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Vegan Cauliflower Mac & Cheese

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Vegan-Cauliflower-Mac-and-Cheese

Have I mentioned that I love mac & cheese? ‘Cause I doooooo, and I just can’t get enough.

This time, it’s mac and cheese made with a creamy cauliflower cheese sauce. De-lish!

Cauliflower-Mac-and-Cheese

I’ve made numerous mac and cheese recipes in my life, but I think this one takes the cake. It’s cheesy and creamy and satisfying and YUM YUM YUM.

Even my mom, who is far from vegan, loved this dish and asked for the recipe. Mom never asks for the recipe! I knew it was a keeper when even she loved it.

Cauliflower-Mac-and-Cheese-Vegan

I added some smoked paprika on top for a bit of smoky flavour, but you don’t have to. But it’s delicious and it’s pretty, so why not?

Also, a bit of vegan parmesan cheese never hurt anyone. Throw it on there.

Eat up, eat more, and do a happy dance for delicious vegan mac and cheese. Yes!

Vegan-Mac-and-Cheese-Cauliflower

4.6 from 18 reviews
Vegan Cauliflower Mac & Cheese
 
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Author:
Recipe type: Pasta
Serves: 4
Ingredients
  • 4 cups elbow macaroni
  • 1 large head cauliflower, chopped
  • 2 large carrots, peeled and chopped
  • ½ cup nutritional yeast
  • ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
  • ⅓ cup water
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • ½ tsp onion powder
  • ½ tsp garlic powder
  • 1½ tsp salt
  • ¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper
  • Paprika, as garnish (optional)
  • Vegan parmesan cheese (optional)
Instructions
  1. Cook pasta according to package directions, drain, and set aside.
  2. Fill a large pot with water, and bring to a boil. Add in the chopped cauliflower and carrots. Cook for 10-15 minutes, or until softened. Drain, and add to a food processor or high speed blender.
  3. Add in the oil, water, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Process/blend until smooth.
  4. Add cheese sauce to your pot full of drained pasta and mix well.
  5. Serve, with a sprinkle of vegan parmesan cheese and some paprika, if desired.

 

Mac-and-Cheese-Cauliflower

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Comments

  1. I added about 1-2 tbsp of apple cider vinegar to add a little sour dimension without taking away from the flavor. Also doubled on the spices and nutritional yeast. Really helped with the initial blandness and now it tastes extra cheesy.

    Reply

  3. I am not vegan , however I am on a fairly strict rotation diet and can only have dairy one of every 4 days. That means I need to be creative and get my fixes on the other days. I thought this was delicious! I had to leave out garlic powder, paprika and olive oil (used sunflower oil).. I think since I still eat cheese it wasn’t exactly mac and cheese but it was a delicious creamy sauce, I ended up adding extra lemon and I felt like it was the perfect creamy lemony savory sauce to go on just about anything! Thank you for sharing your recipe!!

    Reply

  4. This was amazing, I’m not vegan but am dairy free and this rocked my world! Served over rice pasta and broccoli. I cooked veggies in stock which helped boost flavor a little and threw in a few cloves of garlic but otherwise followed as written. We will make this a staple and put on everything!

    Reply

  5. I was looking for a way to use some cauliflower I had in the fridge and came across this recipe. It’s really good! I am using it just to dip chips in. I forgot to add the water, so it was hard to blend at first, but came out the consistency of thin hummus. Perfect for dipping. If I didn’t know it was cauliflower, I wouldn’t be able to guess!

    Reply

  6. Just made a HUGE batch of this, it’s absolutely the best vegan Mac & cheese recipe I’ve tried! I grated some Violife ‘cheese’ over the top with tomatoes and grilled it for a few minutes, just to give it that bubbly browned topping. Superb.

    Reply

    • I loved it even as is, but you can make it more flavorful by proportionally increasing the salt, lemon juice, spices, and nutritional yeast. I was able to more than double all of the above, with great results (even my very picky kids loved it).

      Reply

  9. The first time I made this, I accidentally poured several tablespoons of pepper into the bowl! After scraping out what I could, I just mixed the rest in (about 3-4 T) and it was great. I now make it with 1-2 T of pepper each time. Most recently, I decided to use up some rutabaga instead of using carrot – also very yummy. I plan to keep tweaking it, but will also come back to your original periodically. I’m liking this sauce as a dip for crackers instead of humus/guac or other higher-calorie options. Thanks!

    Reply

  10. Just finished making this and ate a bowlful, I followed the recipe to the letter and it really tastes awful! So disappointed. Based on the amazing reviews I was so excited to love it! But it just tastes like yeasty olive oil. What did I do wrong?

    Reply

    • Did you use nutritional yeast flakes or powder? The flakes give it that cheesy flavour, I know I made the mistake of using powdered yeast when I first became vegan and it is NOT the same! Or maybe try using less oil?

      Reply

  12. Just made this for dinner for my parents, AMAZING!!!!!! My parents were blown away by the taste, such a great replacement for Mac and cheese!!!
    I forgot to use the olive oil but it was still super creamy and so hearty!

    Can’t wait for my leftovers

    Reply

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