Yeah, I would be skeptical of this cheese-less queso if I were you. Queso literally means “cheese” in Spanish. This dip is a dairy-free, cheese-like fraud—a fraud that this dairy-eating queso lover thoroughly enjoys. That counts for something, right?
I was highly skeptical of vegan queso until Ali convinced me to give Füd’s vegan nachos a chance. She said they’re the best nachos in town, vegan or not, so I agreed to meet her there for lunch. While I would still argue that the world’s best nachos feature golden, bubbly, baked cheese (and are cooked to order at The Library Bar and Grill in Norman, Oklahoma), Füd’s nachos were pretty good. They were good enough that I happily polished off my half of our heaping plate of nachos and left with a belly full of chips and “cheese,” like I would if presented with real cheese nachos, except this time I didn’t need a nap afterward. Bonus point for dairy-free queso.
Even after sampling those nachos and a couple other vegan “quesos” since, I had no intention of posting a recipe for one. Then I tried Ali Maffucci‘s (she’s another Ali) recipe for chipotle carrot mac and cheese in her new book, Inspiralized. I was hungry and the recipe sounded interesting and easy enough. It was really tasty, too. I got hooked on the creamy chipotle-carrot mixture and after playing around with it a few more time, realized it would make a great queso. I mean, “queso.” If you’re going to give cashew-based queso a shot, you’ll need to adjust your expectations first. Beware that it won’t taste quite like cheese and it won’t have that cheesy stretch-and-pull effect to it. It will be creamy, however, thanks to the cashews, and cheese-like in flavor, due to nutritional yeast. Mine includes cooked carrots, which lend a golden color and a light sweetness that is balanced out by spicy, smoky chipotle peppers. Try it and let me know what you think!
