Buy Now → Best & Easiest Vegan Queso Recipe
The best and easiest vegan queso recipe ever! It’s creamy, cheesy, indulgent, and tastes so much like the real thing! Made with cashews, nutritional yeast, diced tomatoes, and green chilies, no one will ever guess it’s vegan, dairy-free, and healthy. This recipe is based on this solid 5-Ingredient Vegan Queso recipe from Nora Cooks.
- Prep Time: 5 mins.
- Cook Time: 10 mins.
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 6-8 servings 1x
- Category: Dips & Spreads
- Method: Blend
- Cuisine: Vegan
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- 1 cup raw cashews
- 1/2 cup water
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice
- 1/4 cup nutritional yeast
- 1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon of smoked paprika (optional)
- 1 can (10 ounces) diced tomatoes and green chilies (RoTel Tomatoes (No Salt Added)
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Start by boiling the raw cashews for 5 minutes or soaking them in hot water for 20-30 minutes. This will break them down and make them super creamy once they’re blended.
- Drain the cashews and add them to a high-speed blender with water, lemon juice, garlic powder, and nutritional yeast. Hold a fine mesh strainer over the blender and drain the liquid from diced tomatoes and green chilies into the blender with the rest of the ingredients. Place the strained tomatoes and chilies in a small saucepan and set it aside.
- Blend the queso mixture on high for 2-3 minutes until the mixture is smooth and creamy. Pour the cheese sauce into the saucepan with the tomatoes and chilies and warm over medium-low heat while stirring frequently. The mixture thickens once it begins to heat up.
- Pour it into a serving bowl and enjoy hot. Enjoy!
Notes
- Nuts ain’t your thing? Try my amazing Vegan Cheese Sauce. It’s made using potatoes and carrots and is super low-fat.
- Use salsa in place of diced tomatoes and green chilies.
- I have only used cashews for this recipe, but if you don’t like cashews my readers have used blanched almonds and sunflower seeds with success.
- White vinegar can be used if lemon juice is not available. And, I suggest using fresh lemon juice.
- I have a Vitamix and love it! It does make everything much simpler and sometimes I don’t even soak the cashews. But, I have found that a decent affordable blender works just fine after soaking or boiling the cashews.
- DO NOT use a Ninja blender. IT SUCKS! And, will leave with a gritty sauce.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1/4 cup
- Calories: 107
- Sugar: 1.1 g
- Sodium: 7.4 mg
- Fat: 7.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 5.6 g
- Fiber: 0.6 g
- Protein: 3.2 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg