I suddenly realized that we didn’t have a fabulous cashew cheese sauce – that you can use to drizzle over things – on the blog yet! So I had to remedy that situation quickly!
Because this is really a staple recipe! Something to drizzle on anything and everything! Pizzas, pastas, potatoes, salads, you name it, if it’s a savory dish, it would likely benefit from a drizzle of this cashew cheese sauce.
For those who don’t eat nuts, we have a vegan cheese sauce that is entirely nut free, and when it comes to cashew cheese, we have a sundried tomato cashew cheese and a sweet basil and chive cashew cream.
However, the sundried tomato cashew cheese is more of a spread or dip, it’s thick and spreads wonderfully on crackers, and the basil and chive cashew cream is a fabulous salad dressing and also great when you want something to drizzle. But when it comes to a cashew cheese sauce that is just dying to be drizzled on a homemade vegan pizza, well, this is the stuff.
Whipping up a batch of cashew cheese sauce is super easy, you just need a nice sturdy blender to do it.
We don’t even pre-soak the cashew nuts, it’s just too easy!
But if your blender is a less sturdy machine, then soak the nuts first. You can pour over hot water and soak them for an hour and then they’ll be easier to blend.
If, however, you have something like a Vitamix then just go for it! No soaking required!
You will love this cashew cheese sauce, it is:
- Super cheesy!
- Creamy
- Smooth
- Soooo satisfying
- Super delicious drizzled on almost anything!
Make up a batch and then keep it sealed in a container in the fridge where it will last a few days.
If you make this recipe let us know how it turned out! And if you have any comments or questions fire away!
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Classic Vegan Cashew Cheese Sauce
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Prep Time: 10 mins - Total Time: 10 mins
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Yield: 4 -
Category: Savory, Sauce, Gluten-Free -
Cuisine: Vegan, Raw
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Super cheesy vegan cashew cheese sauce. This smooth and creamy sauce is wonderfully satisfying and simply delicious drizzled over almost anything!
Ingredients
- 1 cup (150g) Cashew Nuts (Raw)
- 2 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
- 1 Clove Garlic (crushed)
- 1 Tbsp Lemon Juice (freshly squeezed)
- Pinch Sea Salt
- Pinch Black Pepper
- 5 Tbsp Water
Instructions
- Add the cashew nuts, nutritional yeast, crushed garlic and lemon juice to the blender jug. Add sea salt and black pepper. Measure out the water and add it in. Blend until very smooth and creamy.
- For a thicker cheese, use less water. For a thinner salad dressing consistency, use a little more water.
- Serve drizzled over baked potatoes, vegetables, pizzas or pastas.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 of the Recipe
- Calories: 217
- Sugar: 2.3g
- Sodium: 45mg
- Fat: 16.5g
- Saturated Fat: 2.9g
- Carbohydrates: 12.6g
- Fiber: 1.6g
- Protein: 7.8g
Keywords: cashew cheese sauce
Super cheesy!
★★★★★
Do you soak the cashews first?
No, we don’t! But we do have a high powered (Vitamix) blender.
Thanks and had Cashew Sauce at Sprial Diner in Fort Worth Tx.
I loved it and made this and can’t thank you enough.
Patty
This didn’t work for me:/ I have a vitamix as well, but when I tried to blend everything together, the majority sat underneath the blades and I couldn’t blend much of it together at all. What am I doing wrong?
Have you got the tamper (stick) attachment? That would be super helpful when that happens. Otherwise just give it a stir (with a spoon that won’t scratch the blades) and try and get it out from under there, add a little more water and blend again. It’s quite a creamy sauce, as opposed to a thick cheese, so it is usually quite easy to get it going in the blender. You could also do it in the food processor, it won’t be as smooth, but you could do it there as well if you’re having trouble in the blender.
This happened to me as well. So disappointed… I spent well over a half hour scraping and trying to mix but ended up throwing it out. The push stick just barely touches the blades so it can’t get underneath while mixing.
I suggest to anyone trying it to double the recipe.
I have to agree with Samantha. The recipe needs to be doubled to work in a full size Vitamix – otherwise the ingredients stay below the the blades and never get smooth. I doubled the water and worked almost a half hour scraping down. Finally the extra water made it blend about 75%. I used roasted cashews that had not been soaked. I wondered if the roasted aspect made the difference? However, it is very difficult to find un-roasted cashews except from certain health food stores or on line. From now on, it’s either soak if at all possible, or double the recipe. All that said, it was delicious. The nutritional yeast gives it a nice flavor. BTW, Vitamix now has a personal size attachment for smaller amounts and smoothies. Mine is in the mail. I suspect this recipe will work well with the smaller 20 oz attachment.
Hi Lisa, thanks for sharing your experience – I wonder if your vitamix is the really large one, we have the 5200 and only the large size jug and it usually just covers the blades so it’s enough for it to blend. But yes if it’s not covering the blades on your blender probably a good idea to increase the recipe so that it’s easier to blend.
Just tried this recipe with my nutri ninja and it’s tastes amazing. So much easier than soaking cashews overnight!
★★★★★
Awesome! So glad it worked out great! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Fabulous! Used a Vitamix. Super easy to play around with proportions. I used less garlic and more water. Thanks a million! 👍👍👍👍👍
Great stuff Carolyn! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Love this recipe! Tonight I’ll be using it to top baked delicata squash stuffed with brown rice and veggies. Sriracha is a great add-in to this delicious sauce!
★★★★★
That sounds awesome Christina! Thanks for sharing! 🤗
I am still in the process of fully converting to vegan and struggling with my cheese addiction so I’ve been trying several cashew cheese recipes. I halved this one, but forgot to halve the amount of lemon and purposefully kept the whole garlic clove (yum). With the smaller portion of cashews and liquid it was a little hard to get the mixture to catch in the vitamix blades and I ended up using about 4.5 tbsp water but it still came out quite thick and creamy, though in flavor it has more of a sour cream taste! Unintended but splendid… a cheesy-ish sour cream. Heaven.
Awesome! Thanks for sharing Nikki! Yes, it gets harder to blend when you cut the portion down, but glad it turned out well! 🙂
just made this sauce to go on our veggies tonight! really nice sauce recipe. i added quite a bit more water though as i like my sauce extra runny. will maybe do half a garlic glove next time as my kids found it a bit strong. not me though! as a family we are converting to a plant based diet. so now we can add this to the list of recipe keepers! thanks!
★★★★★
Fantastic Tania! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
How long can you keep it, and does it need to be refrigerated?
Yes, keep it in the fridge, it will last a few days.
Thank you for sharing this recipe. It was so easy & turned out so creamy. The small smoothie cups for the Ninja worked great for this.
Great Sharlene, thanks for sharing! 🙂
I made this and really loved it I used cashew milk as well as water to thin it out.I live in Canada and the cashews were so expensive! Can you substitute any other nut or seed….. Example:sunflower seeds?
Oh such a pity the cashews are pricey over there! I really don’t know about sunflower seeds for this recipe, but I did find another recipe that uses them, maybe give that one a try. 🙂
Hi Alison! I was wondering if i could sub the raw cashews for raw cashew butter, and if so how much cashew butter should i use? I sometimes dont have access to raw cashews but can get it already in the butter form.thanks in advance!
Hi Marleah, I honestly have no idea, it would have to be a case of trial and error to figure out the amounts and if it works. Sorry I can’t be more help! 🙂
I just tried this recipe as well, I do not have a powerful blender, so started in a food processor to see how that would work, and then moved to the blender. I did have to add more liquid, so I added Almond Milk and it turned out super creamy after the extra liquid was added. It took me about 1/3 cup of extra liquid to get to the right consistency.
Thanks for sharing Debi! 🙂
Wonderful & easy ~Thank you!
★★★★★
Yay! So pleased to hear that Elizabeth, thanks for the awesome review! 🙂
Hey Alison,
Haven’t made this recipe yet, but I will as soon as I get myself some Cashew nuts!
I wondered how I can subscribe to your blog please, loved reading it!
And, would I be allowed to include this recipe in my blender recipe section at Smoothiesailor.com.au? Full links & credits to you, of course 😀
Cheers, Elle
Hi Elle! So glad you like the blog! You can subscribe here. We don’t allow republishing of our full recipes, but we do love being featured on other blogs, if you use a single image with a link back to the page for the recipe, we have more information on our policy here and the kind of sharing that we love to see. All the best! 🙂
Just made this for lunch to have on some pasta. I’m not sure how I feel about it! It was super easy to make and I think the creamy cashew base is one I’ll definitely use again. I’m veggie, not vegan, but trying to cut down on my cheese intake, and I think the nutritional yeast element is going to be somewhat of an acquired taste for me. I do have some commercial vegan hard cheese that I quite like so I think next time I’ll try grating that in instead. Definitely a recipe I’ll try again, but maybe with a few tweaks for my newbie palate!
★★★
Hi Ali, I have heard this before about nutritional yeast being a bit of an acquired taste for some. You could try drastically reducing the amount and seeing how you go, like just use 1 tsp. You will lose some of the cheesiness, but it will still be delicious and you can increase the nutritional yeast later on if you start liking it more. 🙂
Great idea thanks, I’ll try that. I had some left over and have just had a snaffle of it straight out of the fridge – it was lovely! I think I’ll mix it with some chilli flakes or tomatoes tomorrow and try it in a toastie!
Just made this and it is superb. I have been looking for an easy go-to “cheese” recipe and I found it. I will be doubling it in the future just because it is so tasty. I made it as written except that I used the liquid lemon juice you buy in big bottles and it worked perfectly.
Thank you very much,
★★★★★
Hi Kim! So glad it was delicious! Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
this was sooooooooooooooo good! made some flax meal wraps and sliced up some red onions, red bell peppers, and romaine lettuce and added this cashew cheese sauce. was really, really tasty and filling. even my kids liked it! thanks so much for posting such a yummy recipe.
★★★★★
Fantastic! Thanks for posting Michelle! 🙂
Wow this is so yummy! We’re not vegan but trying to cut down on buying anything in plastic, and it’s hard to buy cheese in New Zealand that isn’t in plastic. Thank you!
This is absolutely amazing. So delicious and creamy! It was great on tacos and I”m sure I’ll be using it for many other dishes and snacks. I love that it’s a totally RAW cheese sauce. It’s the best one I’ve ever made. Thank. you for a great recipe.
★★★★★
Awesome Allison, so glad to hear that! Thanks so much for your awesome review! 🙂
This was so awesome. Just had it drizzled over a pizza. Cant stop thinking about all the things I can do with the leftovers! I did tweak it slightly by adding mustard powder and onion powder. So yum
★★★★★
Sounds awesome Deirdre! Thanks so much for the awesome review! 🙂
You’re welcome! I added the leftovers to a pot of potato broccoli soup. It was so yum
I made this the night before taco night! The recipe overall really worked for me – the ratio of cashews to nutritional yeast, garlic etc. 5/5 Loved the limited number of ingredients, 4/5 The amount of water was not enough. I had to add more water. Instead of writing the measurement as 5 Tbs, I would change it to 1/3 cup – 1/2 cup depending on preferred consistency. I will def make again! I might add some jalapenos to my next batch… Thank you for sharing such a great recipe!
★★★★
So glad you enjoyed the recipe, thanks for sharing your experience. 🙂
Cashews make a great base ingredients for many things for vegans. I gotta thank you for this recipe. I had been planning on making a sauce for pizza bites and yesterday I made it. It was just delicious. A mouthful of flavour and very creamy. I balanced seasoning my taste but the idea of the recipe is there. You only gotta play a little with it 😉
★★★★★
Alison, I wish to thank you so much for sharing your recipe and tips!
I joke that I am a vegan-wannabe only because I do not know how (or don’t want to) give up cheese!!!!! So, your recipe, that I just made a few minutes ago, is the thing that will probably shift me from a wannabe to an actual Vegan!
I used my vitamix, glad I did not have to soak. I wanted it thicker so I added only 4 TBS of water (not 5). I had to use a spatula to scrape the inside corners (some of the mix was crammed into the corners). It turned out creamy and delicious! I’m having it now on my blackbean burger and a small salad of spinach and broccoli. YUM!!!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!!
★★★★★
Hi Shirin! I am thrilled you love the cheese! We have a few cheese recipes on the blog, even a few that are sliceable. It’s heaps of fun to experiment. Thanks so much for your awesome comment and review. 🙂