Cashews and Macadamia nuts offer excellent options for making a delicious alternative to cheese.
And cashews can be particularly creamy.
This Silky Cashew Cream Cheese recipe is a fresh cream cheese option (vegan and vegetarian) which can be added to other recipes as a cheese substitute, or eaten on its own.
This fantastic, versatile recipe has just six ingredients. If you prefer just a plain cream cheese, please feel free to omit the onion powder (ingredient #4). Making a plain version will allow you to create a non-dairy cheesecake and other similar recipes. So, to double your pleasure, you could do a double batch; one with the onion powder and one without!
When you follow this recipe as it is (below), the cheese will develop a certain tasty sour tang which can be used to make a dip or savory sauce featuring the onion powder.
Be sure to ferment the Cashews
For best results, I like refining cashews for flavor, nutrition and easy digestibility by fermenting them. First, soak the nuts overnight to neutralize the toxins, then rinse and drain the nuts. Second, blend into a cream, add your flavoring and the probiotic capsule to ferment overnight, a second time (or longer if you like a tangier cheese). The end product is a highly digestible, low-fat, high protein, creamy nut-cheese with so many uses!
If you are using a food processor, give it enough time to create a smooth creaminess. If you are using a Vitamix, you will want to put the water in first so it can get going easily when you turn on the blades.
You will probably have to stop and scrape the machine you use periodically.
How to Make your Fresh Cashew Cream Cheese (Cultured)
Ingredients:
- 2 cups of cashews soaked overnight in filtered water.
- ½ cup of water
- 1 probiotic capsules
- ½ tsp onion powder
- ⅛ tsp nutmeg
- Salt to taste - Go easy on the salt preferably adding it after it has fermented overnight, it can easily be over salted
Directions:
- Begin by rinsing and draining the soaked cashews.
- Place in a food processor or blender with the water and blend until smooth and creamy.
- Place in a glass bowl and fold in the other ingredients with a spatula.
- Adjust flavors to taste, just remember that nutmeg will become more pronounced the next day and you rarely go beyond a pinch of nutmeg.
- Cover and let sit for 24 hrs at room temperature.
If you are happy with the flavor then refrigerate it. If you would like a tangier bite to the cheese, let it mature for another 24 hours at room temperature. Adjust the flavor and refrigerate.
Your Cashew Cream Cheese will stay fresh, tasty and nutritious for 7- 10 days in the fridge.
Enjoy!
About Denise Girard, ZNF Master Chef
Denise Girard is a classically trained chef and an award-winning film writer. Certified by the Institute of Integrative Nutrition (IIN) as a Holistic Health Practitioner (CHHP), Denise brings a unique set of training and skills to the food industry.
Being trained worldwide, she has been advised and educated by leading Medical and Naturopathic doctors in North America and Western Europe, including England, Switzerland, Italy and France, as well as, being trained using a wide array of the unique foods and spices of India. Denise also studied herbalism at the East West school of herbology in Santa Cruz and with Dr Schulze in Los Angeles, CA, gained extensive knowledge from Dr. Francesca Borella, Dr. Johanna Budwig of Germany, Dr. Schulze, and Bruce Lipton -- one of the fathers of the science of Epigenetics.
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