This smooth and velvety vegan cheese sauce recipe is deliciously cheesy, ultra creamy, and super low in fat and calories.
You’re going to want to put this luxurious vegan cheese sauce over everything.
And the best part is that it is allergy-friendly – no dairy, no tofu, no gluten, and NO cashews!
This was one of those weeknight throw-a-bunch-of-ingredients-together-and-see-what-happens recipes.
I hadn’t prepared anything for dinner and arrived home feeling super hungry after being out all day. Pasta is one of my go-to meals on those types of days, and this quick vegan white sauce was the result of looking through my kitchen cabinets to see what could go with the pasta.
The entire meal was done in barely more time than it takes to boil water!
My favorite comfort food is comfort food that takes longer to eat than to make ♥
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Ways To Use Vegan Cheese Sauce
- Poured over steamed broccoli
- Stirred into rice or quinoa
- On top of baked potatoes or tator tots
- As a dip for these Buffalo Cauliflower Wings
- Over pasta or spaghetti squash (here’s How To Cook Spaghetti Squash)
Or you could serve yourself a giant bowl of this creamy and ultra velvety vegan cheese sauce and eat it with a spoon.
Am I the only one who does this with cheese sauce???
You know how much I love giving options in my recipes.
This vegan cheese sauce is no exception, and you have a few options here.
I developed variations both with and without nutritional yeast, because I know the ingredient isn’t always easy to find and that not everyone is a fan.
If you’ve never heard of nutritional yeast, it’s something used quite often in vegan cooking because of its addictively cheesy taste.
To be clear, nutritional yeast does not taste exactly like cheese; it just has that same umami flavor.
(Umami—or savory—is one of the five basic tastes, along with sweet, sour, salty, and bitter.)
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If you try this recipe, I’d love to see!
Also make this creamy Vegan Alfredo Sauce or my favorite Cauliflower Alfredo Sauce.
Vegan Cheese Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup cooked white beans, such as cannelini
- 1/2 cup milk of choice, preferably unsweetened
- 5 tbsp nutritional yeast OR 1/3 cup vegan shredded cheese
- salt – I like 1/2 tsp
- 1/8 tsp garlic powder
- If using nutritional yeast, add optional 1/2 tsp white or apple cider vinegar
- optional 2 tsp buttery spread or olive oil – I really like the rich depth of flavor this adds, especially if not using the cheese version
- optional pinch turmeric, thyme, rosemary, onion powder, etc.
Instructions
- Drain and rinse beans if they are canned. Blend together all ingredients except cheese, either in a blender or with a hand blender. Transfer to a pot, and add the cheese, if using. Heat on low, stirring occasionally, until desired serving temperature is reached and optional cheese is melted. If serving with pasta, stir in cooked pasta at this time. Add more milk of choice if a thinner sauce is desired.Instant Pot Version: Instead of transferring to a pot on the stove, put the blended mixture in your instant pot and heat on manual for 5 minutes. Thanks to reader Emma who created this version and left a comment to let us know it can be made in an instant pot!View Nutrition Facts
Notes
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Just made this and it turned out great! I’m not vegan, but trying to eat a lot more plants, and hopefully give up meat dairy and eggs completely in the near future. I made pasta with the sauce, (nutritional yeast version) tomatoes and mushrooms, and I topped it with breadcrumbs and shredded vegan cheese and it turned out great! Of course it’s not quite cheese, but I loved it anyway. Thanks for sharing!
I love your idea to add breadcrumbs and make vegan macaroni and cheese – I’m not even vegan and that sounds good to me!
How long will this last in the fridge?
I tried this recipe with chickpeas. I was a little bit disappointed at first because it definitely does NOT taste like cheese and had a lumpy consistency (I have a Blendtec). I put it on some steamed broccoli and it grew on me. This will not do the trick for a cheese fix, but if I think about as a cheesy(ish) bean sauce, it’s pretty good. Thanks for creating a healthy, clean recipe. Looking forward to trying some of your desserts.
Excited to make this, but how much pasta should I cook to go with it?
Tried this tonight for the first time, what a hit!
I made it with macaroni and added broccoli for the last two minutes of boiling time. I doubled the recipe and added the nutritional yeast and the shreds. I added tumeric to make it orange. It was a huge success and now we have lunch for tomorrow.
Very nice alternative to cashew cheese! I used the version with nutritional yeast and olive oil instead of margarine. I threw in extra garlic powder, onion powder, dried mustard and a bit of turmeric. I will say it was grainy after being in my Vitamix for what I thought was enough time, but I’m glad I let it run another minute or so for it to get hot because it got much creamier. In fact it got so thick I could have used it as a dip for chips, but I just thinned it out with more almond milk and put it over a baked potato with broccoli. Thanks so much for sharing!!
Thanks for this sauce recipe. It was very tasty although I will probably reduce the nutritional yeast quantity by 1tbsp next time. My guests loved it, one vegan, one not. I will make it again.
This tastes AMAZING!!!
Gluten, rice, soy & dairy free cheese is often so gross or so expensive to make I’d more/less given up. I personally think daiya cheese was made by somebody who’d never tasted real cheese. I made this with nutritional yeast and potatoes as the base instead of beans (too hard on my tummy), I’d just found quinoa pasta and wanted to give it a go. To me it tastes a lot like the oven-baked mac&cheese my mom would make. So I tossed it into an oven dish, sprinkled toasted gf bread crumbs on top and baked it for a bit, a little pepper and it’s perfect. Even my roommate who can have dairy and gluten said it tastes very close to the real thing.
I added an additional tbsp of nutritional yeast and a little more garlic powder. This is a recipe I am definitely writing down to use again and again.
Love your idea to use potato!
Really? A vegan cheese sauce with milk and soy cheese?
Milk of choice means whatever plant-based milk you wish to use. The nondairy cheese is optional, as it states in the recipe.
Thanks for this recipe! even my picky omnivore partner liked it…I made it in the Vitamix using the soup/sauce setting and it was really fast…used the nutritional yeast option and canned beans….very fast and tasty
absolutely delicious i don’t want to share it with my family 😛