The Best Baked Vegan Mac and Cheese recipe is the ultimate comfort food that’s both healthy and delicious. Topped with panko breadcrumbs and baked to golden brown perfection, it delivers the creamiest cheesy flavor without dairy.
Growing up in Mississippi, mac and cheese wasn’t just a side dish-it was the crown jewel of Sunday suppers and church potlucks. Every gathering had at least three versions, and folks would debate for hours about which was the “real deal.”
When I switched to a plant-based diet, I knew I had to create something to stand up to those cherished Southern memories.
After countless kitchen experiments (and some spectacular failures that even the local porch cats wouldn’t touch), I finally cracked the code.
This is the best baked vegan mac and cheese. It uses simple whole foods to create a creamy sauce so rich it’s become my new go-to recipe for family reunions.
The secret? A blend of raw cashews and nutritional yeast creates that authentic cheesy flavor without vegan butter or processed ingredients. And that golden brown, crispy top? It’ll make any Southern grandmother proud.
Your New Go-To Recipe For Holiday Dinners
Transform your next family dinner with this best vegan mac and cheese bake!
Made with whole foods and plant-based ingredients, this recipe creates a creamy sauce that rivals the real thing.
No vegan butter, vegan margarine, or processed ingredients are needed-just pure, wholesome comfort food perfect for Thanksgiving, special occasions, or weeknight dinners.
What You’ll Need For This Cheesy Pasta Dream
Don’t let the ingredient list intimidate you - everything you need is readily available at your local grocery store, and together, they create pure comfort food magic.
For the Creamy Vegan Cheese Sauce:
- Raw cashews (the key ingredient for that creamy texture)
- Nutritional yeast (for that classic mac and cheese flavor)
- Non-dairy milk (almond milk, soy milk, oat milk, or cashew milk work great)
- Lemon juice
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Black pepper
- Optional: Tapioca starch (or tapioca flour for extra creaminess)
For the Mac:
- Elbow macaroni (or gluten-free pasta for a recipe gluten-free version)
- Panko breadcrumbs for that irresistible golden brown top
- High-speed blender or food processor
NOTE: Follow the recipe card section below for detailed ingredient measurements and specific instructions.
How to make the best baked vegan mac and cheese?
Ditch the boxed stuff - this simple process creates the creamiest, most satisfying vegan mac and cheese you’ll ever taste.
Step 1: Prep Work (15-20 minutes)
- Soak raw cashews in hot water for best results
- Bring a large pot of water to medium heat for your elbow noodles
- Prepare a baking dish or casserole dish
Step 2: Creating the Cheesy Sauce (2-3 minutes)
- Drain cashews and add to your high-powered blender
- Add nutritional yeast, plant milk, and seasonings
- Blend until you achieve that creamy texture
- For umami flavor, add a splash of soy sauce
Step 3: Pasta Perfect
- Cook pasta until al dente (it’ll continue cooking in the oven)
- Drain, but don’t rinse – the starch helps the cheesy sauce stick!
Step 4: The Big Finish
- Mix cooked macaroni with your creamy vegan cheese sauce
- Top with buttery breadcrumbs (although we’re not using vegan butter 😁)
- Bake until the top of the mac is golden brown
Pro Tips for the Best Baked Vegan Mac and Cheese
Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-5 days. Next time, try these variations:
- Add my vegan parmesan for extra cheesy flavor
- Mix in Dijon mustard for tang
- Use sunflower seeds instead of cashews for a nut-free option
Make It Your Own
Getting creative with this classic dish is easy, so don’t be afraid to experiment. I like tossing in some of my vegan bacon bits for extra comfort. Try adding some smoked paprika or your favorite herbs.
Want to make this traditional mac and cheese even easier? Try my stovetop mac variation-skip the breadcrumbs and enjoy that creamy sauce right away!
For holiday dinners, double the recipe and watch it disappear! Head to your local grocery store for ingredients, and don’t forget to check the recipe card below for exact measurements.
How do I serve baked vegan mac and cheese?
Baked vegan mac and cheese is a great side dish for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. It pairs perfectly with Vegan Holiday Roast or Chickpea Vegan Meatloaf.
It’s great as a main dish or a side dish. We love having this with roasted asparagus or maple dijon Brussels sprouts. But my favorite is alongside my excellent baked beans. Oh, man!
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Vegan Baked Mac And Cheese
The Best Baked Vegan Mac and Cheese recipe is the ultimate comfort food that’s both healthy and delicious. Topped with panko breadcrumbs and baked to golden brown perfection, it delivers the creamiest cheesy flavor without dairy.
- Prep Time: 15 mins.
- Cook Time: 15 mins.
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 10 servings 1x
- Category: Side Dish
- Method: Bake
- Cuisine: Vegan
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
Mac & Cheese
- (1) 16–ounce box elbow pasta
- 2 ½ cups cashews
- 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
- 1 cup unsweetened almond milk
- ¼ cup of lemon juice
- ½ cup nutritional yeast
- 2 tsp. onion powder
- 1 tsp. garlic powder
- ½ tsp. salt or to taste
Topping
- 1 cup panko or whole wheat bread crumbs
- 1 tsp. smoked paprika
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350˚F and soak the cashews in hot water for 10 minutes while you wait.
- Place the cashews, broth, unsweetened almond milk, lemon juice, nutritional yeast, onion powder, garlic powder, and salt into a blender and process until completely smooth creamy.
- Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package to make al dente. The macaroni will cook more in the oven.
- Drain and rinse the pasta and add it to a 9×13 baking dish. Then, pour cheese sauce over the pasta and gently mix making sure the pasta is covered.
- Whisk together the breadcrumbs and smoked paprika in a small mixing bowl and sprinkle over the mac and cheese. Bake, uncovered, for 15 minutes.
- Serve hot.
Notes
Cook the pasta al dente so it is fairly firm. Remember, it will continue to cook in the oven and overcooked pasta is mushy and gross. Blah!
Be sure and boil or soak the cashews, especially if you don’t have a high-powered blender like a Vitamix. It will also make the cashews extra creamy.
For a thicker sauce, you can add 1 tablespoon of tapioca starch to the cheese sauce when blending.
You can skip the baking if you prefer and simply enjoy the mac and cheese as a stovetop dish.
May use regular whole wheat bread crumbs instead of panko.
Nutrition
- Serving Size:
- Calories: 372
- Sugar: 3.5 g
- Sodium: 183.5 mg
- Fat: 14.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 49.9 g
- Fiber: 6.5 g
- Protein: 13.8 g
- Cholesterol: 0 mg
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This is the healthy mac n cheese we needed! As Shane suggests with his recipes change things up with your own additions add ins with veggies or leftovers. I added frozen peas to the macaroni as it cooked . Leftover broccoli would also be nice. So many variations with Shane’s recipes…they are the best. Thanks Shane !
Delicious! Added a can of beans to the sauce and spinach. And had a side of green beans. Yummy! And so easy and quick to make!!
Well above 5 stars for this recipe!!! Wow even better than I expected!!
Followed recipe to the T!
Fantastic!!!
This is my second time making this recipe and it’s so good! It makes a lot, too much for 2 people, so I’m going to freeze individual servings to eat for lunches. Super easy to make too, I skipped the baking part and just mixed it up in the pot I made the pasta in. Thanks Shane for another delicious recipe!
This satisfied my craving for my homemade Mac n cheese. So good, husband loved it too!
Just popped in the oven… waiting patiently!! Tasted the sauce before mixing in the noodles and YUM!! Added a squirt of mustard cuz I always have to disrupt things. Only had enough cashews left for a half recipe so improvised and made a roux with chickpea flour to keep it GF (lentil and rice pasta) and some leftover shredded vegan cheddar with my homemade almond milk and tossed the two sauces together. Got a feeling we have a winer here! Next time I will go all the way with enough of everything to truly test and get back to ya!! Thanks Shane!!!
This was sooooooooooo good! Hands down the best vegan mac and cheese I’ve ever had (and I’ve tried a few!). I love, love, LOVE that this recipe doesn’t use coconut milk. I have looked and looked to find a recipe that doesn’t use it, yet gives that same creaminess. This is it! We used chickpea elbows to make it gluten free and high in protein, and baked it in the oven. We followed the recipe as written. The flavor is outstanding and the texture is wonderfully creamy out of the oven. I’m looking forward to leftovers tomorrow. My search for the perfect mac and cheese recipe is over. Thank you, Shane.
Thank you so much and I’m so glad you enjoyed it! It’s one of our faves as well:)
I had the leftovers today and just want to say that, unlike other recipes I’ve tried, this one was just as creamy on day 2, after being refrigerated, as it was on day one out of the oven. Simply amazing! We’ll be enjoying this often. Thanks again.
This is the very best Mac & cheese I’ve ever eaten and I’ve tried a lot recipes through the years. So easy , very creamy with a super flavor! I did add a tablespoon of hatch peppers. Next time and there will be plenty more next times, I’ll brown my panko lightly and quickly on stove top before sprinkling on top of Mac & cheese. Thank you Shane , I’m loving your recipes. Nancy
Thank you so much!!!
Shane,
My husband is allergic to nutritional yeast. Do you a suggestion for a substitute?
Thank you
splunky
There really isn’t one. But, miso will sometimes work.
Excellent and so much tastier and healthier than store-bought vegan mac n’cheeze. I halved the recipe and added some frozen peas. It still was a huge portion. I’m going to try freezing part.
Awesome, Ali!!!
Hi Shane,
So simple, so good, so healthy…thank you
My pleasure.
Just finished having this for dinner. My husband’s comment “I would have this again. “ added 2 bags of cooked frozen broccoli. While we we were eating we added some crushed red pepper and black pepper. This will be going into our meal rotation. Thank you Shane!
Thanks so much, Dale! Happy New Year!!!
I made this recipe after getting your good advice on how to correct all the problems I was having making baked mac and cheese that isn’t dry. If I had started with this recipe it wouldn’t have turned into such a challenge. It was wonderful, creamy, and tasty. Next time I am going to try the cooking time for making it with cheese sauce just to see how it turns out, but I can’t imagine it could be any better than this recipe was. THANK YOU
I need your advice. I have had lots of trouble making baked macaroni and cheese. I have done it with various vegan cheese sauces and it always ends up too dry after I bake it, even when I put in a huge amount of sauce. I have looked at this recipe and your cheese sauce recipe and was thinking of making it with the cheese sauce recipe but I don’t want to end up with another one that goes to feed the goats. Would I be better off using this one to avoid the dryness? Which do you prefer and why?
Hi, Sunny! I feel your pain on that one. That is why I made the cooking time like it is on this one. So, you should not have any issues. However, if you prefer to use the cheese sauce, I would only bake it for 5-6 minutes.
Hi Shane, what brand of Panko do you use? The ones I’ve seen either have sugar and/or oil in them? What makes them “panko” vs plain old bread crumbs, the seasonings? I see your note about using regular bread crumbs, would you season them first? Thanks, can’t wait to try this, it looks amazing!
Hi, Lucy! Panko are very crispy almost like crisp rice cereal. Concerning brand, it’s just whatever is on the shelf and doesn’t contain oil. But, regular bread crumbs would works for you as well.
My son is allergic to nuts. Can I replace the cashews with something?
You can try subbing with this cheese sauce. It’s completely nut and seed free.
https://shaneandsimple.com/vegan-cheese-sauce/
Dear Shane,
I really don’t like the taste of nutritional yeast! Have you tried different brands? And do you like Anthony’s the best? Please let me know!!
Thank you!
Helen
Hi, Helen. Anthony’s has been my favorite thus far. I use it almost exclusively.
This recipe popped up in my email today and I had to make it tonight! We were too hungry to wait to bake it so ate it as mac n cheese! It was very similar in taste and consistency to my old homemade mac n cheese (pre-vegan). I did boil the cashews and next time I would cream them longer because my sauce had a sort of parmesan alfredo consistency, which I liked but my 12yo didn’t. Delicious and easy and I will add it to my go-to recipes! The best vegan mac n cheese recipe we’ve tried so far!
Hi Shane,
Unless I am missing something, the milk, broth and nutritional yeast are left out of your written directions. You have water listed in the directions, but no water listed in the ingredients.
Thank you for sharing your recipes, Cheri
Hi, Cheri! It’s updated and should be the broth and milk. All fixed now. Thanks!!!