Creamy Vegan Cheese

The Great Lent was pretty awesome. I‘ve been wanting to do it for so long and luckily my mom agreed with me this year. As I said on my last posts, I didn’t decide to follow The Lent for religious reasons more than I just wanted to try eating vegan for 7 weeks and try to be healthier. In fact my mom and I have come to a conclusion that eating vegan can be really eye opening and a good way of introduction to many new recipes or just simple and delicious recipes that we usually forget about. I tried to write down as many recipes as I could so I can share them here with you. 

As for today’s recipe I tried a vegan „cheese“ one by making it the simplest and the most inexpensive there could be online and still reaching the creaminess of melted cheese, cream cheese or ricotta cheese. I usually see recipes with fancy or really expensive products that not anyone can buy or find. That doesn’t seem fair to me and so I thought of a simpler version but still delicious one. I also filmed a recipe video while preparing it. Click HERE to watch it.

The base of this creamy „cheese“ are sunflower seeds that everyone can find + they are budget friendly. My lovely students out there, you don’t need to thank me. 

I tried it as melted mozzarella in a tortilla pizza and as a herbed ricotta spread on toast. Really creamy, velvety and delicious. 

Let’s get to the actual recipe: 

Ingredients:

- a handful of almonds 

- a cup of sunflower seeds 

- 4 tbsp of sunflower oil ( 2 of which for cooking) 

- 1/2 cup of soy milk 

- 1/2 tbsp of sugar 

- 1 1/2 tsp of salt 

- 1/2 lemon ( juice ) 

- 1 tbsp of cornstarch 

Preparation:

Heat up 1 + 1/2 cups of water until it boils. Add the almonds in and set it aside for about 5-10 minutes. 

Rinse them with cold water a couple of times and let them soak in the cold water for 2 more minutes. This will make the pealing process a lot easier. 

Peal the almonds by pinching them on one side ( they’ll come off super easily )

Heat up another cup of water and put it into a bowl with the pealed almonds and the sunflower seeds. Leave them soak in for at least 30 minutes. (If you can leave them for longer, it’s better)

After 30+ minutes have passed, drain & rinse them and put them to a blender.

Blend, blend, blend !!

Add the soy milk little by little and blend to reach the consistency that you want. ( This recipe is very versatile, so you can imitate the melted mozzarella, cream cheese / spreads, heavy cream or panna and ricotta cheese. You blend it less when you want the ricotta consistency. )

Add 2 tbsp of oil and blend it one more time. 

Heat up some oil in one pan and as you add the mixture in, add quickly a cup of water (or more if you need) to prevent it from sticking to the bottom of the pan. 

Add salt and sugar by adjusting the flavor to your preference. I added 1/2 tbsp of sugar and about 1+1/2 tsp of salt. 

Dissolve the cornstarch to 1/4 cup of water and add it to the mixture to thicken it up. 

Add the juice of half a lemon and continue stirring it around until it reaches the thickness and creaminess that you want. (You should leave it runnier if you want to use it as panna/ heavy cream for pasta sauces.)

And you are DONE !! 

ENJOY!!