You Can Make This Oil-Free Vegan Mayo At Home Using Cashews

From plantbasednews.org

Add this oil-free vegan mayo to your list of plant-based condiments 

For many people, mayonnaise is a cupboard staple. It’s creamy and tangy, adding just the right touch to sandwiches and salads. It’s also great to dip fries in. There are now a wide variety of vegan mayos available in shops, but did you know you can also easily make your own at home? This vegan mayo recipe uses cashews as its base.

Unlike most vegan mayo, this Clean Food Dirty Girl recipe leaves out oil, which is usually the key ingredient in most plant-based mayonnaise. Instead of using oils like sunflower seed, rapeseed, or grapeseed, this recipe relies solely on the blended cashew nuts to do the emulsifying.

Cashews offer a creamy and rich vegan alternative that’s great for those without nut allergies. The seeds (they’re not technically nuts) from the Brazilian cashew apple also have heaps of benefits, including their versatility, slightly sweet flavour, and wonderful texture. For every 28 grams, you’ll get 12 grams of unsaturated fats, 5 grams of protein, and a good amount of magnesium, zinc, iron, and selenium.

Despite their pleasant sweetness, cashews are low in sugar and a fibre source, making your oil-free vegan mayo much more nutritious than most recipes. Making your own vegan mayo also means you can tailor it to your tastes. Use this recipe as a guideline and tinker with it as you go along to create your perfect version of oil-free vegan mayo.

Oil-free vegan mayo

                                                                Make this oil-free vegan mayo your new favourite condiment - Media Credit: Amber Asakura

This oil-free vegan mayo is super easy to make and only requires some soaking and blending to get it put together. You'll need your cashews, unsweetened non-dairy milk, some tahini, and coconut aminos along with all your flavourings to make this recipe. The best part? It can store in the fridge for up to seven days and you can freeze for later.

Ingredients

• ⅓ cup raw cashews soaked in water for at least 10 minutes
• ⅔ cup unsweetened non-dairy milk
• ⅓ cup tahini
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard
• 1 tbsp coconut aminos
• 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
• ½ tsp onion powder
• ½ tsp garlic powder
• ½ tsp salt

Instructions

• Soak your cashews in hot water for 10 minutes to soften
• Drain the cashews and discard the water.
• Place the cashews into your blender, along with the rest of the ingredients. Measure out all of your ingredients directly into your blender.
• Blend until super creamy and smooth for about two or three minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.

https://plantbasednews.org/veganrecipes/lunch/oil-free-vegan-mayo/

The Key To Perfectly Smooth Vegan Cashew Cheese Is The Soaking Time

From mashed.com

Making cashew cheese is fairly simple but getting the texture of this vegan substitute right is a subtle science. If done incorrectly, you'll end up with a grainy consistency that doesn't exactly sell the cheese fantasy. When advising on making her vegan cashew cheese, recipe developer Susan Olayinka says it's integral that the 30-minute soaking time is adhered to if you want to get that smooth consistency.

                                                                          Susan Olayinka/Mashed

When preparing your cashews to blend, they need to be soaked in enough hot (but not boiling) water to completely cover them. This ensures that the cashews have been thoroughly softened, meaning they will blend more easily. Allowing the nuts to blend when they're still dry and firm is what results in that grainy texture. It may seem like a time-consuming exercise for the sake of a cheese substitute but letting your cashews fully saturate is a key part of the preparation process.

What can you use cashew cheese for?

                                                                                 Susan Olayinka/Mashed

Once your cashews are ready, blend them with garlic powder, onion powder, nutritional yeast, salt, and the juice of half a lemon. According to Susan Olayinka, the result is closest to blue cheese in its salty, earthy flavoring. She recommends pairing your cashew cheese with a salad or simply spreading it across crackers or bread. That pairing can make for a lovely light lunch or a fancy snack.

However, because of its likeness to blue cheese, you can really branch out with your uses for this condiment. Since blue cheese works particularly well with burgers, try adding it as a topping to your vegan burger. Just because some meatless burger patties are made with beans doesn't mean they have to be bland! Blue cheese, particularly blue cheese sauce, also pairs really well with chicken, which has vegan counterparts that can be made from a variety of different ingredients. Regardless of how you enjoy it, Olayinka says that it's best to enjoy it right away although it can keep for up to three days with refrigeration.

Whether you're looking for a tasty vegan cracker dip, a salad dressing, or a topping for your bean burger, cashew cheese is a great choice. Thanks to Olayinka's recipe, you can make sure you get the texture right as well!

https://www.mashed.com/1499412/key-vegan-cashew-cheese-soaking-time/