How to Make Vegan Cheese (Meltable!) | Liv Baking

Hi Bold Bakers! As you can see I'm here with Olivia Crouppen, my alternative baking expert. And she is going to show you how you can make an incredible vegan cheese. Take it away Liv! Thanks Jan! If you're vegan or you're cutting down on dairy, you no longer have to say goodbye to pizza, tacos or even grilled cheese sandwiches. My homemade dairy-free cheese is perfect for spreading on crackers and snacking or dolloping and melting on all of your favorite savory dishes. Made in the blender in just minutes, you too can make this cheese easily at home. Okay, so to start off our vegan cheese, we're going to be using soaked cashews. These are raw cashews that I've soaked overnight in some hot water. You don't have to soak them that long. You can do it for just an hour if you want, but it's super important not to skip this step. Soaking the cashews is what's going to help them to break down and make our cheese really, really creamy. If you happen to be allergic to cashews or you don't like them so much, totally fine, you can go ahead and use almonds. I personally like to use cashews here because they're a little more neutral, so then we can flavor the cheese as we like. So we're just going to get this into our food processor. Okay, so the next ingredient that we're going to get into our food processor is tapioca starch. I love to work with tapioca starch. You might have seen me use this in my three-ingredient flatbread. In that case, it added almost like a gluten effect to the flatbread. In here, what it's going to do is create that stretchy, stringy cheese. Next up is coconut oil. I love coconut oil. As you guys know, this is a really good source of healthy fat, and it's going to make our cheese nice and rich. So I'm just going to get that in there with my spatula. So this is the secret ingredient in my vegan cheese. This is agar agar. Agar agar is a vegan gelatin, and this is a super important ingredient here. What it's going to do is help the cheese hold together, and it's also going to be what makes the cheese work when it's melty and also set up when it's cold. So we're going to get that in here. If you don't want to use agar agar here because you're more familiar with carrageenan moss, which is another vegan gelatin, you can absolutely use that instead. The reason that I've chosen to use agar agar is because it makes the cheese a little more creamy, whereas carrageenan moss makes it a little bit more hard. Now that we have all the ingredients that make the texture of the cheese, we're going to go ahead and flavor our cheese. This is nutritional yeast. Nutritional yeast is actually just deactivated yeast. You'll oftentimes see this in salad bars for sprinkling over your salad. The reason is because it tastes and acts kind of like parmesan. So we're going to get this right in here. So the final ingredients in our vegan cheese are salt and lemon juice. We're going to go ahead and use a hefty amount of salt because I personally like saltier cheese. If you like it on the more neutral side, you can cut down here. And then we're going to use some lemon juice. And this acid is going to just bring everything together. So now that everything is in our food processor, we're just going to go ahead and give this a good blitz. If you don't have a food processor, you can also use your blender. So we're just going to get the top on here and go to town. I'm going to go ahead and turn on my machine. I'm just going to let it run for a good one to two minutes. You really want to take your time with this and let the cashews and the coconut oil come together. This is going to break down and look like a super smooth and creamy nut butter. And that's exactly what you're looking for. After a few minutes of blending, you just want to go in with your spatula and scrape down the sides. You just want to make sure that everything is nice and combined. So I'm just going to pop the lid on and take it a little bit farther. Again, what you're looking for is just a super rich and creamy texture. The last and final ingredient in our cheese is actually just water. This is some water that I just boiled. This is about a cup and a half of water. If you want your cheese to be a little softer and more creamy, add the full amount. But if you want it to be a little harder, you can hold some back. So what we're going to do is turn on our food processor and slowly stream this in. So the water is going to go ahead and start activating the agar-agar. And this is what's going to start to thicken the cheese. You want to stream the water in kind of slowly and give it time to just combine with all the other ingredients and, again, wake up that agar-agar. So this looks great. Our cheese mixture has come together, and now we're moving on to our next step. We're just going to pour our cheese mixture into a medium saucepan over medium heat. And what you want to do is whisk consistently for just one to two minutes. What you'll see is pretty magically, after two minutes, it'll start to thicken up, and it'll have the texture of a queso cheese or even a white cheddar fondue. Okay, so now that our cheese is cooked, you can totally enjoy it like this. It's super rich and cheesy and gooey. But I'm going to show you how to turn this into a hard cheese. So what we're going to do is we're going to get it into a small bowl. This is a nice small bowl that I've greased with a little bit of coconut oil, just to make sure that our cheese will release. And also, another really nice trick, I like to take a strip of parchment paper and line that along the bottom of the bowl so we can just lift out our cheese. So all we're going to do is get our hot cheese mixture into here. So now that our cheese is in our bowl, we're just going to use the back of our spatula to gently press it down and smooth everything out. You're really just looking to get rid of any air bubbles so that when you turn your cheese out, it looks nice and smooth. So this is already starting to set up. This is exactly what you want. So from here, all we're going to do is get this into the fridge. You want to let this chill for at least one night, and then the next day you can unveil your vegan cheese. Check this out. This is the cheese that I made yesterday. As you can see, it's set up and it's nice and firm. So all that we're going to do is turn it out onto our plate. So you'll see this is super easy. We're just going to use the parchment paper to lift the cheese. Look at that. And then get it onto our little plate situation with cheese and crackers. Ta-da! Check out the finished cheese. I love it when it's hot. I love it when it's cold. So all that's left to do is give this a try. I cannot wait to slice into this. I've got some crackers here. I think I know someone who might like to give this a try. This is for you. Thank you. You know, I've never had a vegan cheese before. Well, tell me. If you didn't know that it was vegan, would you ever be able to tell? No, honestly, no. It's really good. And it's salty. It has the texture of a spreadable cheese. Almost like a rindless brie. Rindless brie. A rindless brie. Honestly, it really does have the flavor and texture of a brie. You guys are going to love this. I can't wait for you to give this vegan cheese a try. The recipe is on BiggerBolderBaking.com.