Making a vegan cheese sauce really couldn’t be easier.
You start off with a basic vegan white sauce – also called Bechamel Sauce (sounds so fancy!).
And then with just a few added extras, it magically turns into cheese sauce!
There are just 3 basic ingredients – oil, flour and plant-based milk (I used soy milk) to make your basic white sauce.
To that you add some salt, black pepper, mustard (great for adding a cheesy flavor don’t even ask me why – I have no idea – but really it works!) and some nutritional yeast.
If you really want to go crazy, you can even add in some grated vegan cheese for extra cheesiness and you have the most divine vegan cheese sauce.
But let me be clear – this isn’t the kind of cheese sauce you’re going to use on a pizza.
Have you had a white sauce (bechamel) before? It’s exactly like that, just flavored to be cheesy!
It’s what you want when you want a cheesy version of a white sauce to use in your lasagna!
If you want a cheese sauce to drizzle on your pizza, then you’re looking for a cashew cheese sauce! Or you can even grate up some hard sliceable cashew cheese and melt it on your pizza!
Let us know what you think of this recipe by leaving a comment and a rating! Thank you!
And sign up to our email list while you’re here, you’ll get a great (and free!) recipe ebook and you’ll be the first to know when new recipes are posted to the blog!
Vegan Cheese Sauce
-
Cook Time: 15 mins - Total Time: 15 mins
-
Yield: 2 cups -
Category: Sauce -
Cuisine: Vegan
Print Recipe
Pin RecipeDescription
Creamy and super cheesy vegan cheese sauce recipe. Ideal for lasagnas, vegan mac and cheese or anywhere you would usually use a cheese sauce.
Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp Olive Oil
- 2 Tbsp All Purpose Flour
- 2 cups Soy Milk (or other non-dairy milk)
- 1 tsp Yellow Mustard
- 4 Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
- Sea Salt (to taste)
- Black Pepper (to taste)
- Grated Vegan Cheese (optional)
Instructions
- Add the olive oil to a pot on the stove and turn the heat to medium high.
- When the oil begins to heat up, sift the flour and add to the oil, stirring briskly all the time.
- Fry the flour in the oil for a bit, stirring vigorously, and then add in all the soy milk at once. Stir vigorously.
- Continue to stir until the sauce begins to thicken.
- You will usually reach the right thickness a few minutes after the sauce has reached boiling point.
- When it has reached the desired thickness remove from the heat (bear in mind that it will continue to thicken as it cools).
- Stir in the mustard, nutritional yeast and add sea salt and black pepper to taste.
Notes
*Adapted from my basic vegan white sauce recipe.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/2 cup (~1/4 of the recipe)
- Calories: 166
- Sugar: 3g
- Sodium: 112mg
- Fat: 12.3g
- Saturated Fat: 1.6g
- Carbohydrates: 6.9g
- Fiber: 1.4g
- Protein: 5.4g
Keywords: vegan cheese sauce
Hi, this looks so good. I have been looking for a cheese sauce without nutritional yeast because I am not a fan. Any substitute suggestions? Thx!!
★★★★★
Hmmm, if you make it without the nutritional yeast but just use a bit more mustard, it can get a pretty good ‘cheesy’ flavor just from that, no idea why!
This looks scrumptious! Can I just ask, have you tried this with oat milk? I love sweetened soya and almond milk but they just don’t work for savoury dishes! So I was wondering if there was a better alternative out there and oat milk seems have a pretty neutral base. Thanks 🙂
I haven’t tried it with oat milk but I really think any non-dairy milk would work great here!
So quick and easy! I used coconut milk and almond flour with a teaspoon of xanthan gum and it is perfect! My kids both loved it as well!
That sounds awesome! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Hi Alison,
I’m guessing you meant “prepared yellow mustard” as opposed to the ground mustard powder, but adding the “p” word would save us nitnoids a heap of grief!
Keep up the good work,
Oh yes, definitely prepared yellow mustard! I imagine it must have been very strong tasting with mustard powder! 🙂
I just made it. As written, the sauce was very bland. I highly suggest adding a generous amount of paprika (1Tbsp) , garlic powder, a dash of soy sauce and extra salt. I also added a few dashes of jalepeno hot sauce because it seems to give it a fuller flavor, but it would be okay without hot sauce.
I can’t have any form of dairy. Every non-dairy cheese recipe I’ve found is vegan, which is fine… But I say that because not all visitors to a vegan food blog are actually vegans. I know you’ll delete my comment, but I also hope you’ll try the additions I recommended. Perhaps your years of vegan living have made you forget what cheese actually tastes like. 😉
I think adding your own additions to a recipe are really a given. ‘To taste’ is to taste after all! I realized that I had said ‘sprinkle’ instead of ‘to taste’ so I updated it. But to me that’s obvious too so not something I always think of to spell out. Paprika is a great addition and something we’ve used in other cheese sauces, like our mac and cheese. And we have a hard sliceable cashew cheese coming up that uses both paprika and garlic powder. I think 1 Tbsp of paprika is a lot! But to each his own. I think I have a great idea of what cheese tastes like, have you tasted some of the vegan cheeses on the market? Even non-vegans are often fooled. 🙂
I just made this and I’m really happy with the taste and consistency. I didn’t have nutritional yeast so I made it without. I added a bit of coconut-based vegan cheese and a sprinkle of nutmeg, and used oat milk instead of soya. It’s a surprisingly rich sauce so you don’t need a tonne of it!
That’s awesome Ophelia! So glad you liked it. Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
Forgot to add rating! Oops!
★★★★★
I just made this and it was delicious! I used vegetable oil rather than olive as its what I had, and unsweetened almond milk. I mixed it with roast peppers and mushrooms, spinach and pasta. Looking forward to putting it in a lasagne next!
Awesome Paula! Sounds great! It’s really good in a lasagna too. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!
I love the simplicity and versatility of your recipe. It can be varied with a tweak here and there, and always with great results. I like to add a teaspoon of garlic granules and a pinch of turmeric for colour. Thank you for sharing!
★★★★★
Awesome Stella – garlic powder is a great addition to this, enhances the cheesy flavor! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Amazing! I made this and your choc cookies for dinner tonight and everyone loved it. I used it to make a mac n cheese with veggies and my 6 year old veg adversed son actually ate it all. My 10yr old daughter, who thought we would have to give up cheese pasta almost cried with joy when she saw the dish. Thanks for sharing.
★★★★★
Oh my goodness, I am so happy to hear that, yes your gorgeous 10 year old has lots of treats in store, because she can definitely still have all the good stuff, just made a little differently! So glad this recipe was able to help! And it’s a great way to ‘mask’ the veggies for 6 year olds too! Clever! Thanks so much for sharing Susan! 🙂
Made this evening. As someone who has only recently become vegan, i still have the very distinct memory of what all types of cheese tastes like, and this did not taste cheesy. The nutritional yeast helped make it palatable, but the mustard is an obvious and uncheesy flavour and as a whole it just couldnt be mistaken for cheeae sauce. The mustard does add an extra welcome tang. It was nice nonetheless, and i called it “pizza drizzle sauce” when the kids asked what it was because they definitely wouldnt believe its cheese sauce. It added some flavour and topping to our pizzas and was nice enough for me to keep and freeze the leftovers for the next round of pizzas, so im not saying its a bad recipe at all. Just not cheesy.
★★★
Hi Terri, this is definitely more the kind of sauce to use in a lasagna or on veggies than as a pizza sauce. It’s basically a white (bechamel) sauce flavored to be cheesy. This isn’t what I would use on a pizza at all. That would be something like my cashew cheese sauce if I wanted to drizzle it over, or my sliceable cashew cheese if I wanted to grate some up to serve on top. In terms of flavorings, you can play around with stronger flavorings to get more ‘cheesy’ flavor, things like onion powder, paprika, garlic powder etc can all work, just see what you like.
Oh thank you! This was so simple and made a great lasagne sauce. Will be using again! X
★★★★★
Awesome Rachael, so glad you liked it! Thanks for posting! 🙂
Curious, do you have any substitute for flour…such as garbanzo bean flour..etc?
Hi Jay, I have made it with a gluten-free all purpose flour blend and that worked well! I haven’t tried it with garbanzo bean flour so not sure about that one. 🙂
Great recipe!
Absolutely love this recipe! literally just made it and was so impressed. I’m trying to go vegan (it’s a little hard as my dad is a chef and south american and my mum is spanish – both cultures have fish/cheese/meat heavily featured in their diets). I am a vegetarian and no longer eat or drink dairy products so will definitely be following and looking for more inspiration from you as i slowly transition to veganism! Thank you! 👌🏼❤️
★★★★★
Hi Sarah! So awesome that you’re transitioning to veganism! So pleased you like the recipe. Hope you find lots more recipes here that you like! 🙂
I have never liked the taste of the yeast but DO like the idea of its nutritional value…I made this and with a tiny bit of tweaking I was stunned by the flavour…this is really delicious
THANK YOU
Fantastic to hear that Judith! Thanks for posting! 😁
Hiya, I’m going to try this very soon, looks delicious! I was wondering if you think it’s okay to freeze a portion?
Hi Tasha, yes this freezes well. 🙂 It’s pretty much a white sauce with some cheese flavoring, so the info in this article will apply to freezing this.
I really liked this over pasta and broccoli. Do you think this could be made into a nacho sauce, and if so, how? Thanks!
★★★★
Hi Julie, so glad you enjoyed it! You could use this as a nacho sauce, but I’m thinking you would likely want to strengthen the flavors a bit, we do have a vegan nacho cheese recipe that you can take a look at, and either use that one, or adapt this one using the spices from that recipe, like onion powder, garlic powder etc. All the best! 🙂
My sauce just doesn’t thicken, what am I doing wrong?????
Hi Jordan, did you substitute any of the ingredients? Usually this sauce is quite forgiving, if it’s a little thin you can just cook it for longer, and it will thicken up. Alternatively, you can troubleshoot it by adding some flour (about a tablespoon will be good) to a little cold non-dairy milk and whisking it into a paste and then adding that in to the hot sauce and whisking it in very well. It could be that the ratio of flour was a little off and you just need a touch more. My usual practice though would be just to cook it for longer until it thickens and then let it thicken more as it cools.
I made this and tried it as a bechamel sauce – YUMMY!! Cant wait to use it in lasagne. Then i added mustard , nutritional yeast, salt, pepper, paprika, vinegar, garlic powder and tumeric for colour and it became the ultimate cheesy sauce. I think it tastes better than the real thing!! Thank you for the recipe Alison!!!
★★★★★
Sounds awesome! Thanks so much for sharing! 🙂
Hi and thank you very much.
One question: Can I make nutritional yeast at home?
Hi! I don’t think so, but I have never looked into that, but really… no idea, sorry! 🙂
Hello! I just got done making this for myself and partner. He loved it (even tho he is not vegan). I used unsweetened almond milk and dijon mustard because we didn’t have any yellow mustard. I steamed some broccoli and added it to the sauce and poured it over baked potatoes. Very good! I did notice that the sauce seemed to thin when it was still on the burner boiling for a few minutes but it thickens quite a bit once off the burner.
★★★★★
So glad you enjoyed it Holly! Thanks for awesome review! 😁