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I consider myself pretty luck in love. I’ve experienced first love (and second love), what it truly means to care for someone and someone to care for me and am fortunate to have never had my heart-broken. That is until now.
Don’t worry, C didn’t dump me (he’s smart enough not to do that!) but rather I am talking about my second true love, cheese. Cheese and I have always had a tumultuous relationship. By this I mean it hates me and no matter how many times it takes advantage of my tummy I never seem to learn my lesson. We go back and forth and just when I think I’m over it I find myself staring at a container of ricotta wanting to dive in spoon first. What can I say, cheese? You’re a hard block of guyere to get over.
Lately I have been trying to avoid going overboard with the dairy. As much as I love cheese and yogurt (the only kinds of dairy I eat), I’m not into looking and feeling like a heifer, which seems to be my body’s natural reaction to all things cow. But you know I’m not one for restriction so I’m trying to find ways to sub out dairy where I see fit. Like mac n’ cheese (or baked “cheesy” cauliflower…whatevs) which I eat just about never.
Actually I’m pretty sure the last time I ate mac n’ cheese was in college, drunk, with enough frank’s red hot to start a fire in my mouth. Truth-be-told I think the cheese they use in the boxed stuff is questionable so perhaps I wouldn’t have a bad reaction to it after all.
But since I’m not about to go throwing nutritional yeast onto my pizza or inside my zavioli, I figured I could probably live with creating a fake-out mac n’ cheese. Now folks, don’t come yelling at me when this doesn’t taste like the real stuff! That would require me to somehow develop a dairy-free cheese chemical and since I know nothing about chemistry, you’re out of luck.
I’ve yet to find a cheese substitute that actually tastes like cheese. I’ve heard good things about daiya, but since I’m new to the cheese single-life I thought I would take things slow and stick to nutritional yeast. It’s actually pretty good and I’ll suck up my cheese snobbery to save myself the tummy ache. Will I be coming home at 2:00 AM craving this Baked “Cheesy” Cauliflower? Probably not. But that’s because my drunk food of choice is always poutine, hold the cheese curds.
PrintBaked “Cheesy” Cauliflower {Dairy-Free}
- Total Time: 40 minutes
Ingredients
- 1 large head of cauliflower, chopped into florets
- 1/2 large onion, diced
- 1 tsp olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups unsweetened almond milk*
- 3 T tapioca starch**
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast
- 1 egg
- Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.
- In a large pot heat up olive oil over medium-high heat.
- Add in onion and sauté for 5 mins or until translucent.
- Heat up almond milk in microwave for 1 minute or on stove top (in a separate pot) until warm.
- Stir tapioca starch in with almond milk until well-combined.
- Reduce heat on pot with onions to low and add in almond milk-tapioca mixture. Continue stirring until mix has thickened (about 1 minute). Remove from heat.
- Add in nutritional yeast and salt and pepper. Let mixture cool for 5-10 mins.
- Stir in egg until well-combined.
- Add in chopped cauliflower and coat with mixture.
- Spray 4 small ramekins or a larger ovenproof baking dish with non-stick spray or coconut oil.
- Divide mixture between ramekins or add to baking dish.
- Cook for 30 minutes.
- Increase oven to broil and cook for another 2 minutes.
- Remove from oven and serve.
Notes
*Can use any dairy-free milk. **Can use any starch such as corn but use tapioca if paleo.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 4
I love cheese! Specifically fancy cheeses like brie and smoke gouda. I don’t eat every day, simply because I like to lean more plant-based. Nutritional yeast is good, but not as mock cheese.
Yeah me and cheese have the same relationship. Sometimes we are okay and other times it sends me home to curl up on the couch in pain, wondering why I decided to eat it. I’ve never tried nutritional yeast! I’ve heard it does taste a little like cheese though.
I might actually lay off the dairy this week since this weekend was filled with lots of creamy sauces and pizza. Dairy is a fickle lover. 😉
True life…I just ate Amy’s mac and cheese for the first time last week and it was kind of, sort of, amazing. Luckily dairy doesn’t hurt my tum tum, but I try to avoid it since it’s not my fave nutritionally speaking. Bring on the almond milk!!! I hate fake vegan cheese but I love nutritional yeast (not to mention all those fab B vitamins), so this baked cauli is happening in my kitch stat! PINNED.
I’ve recently gone diary free to heal my eczema and my gut and nutritional yeast is one of the things on my list that I want to try.
I definitely have played around with nutritional yeast but you’re right… not the same. I think the key is adding mustard to the nutritional yeast to get the cheesy taste… or maybe I’m just saying that because I love mustard. I need to come visit again so I can restock on fancy mustard (oh and hang out with you, of course!).
I think the key to liking fake-out cheezy things is to not compare them to their cheesy counterparts and just enjoy them on their own rights! I will happily eat casseroles and casseroles of this. And so will my skinny jeans. 😛
Double YAY to dairy! It actually makes up a big part of my diet, I tolerate it completely. Never had nutritional yeast, and I guess I won’t ever try it (at least I won’t buy it to cook with )
Looks yummy! I’ve never tried nutritional yeast but I’m curious since I’m seeing it everywhere.
I really like Nutritional Yeast actually! I add it to a lot of things these days when I am cooking in place of parmesan cheese…I was never a big cheese eater and really, the only time I eat cheese now is on pizza…I do still put skim milk in my coffee but never really drank milk otherwise…I can’t use almond milk like I see in all of the recipes I come across because of my almond allergy.
You should have eaten this instead of the kebabies you ate today.
I love cheese and even though it sometimes does cause my stomach to go gaga, it isn’t too extreme to cut it out yet. Then again, the proportions I eat probably are to the extreme side. Nutritional yeast will never be cheese, but should desperation hit, I’d chock the packet down wholeheartedly.