Creamy, delicious dairy-free mac and cheese! Let’s be honest, mac and cheese is a staple for a lot of us with little kids. This recipe is packed with vegetables and high fibre noodles making it the perfect dinner or lunch.
This recipe is a great go-to daycare lunch and I find pairs great with some apple slices and cut up veggies.
Ingredients
- macaroni pasta or elbow pasta
- olive oil
- small-medium yam (cubed)
- shallot (diced)
- cauliflower
- raw cashews
- garlic powder
- nutritional yeast
- Plain unsweetened plant-based alternative beverage (almond, oat, soy)
See recipe card for quantities.
Instructions
Make the pasta according to instructions.
Heat up a medium saucepan to medium heat. Add olive oil. Add cubed yam, diced shallot, cauliflower, cashews and garlic powder. Stir over medium for 5-8 minutes.
Add almond milk and nutritional yeast. Continue cooking for another 8-10 minutes until yam softens. Remove from heat and blend sauce.
Blend sauce. Drain pasta once done. Add sauce to pasta noodles and stir.
Hint: if the sauce is really thick in the blender, add some extra liquid to help it blend into a creamy consistency.
Substitutions
- Higher protein – instead of oat or almond milk, use a soy beverage as this is higher in protein. You can also add hemp hearts on top to further boost protein!
- Gluten-free – you could use gluten-free pasta noodles to make this recipe gluten free
- Different veggies – you could swap broccoli for cauliflower, just know the colour will change!
Variations
- Seasoning – you could increase the garlic powder to 1 teaspoon and add ½ teaspoon of onion powder for even more flavour
- Dairy – if you prefer a dairy-based, feel free to use 2% milk instead of the plant-based beverage
Equipment
High speed blender. I love using my Vitamix to mix up this sauce!
Storage
Store the pasta in an airtight container for 2-3 days in the fridge.
Top tip
If you are wanting to boost fibre, but your little one can sometimes be resistant to whole wheat pasta, the Catelli Smart pasta has the texture of white pasta with added fibre. A good general rule of thumb for fibre is to look for 4g of fibre or more per serving and that is usually a good indicator that it has a good amount of fibre!
FAQ
Yes, absolutely! I made this recipe with unsweetened, plain almond milk and it works great. You could also use oat milk or soy milk
This sauce uses cashews and nutritional yeast to get a creamy, cheesy-like sauce. The key is to heat up the cashews so that they are soft, and then the combination of nutritional yeast and some liquid blends into a great cheese-like sauce!
Recipe
Equipment
- 1 Blender
Ingredients
- 1 box macaroni or elbow pasta (375g box)
- 3 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 shallot diced
- ½ cup cashews
- 1 cup yam cubed
- 1 cup cauliflower florets cut up
- ½ teaspoon garlic powder
- ⅓ cup nutritional yeast
- 1 cup plain, unsweetened plant-based alternative beverage (oat, almond or soy)
Instructions
- Prepare pasta according to package directions.
- Heat a medium frying pan on medium heat. Once hot, add olive oil, shallots, cashews, yam, cauliflower and garlic powder. Stir frequently for 5-8 minutes.
- Add the nutritional yeast and ¾ of the almond milk. Stir frequently for another 8-10 minutes.
- Once yam and cauliflower are soft, remove from heat and add to high speed blender. Add the remaining almond milk. Blend on high until creamy sauce. Add more liquid if needed!
- Caution! Sauce will be hot. Remove from blender. Add to drained pasta noodles and mix together.
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