This recipe was sent in by one of my readers, Jess, who just can’t stop craving cheese 🙂 ~H
Hi Heather,
A while back I wrote to you looking for tips on vegan ways to satisfy a cheese craving, and have enjoyed messing around with nutritional yeast and garlic.
Well today I stumbled on a blog about how to get more umami (savory flavor) into vegan foods, especially for those who crave cheese, and then I came up with this recipe, which hits the spot!
It includes many of the elements suggested by the blogger for vegan umami, including: alcohol, mushrooms, nutritional yeast, olives, and a little chance discovery of my own…
Pasta Sauce for Cheese Cravers
- Your favorite pasta sauce, kicked up with some sherry, and reduced a bit
- Green vegetable of choice, I did green beans
- Liberal amounts of nutritional yeast
- Enough olives like it’s one of the main vegetables
- Mushrooms, sliced and fully cooked on an almost high heat to chewiness
- And… gnocchi, boiled until it pops to the surface of salted boiling water. Not a whole food, I know. But chews like cheese.
Add everything to the reduced pasta sauce. Season to taste.
The reason it totally satisfies a cheese craving is because 1. the yeast, as you know, has a nutty/cheesy flavor that subs well for parmesan in a sauce, 2. the olives are bursts of salt like cheese is, 3. the mushrooms have a chewy meatiness, and 4. the gnocchi has the same chewy texture as a hunk of mozzarella.
Maybe to complete the picture, it would be good to pick whatever green veg has the most calcium in it (broccoli? spinach? I forget). Couldn’t hurt to also add some roasted garlic, I just didn’t happen to, but it’s supposed to also be good for umami.
I was so psyched to find a cure for my cheese obsession, I just had to share!!
All the best, Jess
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