A super simple and tasty Vegan Mozzarella Cheese that will slice, shred, melt, and blow your mind!!

Course: Appetizer, Snack

Cuisine: American

Diet: Vegan

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Refrigerator Time: 4 hours

Total Time: 5 minutes

Servings: 10

Calories: 83kcal

 Ingredients

  • ▢½ cup Raw cashew pieces, Rinsed under hot water for several minutes
  • ▢¼ cup Refined coconut oil
  • ▢¼ cup Tapioca flour
  • ▢1 tablespoon Nutritional yeast flakes
  • ▢1 ½ tablespoon Kappa carrageenan
  • ▢1 tablespoon Lemon juice
  • ▢1 ¼-½ teaspoon Salt
  • ▢1 ½ cup Boiling water
  •  Special equipment
  • Blender
  •  Instructions
  • Select a heat-safe preferably glass dish that can hold approx 3C and set aside. (This is your cheese mold.)
  • Rinse cashews under HOT water for several minutes.
  • Put your water in a small pot on the stove to boil.
  • Add all ingredients (except the water!) to the blender.  Add the cashews first and then everything else on top of the cashews.
  • Carefully add (so you don’t burn yourself!!!) the boiling hot water into your blender.  Put the blender lid on!  And blend immediately until completely smooth.
  • Stop blending once if need be to quickly scrape sides of blender and resume blending right after.
  • Immediately transfer your cheese to your chosen dish/mold as it will start to solidify quickly as it cools.
  • Place in refrigerator to chill. No need to cover yet.
  • After 2-3 hours or when fully chilled, remove cheese block from dish/mold and wrap in paper towels and then tightly plastic wrap. The flavor gets better over a day or two but it’s great as soon as it’s hardened, too. Yeay! You are officially a cheese-maker!

 Notes

Cooking tip:

Don’t skip rinsing the cashews!  If you don’t want run water over them for several minutes, soak them in super hot water for about 5 minutes and then rinse again.  (This step really helps to decrease the ‘cashew’ flavor in the recipe, while still using the wonderful creaminess of the cashew!)

What kind of mold to use

The 2-cup mold from this set of pyrex bowls is a great shape to make vegan mozzarella

Can you use Agar powder in place of the Kappa Carrageenan?

Yes.  Double the amount recommended in the recipe for Kappa Carrageenan and replace with Agar Powder (make sure you use Agar Powder, not Agar Flakes!).  The texture will not be quite as firm or as melty.

What I would NOT recommend substituting:

Don’t replace the lemon juice with Lactic Acid.  For some reason, the quick blending process used here does not work well with this substitution and your cheese may not set properly.

For a slightly drier cheese:

After your cheese block has hardened, you can wrap first in a dry paper towel, and then tightly in plastic wrap.  This will remove any excess moisture.

For a softer cheese:

Decrease Kappa Carrageenan amount to 1 tbsp.  This texture is ideal for making Mozzarella Balls.

How long does vegan mozzarella keep in the fridge?

This cheese will last about 4-5 days in the fridge.

Can you freeze this cheese?

Sure!  It does get a little softer in texture after thawing, but if you think you can’t eat it all, by all means freeze it!  (Most people have trouble making it last that long though!  Check out the comments below! )

 Nutrition

Calories: 83kcal | Carbohydrates: 4g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Sodium: 349mg | Potassium: 57mg | Vitamin C: 0.6mg | Calcium: 2mg | Iron: 0.5mg