How to Make Vegan Cheese Sauce

5 from 2 votes

This flavorful and creamy non-dairy sauce is the perfect replacement for a cheese sauce. It's simple, nutrient-dense and hard-to-believe it's not actually cheese. We're sharing all the tips you need to know for How to Make Vegan Cheese Sauce.

Prep Time10

Cook Time15

Course: sauce

Cuisine: Dairy-free, Gluten-free, Paleo, whole30

Servings: -1/2 cups

Author: Lexi

Ingredients

1-1/4 cups unsalted raw cashews
1/2 cup peeled and diced butternut squash see note
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water to blend
2 tablespoon nutritional yeast
1 teaspoon garlic powder
½ teaspoon onion powder
1/2 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

Instructions

Place cashews and butternut squash in a small pot and add enough water to cover by 1".
Bring to a boil and cook for 15 minutes or until the butternut squash is tender. Turn off heat, cover and let sit for 1 hour.
Drain water and rinse cashews and squash. Place in the basin of a blender with 1 teaspoon salt.
Blend with ½ cup water. You may need to scrape down the mixture several times. Continue to blend until the cashews and squash are a creamy smooth consistency. Add up to ¼ cup more water if needed to get a creamy consistency.
Add in the remainder of the ingredients and blend until smooth and creamy.
Store in a container for about 5 days.

Notes

Alternatively you can roast the butternut squash separately. It will add more depth to the flavor of the cheese sauce, but also adds considerable amount of time so we opted to just boil with the cashews. If using the roasted squash add in when blending the cashews in step 4.

Nutrition