OG Cashew Cheese Spread
This recipe I hold very near and dear to my heart for a multitude of reasons. For one, I used to be very seriously raw vegan and one of my favorite creations was nut spreads that were made in the fashion of soft cheeses. Many restaurants and specialty markets had a version of their own, and honestly, most were more than decent and sometimes even incredible – regardless whether or not you were vegan.
There may be 1 million recipes out there for vegan cheese, so here's 1,000,001.
This particular recipe is unique and special to me because it originally hails from a raw vegan café that lived next to the health food market I worked for back home. Their food was conscientiously made with love and care. You didn’t have to be raw vegan, or even vegetarian for that matter, to appreciate and enjoy good food like this. I’m happy to say that even though the café has changed ownership since then, it still remains with the same integrity and ideas.
I never figured out the exact recipe of this cashew cheese spread, but this is my interpretation that resembles it almost exactly after years of trial and error. The trick is not only in the ingredients, but definitely in the technique as well. It’s important to follow the proper steps in order to achieve the desired result.
Cashew | Broccoli | Sweet Potato Spread
Makes around a quart
Equipment needed:
Blender (vitamix preferred, but not necessary)
Food processor
1 cup raw cashews, soaked in water for an hour
2 medium sized broccoli heads, stems and florets separated
1 red bell pepper, de-stemmed and seeded
1 small sweet potato, peeled and roughly diced
1 clove garlic
½ cup nutritional yeast
2 tbsp braggs liquid aminos, plus more if needed
1 small lemon, juiced
½ cup extra virgin olive oil, plus more if needed
Using the blender first, add in the soaked cashews, sweet potato, bell pepper, and broccoli stems. Blend until veggies roughly begin to chop, then add the garlic, braggs, olive oil and lemon juice. Blend again until everything comes together and begins to blend smoothly.
When everything is one homogenous mixture, transfer to food processor. Add the nutritional yeast, and pulse. Taste for seasoning – add more braggs if necessary and more olive oil if spread is too thick (the texture should be similar to hummus).
The very last step is to add the broccoli florets and pulse 5 or so times for afew seconds – just until the florets are little granules, but not fully incorporated into the spread. This will provide some texture to the spread, but not be overly chunky.
