it! The nacho cheese sauce is now ready to use or store in the refrigerator or freezer for later.

How to Store, Freeze, and Reheat Vegan Cheese Sauce

This vegan cheese sauce can be prepared up to a week in advance and stored in a covered container in the refrigerator. Or, freeze the sauce in an airtight container for up to 3 months.

If frozen, allow the cheese sauce to thaw in the refrigerator overnight, or thaw the sauce using the defrost setting on your microwave. Once the sauce is about 50% thawed you can start to heat it.

To reheat the sauce, add it to a saucepan and heat the sauce over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until warm and creamy. Alternatively, heat it at 50% power in the microwave until warm, stopping every minute to stir the sauce.

Ways to Use Vegan Nacho Cheese Sauce

Three of my favorite ways to use this delicious vegan cheese sauce are:

1. This nacho cheese sauce is an essential ingredient in Creamy Vegan Broccoli Cheese Soup.
2. To make the BEST Vegan Nachos.
3. Spoon some vegan taco meat into crispy taco shells, and top it with nacho cheese and some fresh pico de gallo for killer vegan tacos.
4. Drizzled over a baked potato, steamed broccoli, or any other vegetable.

Obviously, vegan nacho cheese sauce can replace cheese in things like nachos, tacos, and burritos. But, it can also replace dairy in many casseroles and soups.

For example, to make a dairy-free version of this popular Spanish Potato Soup, replace both the sour cream and cheese with vegan sour cream and vegan nacho cheese sauce. It's also incredibly delicious drizzled over warm bowls of this Black Bean Soup.

Here are a few more ideas:

• Drizzle it over crispy fried potatoes. I love to make dairy-free breakfast burritos with eggs, crispy fried potatoes, some sautéed veggies, and this vegan nacho cheese sauce.
• Spoon it over burrito bowls or grain bowls.
• Use it to replace the cheese in wraps.
• Make super quick vegan mac-and-cheese by stirring it into a pan of cooked
• Make a vegan version of these delicious vegetarian black bean tostadas by using this vegan cheese sauce and vegan sour cream.