Cheesy, creamy, and comforting – this easy, vegan mac and cheese leaves you satisfied on so many levels. A rich, oil-free vegan cheese sauce comes from roasted sweet potatoes and soaked cashews. Gluten-free chickpea noodles make this a dish everyone can love. Your family will be begging you for more! Enjoy on its own, serve with Kale Avocado Salad, top with 5-Minute Vegan Cashew "Parm", and finish the meal with 5-Minute Chocolate Banana "I-Scream!".
1medium sweet potatoroasted (about 1 ½ cups or about 330g roasted potato)
½cuproasted cashewssoaked overnight
¼cupnutritional yeast
1teaspoongarlic powder
2cupswateruse the water from boiling the pasta
½teaspoonsalt
¼teaspoonblack pepper
Makes about 4 ½ cups sauce
For the Gluten-Free Chickpea Pasta and Peas:
4servings chickpea pasta shells
1cupfrozen peasthawed
Instructions
To make the Vegan Sweet Potato “Geez!” Sauce:
Place the sweet potato on a baking pan and roast at 375F until it is knife-glide tender. It will take about 60-75 minutes, depending on the size of your sweet potato. Remove from the oven and let cool.
While the sweet potato cools, boil the pasta.
To Cook the Gluten-Free Chickpea Pasta:
Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook just shy of what the packaging says. You want the pasta to be “al dente” (with a little bite), so cook about 2 minutes shy of done. When the pasta is ready, portion out 2 cups of the cooking water. You’ll use this for the sauce. Drain the pasta well. Return back to the pot. Finish the sweet potato sauce.
When the sweet potato is cool enough to handle, peel off the skin. Measure 1 ½ cups of the sweet potato flesh into a blender. Drain and rinse the soaked cashews and add them to the blender. Add the remaining ingredients, along with the 2 cups of reserved pasta water. Puree until smooth, scraping down the sides of the blender as needed. Taste to adjust seasoning.
To finish the Vegan Mac and Sweet Potato “Geez!”:
Pour the sweet potato “geez!” sauce into the pot with the pasta shells. Add the peas and stir well to combine.
Serve immediately.
Notes
Medium | Servings: 4 | Ready In: 60 minutes | Yield: about 8 cups