Dairy Free Mac and Cheese

One of Gary’s favorite’s is mac and cheese. Since he can’t have dairy anymore, this is one of the foods he has missed. I found lots of recipes for melty cheese sauces, but this one seemed fairly simple to follow, and I had most of the ingredients on hand.

I found it very tasty for dairy free. Though it didn’t taste as rich as real mac and cheese would be, but I find that a good thing. I don’t like feeling yucky after I eat. Gary loved this because his guilty food was no longer so guilty! This reheated very well. I thought it tasted better the next day.

I added broccoli to this recipe to add more greens. I also used the full box of tofu so I wouldn’t have any leftovers. Since the whole box of tofu, I ended up adding 1.25x the amount of ingredients of recipe. The original recipe was vegan, but I used chicken broth to de-veganize it. Obviously, don’t do that if you want to keep it vegan.

Dairy Free Mac and Cheese
Adapted from: Branny Boils Over, originally from Veganomicon

Ingredients:

Cheesy Sauce: *I used heaping measurements
2 1/2 cups vegetable broth (I used chicken stock)
1/4 cup AP flour*
1 Tbsp olive oil*
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/8 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp salt*
freshly ground pepper
1/8 tsp turmeric*
3/4 cup nutritional yeast flakes*
1 Tbsp lemon juice*
1 tsp prepared yellow mustard* (I used spicy brown mustard)

Pasta:
1/2 pound elbow macaroni (I used shells)
1/2 pound extra firm tofu (I used the entire 12.3 oz of Mori-Nu)
1/2 tsp salt*
1/2 Tbsp olive oil*
1 Tbsp lemon juice*
1 head broccoli florets

Directions:
Boil pasta as directed on box, adding broccoli in the last 5 minutes of boiling.

Preheat oven to 325°.

Crumble tofu into an 8×8 inch baking dish until it resembles ricotta cheese. Add salt, olive oil, lemon juice, and stir.

Prepare the cheese sauce:
In a bowl combine the broth and the flour, whisking to dissolve the flour.

Preheat a small sauce pan over medium heat add oil and gently sauté the minced garlic for about 2 minutes. Add thyme, s&p, and cook a few seconds longer.

Add broth, turmeric, and nutritional yeast. Slightly increase heat and whisk constantly, about 3 minutes.

The mixture will begin to bubble and thicken. After about 2 minutes, add the mustard and lemon juice. Now the mixture should resemble melty cheese. If it does not, continue to simmer.

Combine pasta:
Add 1/4 cup of the cheese sauce to the tofu and stir. Add pasta to the tofu, reserve 1/2 cup of the cheese sauce and add the rest to the tofu+macaroni mixture. Stir well. Top with remaining sauce. (I found it easier to combine everything in the pot, transfer to the dish, then top with remaining sauce.)

Bake for 30 minutes. Allow the baked macaroni and cheese to rest outside of the oven before serving (about 10 minutes).

This was great for a first timer using nutritional yeast. I’m going to experiment with other cheese sauces to see which one we like better.