Vegan Cheese Sauce With Nachos

Sometimes you just want a big, hot, drippy bowl of nachos.

What’s a vegan to do? Whip up a bowl of this delicious sauce and go to town with your favorite nacho fixins’ and some tortilla chips. Did we mention it’s also gluten free?

This recipe was tweaked and adapted from various soup and cheese recipes we've collected throughout the years.

The Base

• 2 medium potatoes (cubed it’s about 2 cups)
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 tsp of salt

Oil / Spice Mix

• ½ teaspoon garlic powder
• ½ teaspoon onion powder
• ½ teaspoon paprika (we used smoked paprika)
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon cumin (optional)
• 4 tablespoons olive oil

The Rest

• ½ cup unsweeted nut milk (we prefer hemp for the creamy mouth-feel)
• 4 tablespoons Dijon mustard (we like to use Grey Poupon)
• 1 teaspoon tamari sauce
• 3 teaspoon lemon juice

Optional

• Nutritional yeast to taste (we don’t normally add it, but some friends love it)

Grate the carrot and cube the potatoes. This shortens the cooking time. Put them in a medium saucepan with 1 teaspoon of salt and add enough water to cover (you’re going to pour the water off, so don’t stress about adding too much). Simmer until the potatoes are tender (around 10 minutes).

While the potato / carrot mix is cooking, stir together the dry spices and the olive oil for the oil / spice mix. This is a neat little trick that prevents clumping. The oil coats the dry ingredients and helps it better disperse when blended with the rest of the ingredients.

Once the potatoes are tender, strain the carrot and potato mix and put it in a blender or food processor with the oil / spice mix and the rest of the ingredients. Blend until smooth (it can be very thick, add more nut milk if necessary to thin). We run it through a food mill after blending to get rid of any small potato or carrot chunks, a lot of what makes this a cheese sauce is the smoothness and creamy mouth feel.

Now that you have some cheese, it’s time to break out the chips! Believe it or not, there are a ton of vegan chips out there. Most tortilla chips are simply salt, vegetable oil and corn. We’ll sometimes even use Fritos (yep, Fritos are vegan).

We like to pan fry some finely chopped tofu with a rotating gallery of favorite spices (always salt and anything from paprika to garlic powder)

Pickled jalapenos, fresh avocado, and chopped tomatoes make it even better. Chopped onion, vegan refried beans, and / or salsa are also great additions.