Creamy Cheddar Mac & Cheese (Vegan)

Who doesn't like mac & cheese? Cheese is often one of the last things a vegan will give up. Pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, mac & cheese... how can you live without them?

Luckily, there are some decent cheese alternatives on the market now. This recipe uses Teese Creamy Cheddar from the Chicago Soy Dairy to make a simple yet delicious mac & cheese. This product comes in a flexible plastic tube and feels very gooey and strange in the packaging. But it is meant for melting, and melt it does.

Both Tae and I have made this for non-vegans and every one of them loved it. Make plenty if you want leftovers. Yes, this is really that good, especially if you add some broccoli and chopped roasted red bell pepper to it. And, in my mind, the leftovers are even better.

Depending on how you like your mac & cheese, you may want to increase the bechamel sauce to 3 cups. Altered instructions for that are at the end of the recipe.


Creamy Cheddar Mac & Cheese (Vegan)
preheat oven to 350F (175 - 180C)

12 oz (by weight) dry elbow pasta (about 350g)
salted cooking water

2 Tbs flour
2 Tbs olive or canola oil
2c lukewarm soy or almond milk
1 tsp salt

1 10 oz tube Teese Creamy Cheddar
1 Tbs Earth Balance

bread crumbs - optional
broccoli florets - optional
roasted red bell pepper, chopped - optional
frozen peas - optional (do not require advance cooking)

If using the broccoli (or cauliflower, etc), dump the broccoli florets into the pasta water when it boils, prior to cooking the pasta. Boil one minute, remove to a colander and run under cold water to stop the cooking. Set aside. The water will be slightly green but will not color the pasta.

Boil the pasta in well salted water for as little as possible to make it edible. Reserve 1/2 c cooking water. Drain pasta and return to the pot.

While boiling pasta, make 2c bechamel using the next 4 ingredients. Start by melting the oil in a saucepan. Sprinkle the flour over the top and whisk together. Cook for a minute then gradually whisk in the warm milk. Go at a moderate speed to eliminate lumps. After the milk is in, gradually bring nearly to the boil on a medium heat. Watch carefully so it doesn't boil over.

When the milk bechamel reaches boiling, remove from the heat, add the Teese in chunks and stir to melt. Taste and add 1 tsp of salt if needed.

In the pasta pot, mix pasta and sauce well. Add veggies if using.

If it looks too thick to you, add some or all of the reserved cooking liquid and stir it in.

Dot with 1 Tbs of Earth Balance, and scatter lightly with bread crumbs, if desired.

Spray a baking dish with nonstick spray.

Spread into the baking dish and cover with aluminum foil.
Bake 30 minutes covered, then 10 minutes uncovered if desired.


Note If you are used to more sauce, try increasing the amounts in the bechamel to these:

3 Tbs flour
3 Tbs olive or canola oil
3c lukewarm soy or almond milk
1 1/2 tsp salt

Hatch Chile and Teese Enchiladas

The local store had fresh Hatch chiles today, which is a rare event here. They normally get some around the Hatch Chile Festival, no one buys them, and they mostly go bad. Last year I bought all they had left and canned them.

As any chile lover knows, no matter what kind of chile you like, Hatch probably does them best. There is a wide range of chiles grown in the area but the long green ones are what are normally sold fresh as Hatch chiles.

So, Hatch chiles on the counter and I have a new Teese product called 'nacho sauce' to try. Delicious black beans cooked in the fridge (sourced from Rancho Gordo - fantastic black beans called midnight black). Leftover corn tortillas in the fridge. Sounds like a plan.

Teese is a vegan cheese substitute made in Chicago. Vegan 'cheeses' conjure up all sorts of controversy. Does it melt, is it stringy, does it taste like play-do or cheese, and on and on and on. Every brand seems to have fans and detractors. I find the Teese fake mozzarella very good on pizzas and lasagna, etc. The regular cheddar is ok. The creamy cheddar one makes great mac & cheese, and this is my first try at the nacho sauce cheese. Teese comes in a plastic tube like bulk sausage and has a strange texture straight from the tube. It is shiny like plastic and slightly rubbery. But it actually ends up being pretty good when it is used in cooking or on grilled cheese sandwiches, etc.

Teese creamy cheddar and nacho sauces are very soft in their tube. They exude a little water, so be careful when opening it as the water will squirt on you if you press too hard while cutting it open. You can make a bechamel sauce and melt the Teese into that and use that as your cheese sauce. But the nacho sauce flavor is fine on its own. I opened it and used my fingers to squish it around over the enchiladas. Squish is the best description I can give you. When it is melted, you can smooth it around a little with a spoon if it didn't flow around well enough.

Hatch Chile and Teese Enchiladas

1 1/2 c chopped mild Hatch chiles
1 c black beans
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp NM mild chile powder
10 corn tortillas
1 10 oz tube Teese nacho sauce

Preheat oven to 350-375F

Spray cooking spray on a dish about 7 x 10 inches or so, like a small lasagna dish.

Blister and peel your chiles. You'll probably need 8-12 chiles depending on their size. Blister them until the skin is black. Toss them in a bowl covered with plastic wrap for 15-30 minutes, then remove the blackened skin and seeds. Chop the chiles.

I use the gas burners on the stove but you can also do it under the broiler. If the chiles you have are HOT, then do it outside on the grill. Blistering hot peppers inside can be a painful experience. I love chiles and eat them daily, but I still fear airborne capsaicin. It will hurt your eyes, make you cough and is hard to ventilate out the windows.

Using heat proof tongs, char your tortillas a little.

Again, I just lay them down on top of a burning gas flame and turn them after 15 seconds or so. You can also heat them in a cast iron skillet, a comal, outside on the grill or inside on a grill pan. You want them to turn soft and get a little black char on them

Combine the chiles, beans, garlic powder, salt and chile powder in a bowl and mix well.

Fill each tortilla with a couple of spoons of filling, roll them up and put them seam down into the dish.

Squish the Teese over the top evenly.

Cover with foil and bake about 30 minutes covered. Remove the foil and continue to bake another 10-15 minutes until it is bubbly.


Serve with jalapenos, vegan sour cream, guacamole, salsa, or hot sauce.

Note: These are even better as leftovers. They can easily be re-heated in the microwave

Roasted Tomato Flatbread Pizza

Roasted Tomato Flatbread Pizza

Servings: 2 very large, 4 normal

8 oz cherry tomatoes, (grape, pear or cherry tomatoes will work fine)
1 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp kosher salt
2 Flatout Light Original Flatbread (vegans - see note at bottom)
8 oz Teese Vegan Cheese - Mozz
4 oz green chiles, canned or fresh, diced or in strips
2 corn ears, fresh, kernels only
1 tsp sea salt (optional)
1 tsp ground dried chile de arbol powder (optional)

1) Wash and dry cherry tomato. Slice larger ones in half.
2) Toss with olive oil and 1 tsp kosher salt and place into a cazuela or baking pan
3) Preheat oven to 350F with the tomatoes in the oven
4) Roast tomatoes until they pop, around 15 minutes.
5) Lay two flatbreads onto a baking sheet
6) Grate Teese evenly over the crusts
7) Add roasted tomatoes
8) Add diced mild chiles
9) Bake at 350F for about 10 minutes
10) Turn oven to broil and broil crusts until tops are starting to brown.

This makes two very large portions or 4 smaller portions. Sprinkle lightly with sea salt, if needed. And, in my opinion, it just isn't finished until you have shaken a little dried ground chile de arbol over the top...

Flatout Light Flatbread Original, does not contain any dairy like some of the other flavors do. However, it is processed in the same plant and probably on the same equipment as the other products that might contain whey. If this matters to you, you might want to look for a substitute flatbread. See the Flatout FAQ for more info here

Kale Potato Vegan Blue Cheese Pizza

Kale Potato Vegan Blue Cheese Pizza

1 dough for 12" pizza crust (see our Dec 16 2008 post)
1 bunch kale
2 tsp sea salt, divided
3 medium yukon gold or Klondike rose potatoes
1 Tbs olive oil
3 Tbs Tofutti Better Than Cream Cheese Chive and Herb flavor optional
8 oz Teese Mozzarella, grated
2 oz Sheese Blue Cheese, grated
1 tsp Bacon Salt

Preheat oven to 425F.

Rinse and chop kale, discarding stems.
Add kale to pressure cooker with 1 cup of water and 1 tsp of the sea salt and pressure cook for 8 minutes at 10 pounds.
While kale is cooking, peel and slice the potatoes into 1/4 inch slices.
After kale beeps, release pressure. Add a steamer basket over the kale still in the pot, and lay the potato slices evenly along basket. Note: if you like your kale chewier, remove it before cooking the potatoes but make sure you have sufficient water left for your pressure cooker.
Pressurize to 10 pounds and cook for 10 minutes.

While veggies are cooking roll out the pizza dough and put in the baking pan. Brush the edges lightly with the olive oil. No need to brush the entire crust, just the edges.
If using, spread the Tofutti around evenly in the middle.

When veggies are cooked, remove and cool so you can touch them.
Add a layer of potatoes to the crust and sprinkle with half the Bacon Salt.
Add a layer of kale to the potatoes and sprinkle with the remaining Bacon Salt.
Sprinkle the remaining 1 tsp of sea salt over the top.
Sprinkle the Teese mozzarella evenly over the pizza.
Bake for about 18 minutes.
Remove from oven, sprinkle with the Sheese blue cheese, and let pizza rest 2-3 minutes before cutting and serving.

Makes 4 generous slices.